tower of babel fallout

posted by Peri Zahnd on November 30, 2006 at 2:20 AM I just thought of this very funny thing that happened once when we were in France. My French is ghastly, rudimentary, but I can get by. I didn’t do four years of high school French for nothing! We were with our friend, Renauld, whose English is about on par with my French. We get by, but not without some confusion from time to time. We had just enjoyed a great lunch, and Brian and I decided to split a crepe for dessert. We were waiting for it--Renauld saw the waiter approaching, and said, "The creep is coming." We busted out laughing, and then tried to tell Renauld what a creep was. It’s pretty tough with limited vocabulary, try it! We finally communicated very well when we said "Quasimodo." Remember the Hunchback of Notre Dame is classic FRENCH literature, not Disney. So Renauld, anxious to improve his English pronunciation, tried again. This time he said "The crap is coming." We laughed even harder after that. I don’t think we even tried to explain that. The crepe was great.

Now why did I blog on this? There are plenty of more profound things going on in my life. I’m going to call it quits and go read a book now.

18-nov-2006

posted by Peri Zahnd on November 18, 2006 at 5:38 AM "Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, "Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." This is desert. So he arose and went."
--Acts 8:26,27

While our group went to the Dead Sea yesterday, we spent the day visiting some friends. It would have been a shame to have been so close and not gone to see T and K, so we made arrangements in advance. So close and yet so far. We were asked to send photocopies of our passport weeks ago to them, and they in turn submitted the necessary paperwork to the Israeli authorities, and we were approved for passage to Gaza.

T and K came to our hotel in Jerusalem and picked us up. We drove a little over an hour through the Israeli countryside, passing Ashdod and Ashkelon, two beautiful modern cities with ancient roots, until we reached the Eres crossing, the entrance to the Gaza strip. We parked in what looked like a construction site, and walked to the first office, one of many checkpoints. As soon as we left the car and began to walk, the security dogs began to bark, banging against their chain link fences. They were enormous, some kind of attack dogs, and just looking at them was intimidating. We went into the office, handed over our passports, and sat down to wait. After about fifteen minutes, we were cleared to go on, and began a walk into this very restricted zone. We walked down what was once a road, but now was a concrete block enclosed corridor, maybe a quarter of a mile long. There were electronically operated gates along the way, and a guard using a camera would activate the gates and we would advance. The next gate would not open until the one behind had been secured. The entry process took close to an hour, and T and K said that was fast! They have waited between gates in the corridor for up to two hours. I had the feeling of entering a maximum security prison. In fact, that is what I was doing.

We were finally met on the other side by H, a Palestinean Christian, who out of love for the people of Gaza has chosen to make this hellhole his home. He was born in America to a Palestinean father and South American mother, and bounced between Israel and California during his childhood.

We got in T’s car, and set off for their home at the opposite end of the Gaza strip. The roads are horrible, bombed out in places, but still accessible. We passed a restaurant K said they often liked to stop and eat in, but two weeks ago was bombed. All that was left was some tangled concrete. The Gaza strip is one of the most heavily populated pieces of ground in the world, and 43% of its 1.4 million inhabitants are under age 14. As we drove through Gaza we encountered huge crowds of school kids on their way home--so many kids everywhere!!!
There are two shifts for school, mornings and afternoons. They were dressed in their school uniforms, the girls were covered head to toe in their long black ankle-length jackets, and all were wearing head coverings, but underneath the jackets of every one of them you could see the blue jeans they were wearing, just like teenage girls everywhere. A few wore stylish denim long jackets instead of the black ones. Now and then you would see a girl with a face veil, just slits for her eyes. Some families are more strict than others.

We finally arrived at K and T’s house, a beautiful Palestinean style house that took ten years to build, and had never been lived in. Someone went to a lot of expense to build their home, and now, because they can, are living on the outside. They are renting it for a pittance.It is three stories, with a beautiful rooftop balcony, and six bedrooms. We visited the "kindergarten" they have started, a preschool with sixty children ages 3 to 5. They have only lived here three months, and it is amazing what they have already accomplished. They could fill another sixty spots tomorrow, they told us.

