Habits

Bad habits are easily formed. They take little effort. We seem to naturally develop bad habits.  

But developing a GOOD HABIT demands a tremendous amount of FOCUS, CONSISTENCY, and DETERMINATION. 

Roofs - Old City, Jerusalem

We photographed these rooftops from the Tower of David in Jerusalem's Old City. 

Roofs - Muslim Quarter, Old City, Jerusalem

As far as I could tell, Jewish Israelis do not use their rooftops. But in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, people use their roofs similarly to how the Jordanians do. 

Family Atop Roof - Husn, Jordan

This is a view of Husn, Jordan, where we lived.
Notice the roof of the home in the foreground. 

This family was making good use of their rooftop.
The man in red and black was praying on a rug.
The children were playing and had two bicycles on the roof.

Roofs - Husn, Jordan

This was a home in Husn. Notice the wooden ladder ascending up to the roof.

This guy was hanging out on top of his roof.

This was the rooftop of our apartment building in Husn, Jordan. 
The horizontal wire in the photograph is where I hung our clothes to dry. 

This is a view of Husn, Jordan from our rooftop.

This is our neighbor's rooftop.

Here is another view of Husn, Jordan from our rooftop.

Here is my wonderful husband standing near the rooftop's wall at dusk.

Roofs - Marka, Jordan

This was the rooftop of our apartment building in Marka, Jordan. Notice the big satellite dishes. You would be hard pressed to find a rooftop in Jordan without several satellite dishes on it.  

Someone had put some old couches on our shared rooftop in Marka. We never sat on them. I imagine that if we had, a huge cloud of dust would have billowed out of them. 

This was one of the views from our rooftop. Notice the clothes hanging out to dry on our neighbor's apartment building.

This is another view from the rooftop of our apartment building in Marka. Because buildings are built on hillsides, they are terraced, making it easy for a person above to look down onto someone else's rooftop. This would have been the case with David gazing upon Bathsheba. His roof was no doubt a higher elevation than Bathsheba's.

Roofs - Marj al Hamam, Jordan

This is a view of a few houses in Marj al Hamam, Jordan. Notice the wooden ladders going up to upper levels of the roofs. Roofs in Bible days would have had similar ladders. Also notice the protective walls around the edges of the roofs. The Bible calls these "battlements." 

These are water tanks in Marj al Hamam, Jordan. This is very typical of how most people's water, which is pumped in once a week, is stored. A few people have heavy-duty round plastic water storage tanks. Those are better than the metal ones because they are much more airtight, keeping dust, leaves, and other debris from contaminating the water.

A Heavy Load

"Hey, Amir! Do you think we can fit one more bag on top?"

Deep Decline

Nearly all the pictures I post on this blog were taken by me or my husband. But this one is from Scott McGarvey. He and his wife Suzi also worked in Jordan. A couple of times, our appointments to Jordan overlapped theirs and we were able to minister with them.

This road is not for the fainthearted, that is for sure!

Marhaba! (Hello!)

Lost in Translation - Jordan

In Jordan, when words are translated into English, they are often misspelled. I'm not being critical, though; their English is better than my Arabic!

See if you can spot the mistranslations. Have fun!

The Clover Map

The following explanation was on a plaque beside the artwork:

"The Clover Map, drawn by Heinrich Bunting in 1585. Jerusalem is placed in the center of a large three-leaf clover resembling eyes, also comprised of the three continents of the old world. In the artist's vision, Jerusalem is depicted as a city of large structures and fortresses, as befitting an important and central city. Then, as now, Jerusalem shines forth like a precious jewel, drawing in nations, wishing to bask in her light, enjoy her beauty and dwell in her holiness. In due time she will serve as a beacon of peace to her neighbors and to the entire world."

Designed and created in ceramic with traditional elements by the Jerusalem artist, Arman Darian, Safra Square, Jerusalem

IDF

The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is comprised of both men and women who fulfill obligatory military service. Both men and women serve after the age of 18, men for at least 2 years and 8 months, and women for 2 years. Israel is the only country in the world that mandates women to military service. Because of its small population, Israel has a small standing army but most of the population are reservists until the age of 40. 

The guys above were kind enough to allow us to take their photo, at my mother's request. I took the photo below somewhere along the road between the northern Jordan/Israel border crossing and Tiberias. Soldiers waiting at bus stops is a common sight in Israel.

   

Smile a While

My husband and I saw this "good graffiti" as we were walking along a path in Beit Zayit, a community in central Israel. At times, we all need a reminder to smile. After all, there is a lot more to smile about than frown about. Smiling makes life seem a bit more manageable, regardless of where you are in the world!

Jordan River Miracle

I really like reading II Kings 6:1-7. It is a miracle that combines the practical with the spiritual.

Here you have Elisha’s protégées who want to relocate, probably because there were more prophets-in-training than there was room to house them. So they all go to the Jordan River and cut down nearby trees to build a new home.

While one guy is working, his axe head falls into the Jordan River. He is dismayed because he had borrowed it.

Now, we are not talking 21^st century America with a Home Depot nearby with a big supply of axe heads. At that time, an axe head would have cost a lot of time to make and was not easily replaced.

It is one thing to lose something of your own, but it is quite another matter to lose a valuable object that does not belong to you.  

Elisha did not blink an eye, but caused the axe head to rise to the surface of the water by throwing a stick into the water. 

How did the stick cause the axe head to float? I don’t know. That is why we call it a miracle. 

The Holy Spirit (God in action) should affect the practical aspects of our daily lives. When we are involved in even the most mundane chores, the miraculous is never far away!

Compliments

I knew better. Really. But I forgot. 

My husband was giving a Bible study in an Arab village. We were in the translator's home and I was discreetly looking around the room as the men were talking among themselves. I noticed a beautiful cross stitch on the wall. Many Arab women make cross stitches to decorate their homes. 


I told Walid, our translator, that I liked the cross stitch and he said his wife had made it. I told him it was beautiful. I went through a phase where I cross stitched and know how long it takes to make one. This one was pretty with a Scripture written in Arabic script. Using sign language and smiles, I let Hala know that she had done a lovely job on her cross stitch. 

In America, if you compliment someone on their clothes, car, or something in their home, it is polite. In fact, some people leave unique things on their coffee tables as conversation pieces. Americans like to be complimented on their belongings. 

In the Arab world, however, complimenting someone on a possession is a HUGE no-no. They will think that you want that item! And, often, they will give it to you. 

A few weeks after I complimented Hala's cross stitch, her husband brought me a little bag. (Hala could not speak English and I could not speak enough Arabic to hold a complete conversation, so her husband translated for us.) Inside the bag was a cross stitch pattern, canvas, and thread that matched the cross stitch on Hala's wall. She had gone to the trouble to go get all those items for me just because I complimented her cross stitch. 

It was a reminder to me to be more culturally aware and sensitive. What is acceptable in America is not necessarily acceptable everywhere else. When in Rome...

I was just glad Hala had not given me the finished cross stitch. That really would have caused me to feel bad about my cultural misstep!

Sea of Galilee Slideshow