T and K have been well accepted in the neighborhood there and have made many friends. People can’t figure out why an American family would want to live there, and they are amazed at the explanation that T and K love the Palestineans and want to help them. Most Palestineans believe that Americans hate them and want to mistreat them. They have made quite an impact on the neighborhood by the way they have kept their own home. The surrounding neighbors have been stimulated to clean up their own yards and the street. They have secured an empty lot and are building a park--which will be the only park in all of Gaza.

We met a new friend, Dr. Zuhair, who was trained as a pharmacist in Libya and is currently the head of a NGO seeking to improve the lives of the Palestineans. His vision is to begin a cultural center to train young people to live in peace. He and T and K are working together to provide job training and jobs for the Palestineans, who currently live with 70% unemployment. His wife is a highly educated Algerian Palestinean, who under current laws can never leave the prison of Gaza, as she is not a citizen of any country and is unable to get a passport.

They have just moved into a nice house which they have been building for several years. There are surprisingly a lot of nice houses, and a startling amount of new construction. I don’t know, and neither did T, where the money is coming from for that construction. We drove by the Jewish settlements that were bulldozed last year when the settlers were removed by the Israeli government. (Addendum: Brian pointed out that the two houses I mentioned earlier were under construction for many years. How did I know that any progress was being made on the construction sites I now saw? Good point--I didn’t actually see ANY work being done while we were there.)

We had lunch in a restaurant, a really nice meal. We were seated in a private back room, where no one could see us. Brian mentioned later that it was probably for our security--we were keeping as low a profile as we could. We didn’t witness any sort of violence, but the air was thick with the tension of it. The restaurant provided water pipes for the clientele, and would bring you a pipe and take care of stoking it. The smell of tobacco burning in water pipes is nothing like being in a restaurant full of cigarette smoke, it’s much milder and nonoffensive. Dr. Z smoked one, it’s considered to be the way to end a good meal, like we enjoy our coffee.

We tried to visit the Baptist Church of Gaza (it wasn’t open on Saturday), where T and K attend Sunday services. They have just finished construction of a five story building, and it was dedicated last week by Brother Andrew of the Netherlands. They have a lending library for the community on the first floor, a medical facility on another floor. There is a mammogram machine stuck in customs that was donated by an American ministry--breast cancer is epidemic in Gaza and this will be a wonderful service. The church has 250 members after fifty years in Gaza, and is the only evangelical ministry there. There is also an Orthodox church in Gaza.

We were anxious to get to the border and back into Israel before dark--it’s more dangerous to be in Gaza after dark. Our crossing back into the real world was thankfully without incident, and I’m so grateful to have had a chance to visit this very needy part of the world. When I asked T and K their greatest need, they said WORKERS! So I am "beseeching the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into the harvest." May the Kingdom of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, come in greater measure to Gaza.

where has the time gone???

posted by Peri Zahnd on November 17, 2006 at 6:52 AM Whoops, I started out so well, journaling the details of this trip, but something has happened and six days have passed. I will never catch up. OK, I’m over it. It never pays to beat yourself up over stuff like that.

Meteora was a fascinating trip. There can’t be rock formations like these anywhere else in the world, reaching straight up to the sky, hence the name Meteora. God took unique pleasure in forming this place, as he did so many other things he created--whenever I see a really funny fish or a funky plant, I think about the joy he had in creating it. I can imagine God laughing in exultation over each and every new design, saying, "It’s good!"

How wild to imagine these hermit monks who came to this place in central Greece seven hundred years ago, climbing with ropes to the high places, and building themselves nests where they might escape the world and seek God. And then the others who followed a few hundred years later, eventually building as many as twenty four independent monasteries perched in impossible places on the cliffs. I can understand the temptation to escape the messy life we live when we interact with people, but they’re another part of God’s creation, the crowning achievement of all his labor, and part of my growing up in all aspects into Christ is to live among people--working with them, caring for them, loving them, being hurt by them, misunderstanding them as I am also misunderstood by them. Yeah, it’s messy.

But it’s not for me to judge those saints of old....as hard as it is to understand them. They lived their lives in a different time, but I was born for such a time as this.

**************

Driving through Greece turned out to be a blast. Greece is cool. I could live there. The navigation turned out to be easy....the road signs are mostly printed both in Greek and the English transliteration. On the way up, we were following the green route towards Lamia, then Karditsa, Trikala, and finally Kalambaka and Meteora. We drove through small villages in the mountains, a couple of gypsy camps (oh, I don’t want to live in a gypsy camp!).

We had gone to a nice coffeeshop in Athens the day before. It was a chain, looked a lot like a Starbucks, but when we went in and went up to the counter, they said, "Please sit down!" So we did, they brought us water like in a restaurant, a menu, and we ordered! (Cappuccino, of course!)

It was a great cappuccino, served in a heavy china cup and saucer, the way coffee OUGHT to be. We remarked on that, and how crass and American it was to gulp coffee from a paper cup.

Fast foward twenty four hours....we pulled into a gas station off the highway to Meteora, out in the middle of nowhere on a winding mountain road. An attendant came out to fill the tank (wow, remember that?) and I went inside to see if they had a restroom....I saw they had coffee and went up to order us both one.

The guy didn’t speak hardly any English, but when I asked for coffee, he said, "Please sit down!" It was kind of a grimy gas station, and we had a five hour drive, so I said, "No, I’d like to get them to go, please." He looked at me with surprise, and said "To go?" He understood, though, shrugged his shoulders, and started making coffee.

After a few minutes, he handed me two tall paper cups, meant for sodas. I guess that’s what they had there. I looked around for a lid, and then asked the nice man--again, with some gesturing to get us through the language
barrier. He found some lids, but they were cold drink lids, with the "x" in the top for the straws. He stuck some straws through the lids, and I walked out to the car.

I handed Brian his coffee, he looked at it, and said, "I can’t drink coffee through a straw!" So he took the lid off, and sipped some, started the Opel, and left the parking lot. A few seconds later, we realized the rental car didn’t have drink holders!!!!! What kind of a car doesn’t have drink holders??????

We simultaneously realized how impossible it is to drink coffee from a cup with no lid and at the same time drive a standard transmission car through winding mountain roads when you don’t have a cup holder!!! As we laughed hysterically, drinking the really bad gas station coffee, we decided it was probably only Americans who insisted their cars be manufactured with built in cup holders, because we are the only culture crazy enough to put coffee in a paper cup and try to drink it and drive at the same time. We were both embarrassed when we realized how quickly we had forgot yesterday’s resolve to slow down, enjoy life, and take time to drink good coffee from nice china cups. We wondered about the guy at the gas station, and the good laugh he and the Greeks there drinking coffee must be having at our expense--oh well, we deserved it!

PS--I’ve got two xanga buddies on our Israel trip....they both are blogging faithfully....read their accounts at . http://www.xanga.com/libzsonshine and http://www.xanga.com/cotaroba

off to meteora

posted by Peri Zahnd on November 11, 2006 at 4:32 AM I have received several e-mails from people at the church telling us they were before the Lord at the foot of Mount Sinai while we were on top. I know God did some things there. I know we rarely understand the full significance of things until much later.

Today when I got out of bed, my legs didn’t hurt so bad as they have the last two. It is strange how sore I’ve been, yes, the mountain was hard, but not any harder than what I do all the time in Colorado. Maybe it was like Jacob wrestling with God.

We’re off to Meteora this morning, twenty some monasteries in this area perched high in the cliffs....a little nervous about driving through Greece, getting out of the city and onto the highway. OK, I’m not DRIVING, but I’m navigating, and that can be even scarier.

it’s all greek to me!

posted by Peri Zahnd on November 11, 2006 at 3:10 AM We had a wake up call early Friday morning at 3:00 am, having arrived at our hotel in Tel Aviv only at 9 pm Thursday, exhausted and desperately hoping for at least 5 hours of badly needed sleep, but the phone rang at 2:30. It was Yossi, picking us up to go to the airport for our 6 am flight to Athens. "Where are you??? I’m here waiting!" We told him we’d been told to be ready at 3:30 am, but he said that was a mistake and we’d miss our flight. So we threw on some clothes and left. It turned out we were through all the red tape by 4:20, an hour before boarding even began, but I suppose it could have taken far longer. The airport really was a zoo, packed.

So we flew to Athens, arrived at 8:30 am, and not getting connected with the taxi sent for us, took a cab on our own. We were able to call the travel agent who was very apologetic and helpful. He sent the info we needed, and we found our way to the hotel, but not without some confusion. All’s well that ends well!

We relaxed in the room for a while, the first time in too many days. Then we went out to walk the streets. Our hotel is right in the most historic part of central Athens. We found a cool restaurant, with tables outside and in, going up some very steep steps, so the tables were on different levels. It had been in that location since 1915.

After lunch, we continued to walk. I have had surprisingly SORE muscles since climbing Sinai--going down steps is torturous! We wanted to find Mars Hill, or the Areopagus, where Paul had preached in the Book of Acts. It wasn’t on the map, and we were just out walking. We came upon a rocky outcropping with steps cut into the side. There was a monument with an inscription in Greek, which of course was Greek to us! But Brian noticed the numbers 22-34 at the bottom, and he said, "That’s it! That’s Mars Hill!" It was the reference from Acts 17 of the story of that event. And sure enough, he was right. We climbed up on the rocks, and had an awesome view of the agora (marketplace) that had once been situated below.

We walked for a while in the area of the Acropolis, but didn’t go up on top. The hill where the Parthenon stood is gigantic, right in the middle of the city. It overlooks EVERYTHING. We went back to the room then just so we could relax. Brian caught up with e-mails, and I read, but after a while got too sleepy, and grabbed a blanket and took a nap. I didn’t sleep long, knowing I should get up, but it was one of those times when you knew you could just go to sleep for a long, long time, so after a bit I made myself get up and take a shower just so I could get woke up.

We went out after that and walked a while longer and windowshopped. We found a nice restaurant to get a bit of supper, we were more sleepy than hungry. We went in at 8, and there was no one else there. They were happy to serve us, but obviously weren’t yet ready for the supper crowd. They began lighting the candles shortly after we arrived. There was some live music, a guitar player and a guy playing what looked like a large mandolin. It turned out to be a bouzouki--and he was quite good. But for most of the meal we were the only people in the restaurant. By the time we were leaving, at 9, there were several other tables. The Greeks eat LATE!

Saturday

I’m finally catching up with my blogging. Today we met a guide who gave us a walking tour of the Parthenon and the museums located there. The art and architecture was fantastic. That culture was far more sophisticated than we usually give them credit for. But it was also very pagan. I started to say godless, but they had many gods--all the gods of Greek mythology. All the great buildings and statues were in tribute to them.

We stopped into a local church, Greek Orthodox of course, in the midst of a service. Our guide George is a PK--that is, a priest’s kid. His father is the priest of a large church in Thessaloniki. He said there will be 3,000 people tomorrow, at the Sunday morning services there. A large percentage of Greek people attend services, according to him. George lit a candle, and we stood in the back and listened to the liturgy and chanting, which is really quite beautiful. I don’t know a lot about Orthodoxy, but have been subjected to it both here in Greece and earlier this week in Egypt. There are many differences from the Roman Catholicism we know in the US.

After this, we jumped in George’s car and took off for Corinth. We drove through the seaside and saw the port of Athens. The topography is beautiful--the mountains always intrigue me, and these mountains are again different from the Rockies I know in America and the mountains of the Sinai I saw a few days ago. Our God Jehovah is an artist of unparalleled creativity!

Corinth--a place well known in Christian scriptures--has lot of ruins, but most of the city has never been excavated. We saw Paul’s berm, and a museum full of awesome statuary. There is a tall mountain directly behind the city with the ruins of a Crusader fort on top.

We ate lunch at a cafeteria, Brian had a pile of fried sardines, which kind of creeped me out, but he liked it. I had souvlaki (pork kabobs) with tsatsiki (yogurt and cucumber sauce) and a Greek salad--simply tomatoes, cucumber, and onions in a vinaigrette, with feta cheese on top. Yum, the feta here is so much better than what we get at home--more moist and mellow.

The restaurant was right on the canal that was dug in 1893 to provide a way for ships to bypass the Peloponnese peninsula--some impressive engineering when you understand that was before big earth moving machines were in use. The bridge there has an operator, who LOWERS the bridge down when a ship needs to come through--it then goes OVER the bridge.

After lunch, we headed back to Athens, drove to a coffeeshop to find a good cappucchino, which Brian and I both have a strong need for after lunch, especially now when we’ve been going so hard. On the way back to Athens, we asked George about the Orthodox church, and he sang us a bit of liturgy--he has a beautiful voice, and he says he loves to go to his father’s church and sing with him there.

We drove around the city of Athens and he pointed out many places of interest--it truly is a beautiful city. He also told us about Greece’s involvement in WWII. They were occupied by the Nazis for a time, but were one of the first nations to be liberated. There is a Greek flag atop the Acropolis which for a time was replaced with the Nazi swastika. One night in 1941, two 13-year old boys replaced it with the Greek flag, and the Nazi flag never flew there again. One of these boys is still alive, and greatly honored by the Greek people today.

Tomorrow we’re renting a car and driving to Meteora--something I’m really excited about. We’re in the room for the rest of the evening, except that we’ll probably walk out and get a little supper at some time. All the shops in the city close early Saturday, and all day Sunday. Sunday is a day which is honored as holy unto the Lord. I wish we still did that in the US.

time to climb

posted by Peri Zahnd on November 10, 2006 at 5:55 AM Thursday, November 9, 2006

We went to bed at 9, hoping to sleep 4 ½ hours until 1:30. I went right to sleep, but then the cell phone went off at 10:30. Drat! We didn’t get it answered, but I never went back to sleep. So at 1:30, after an hour and a half of sleep, and 3 hours of lying there pondering the day, wondering what lay ahead, we got up and dressed, and went out to climb the mountain. We took the Land Cruiser the short distance to the monastery, and found tour buses—at least six. Ahkmed said sometimes there were twenty! It was cold, I wore a long sleeved t-shirt, a turtleneck, and my leather jacket, hat and gloves. Mena went up the mountain with us, but Ahkmed stayed behind. I bet he slept in the car. Those Bedouins can sleep anywhere—life is a perpetual camping trip. There were two twin beds in each guesthouse, and the three of them were in one....Ahkmed had a heavy wool blanket which probably was his bed on the floor.

We started up the mountain, and we weren’t alone. The trail was crowded with people, lots and lots of people going up the mountain, and CAMELS! Lots and lots of camels, and each one had a camel driver trying to find people who would pay for the chance NOT to walk up. I didn’t see too many takers. The camels went along with us for quite some time, hoping people would wear out. I don’t know how people don’t get trampled on. Most of the trail there is very little space to pass, but you get out of the way when a camel is coming. I learned how to say "Thank you" in Arabic quickly—"Shock-ron." I had to say it over and over and over, as I was asked "Camel?", "Ride a camel?" over and over and over.

There didn’t seem to be hardly any Americans on the mountain. In fact, I only heard one or two conversations in American English, a few more Brits. I think there were lots of Russians, few Egyptians, and what else I don’t know!

There were rest stations along the way, little huts that sold refreshments--tea, water, candy bars. As we got higher, some of them had little rooms lined with benches where you could go and rest. I peered in one of them and saw all the benches filled with sleeping people.

The walk up was NOT a walk in the park. It was hard! At the beginning we pushed hard and passed a lot of people hoping to get ahead of the crowd, but finally learned the crowd was everywhere. We didn’t take a break until we were close to the top, when it really started getting steep. There are two trails up, one is a longer winding trail, and the other is the ancient steps. Mena strongly discouraged us going up the steps—he seemed a little anguished that we would even think of it. So Brian was persuaded to go up the longer trail, but still it was a push. About two thirds of the way up, the trails converge, it’s all steps cut into the mountain, and it’s HARD!

The crowds and the commercialization may seem a little crass to some people, looking for a pristine place of solitude. But solitude is a thing of the heart, and the experience is as spiritual as you want to make it. I would guess that many on the trail were just doing it for an adventure experience. We got to the top, and what did we see? Sleeping bags! Side by side, in a long row, people were lined up, camped out, sleeping, waiting for the sunrise. There was an old church on the top, built from stones. Brian found a perch right away, a rocky outcropping right on the edge, with a drop of I don’t know how many hundred feet. He climbed right out there, to Mena’s horror—he’s a fearless mountain goat, and began to read his Bible and to pray. I stayed about six feet away—I don’t do exposure as well. It scared me just looking where he was, but I guess I should be used to that by now! I had a little corner to curl up in, and had a good time in the presence of the Lord.

I was warm enough when I arrived, but sitting still for an hour waiting for the sun to come up, I got SO COLD I couldn’t move my fingers, and was shivering. Brian later told me it was 38 degrees F, and it was very humid. After a while I succumbed to the cries of the Bedouin, "Blankets for rent! Mats! Blankets for rent!" Later Brian and Mena both curled up their noses and said they wouldn’t have wrapped up in a dirty blanket that belonged to someone else, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I gladly handed over the ten Egyptians pounds the man wanted ($2.50) The sunrise was beautiful, as promised, and I particularly loved the mist that formed over the mountains.

After the sunrise, I walked/climbed around for a while on the top, and then went down to the first warming hut. The huts don’t have any heat, but there were enough bodies in there to generate some warmth. I got a hot cup of tea which helped immensely, and then through the crowd saw Brian coming down, and went out to meet him. I was still wrapped in my blanket, which was so huge and heavy it drug on the ground and made climbing down a little awkward, but I was glad to have it! (I’ve got pictures, which I hope to post later, just don’t have time right now!)

The walk down was beautiful, the mountains are rugged and wild. They look nothing like the Rockies which I’m used to. We took the ancient monk’s steps going down—there are 3700 of them! It was awe-inspiring, a very harsh, rough, unforgiving landscape. I enjoyed the climb down, and didn’t regret not taking that route up—we wouldn’t have seen anything in the dark, and it would have been treacherous in the dark as well. I could have done without the camels, but in a way, that was also part of the experience. The crowd was part of the community we all live in, going to meet Him together—it actually contributed to the overall experience.

My muscles had about given out when we got close to the bottom—I was TIRED, a combination effect of no sleep, being hungry, and the very tall, steep steps. And when I got up the next day, my calves HURT like crazy—I could hardly walk, and going down steps was excruciating. I kept pushing myself, however. What’s a girl to do??

We went straight to breakfast after getting off the mountain. I looked awful, felt filthy, but was afraid I’d collapse in the shower if I didn’t get anything to eat. Breakfast certainly didn’t compare to the quality of last night’s supper. Some stale bread, hard boiled eggs, and a strange soupy thing that was milk with tiny hard noodles. There was some veggies and cheese too—and I ended up eating a LOT of food—I was STARVED. After breakfast, we went and showered, checked out of the guesthouse and then toured the monastery. Again, the crowds were HUGE. The monastery is only open for tours from 9am to noon. The eleven monks were roaming the place, they all had long black robes, long beards, and long, long pony tails! Brian really liked the look. I said if they ever got tired of monastic life, they could go join a rock and roll band. Mena didn’t think that was a bit funny. He is very enamored of the monastic life. I watched what I said after that.

The monks claim to have the original burning bush there in the monastery, in fact, that is why the monastery is built there. Helena, mother of Constantine, who traveled throughout the Holy land identifying holy sites 1600 years ago, found this place, and the Chapel of the Burning Bush was built there, right next to it. It is said that the roots of the bush go far deeper into the ground that any other tree—also, that no other bush exactly of this sort has ever been found anywhere in the world. We got to see this ancient chapel, where religious services in the name of Jesus have been held longer consecutively probably than any other place in the world. That is impressive. They also have another, larger chapel built in the 600s, a vast collection of very old icons, and probably the best antiquities library in the world. That collection is now being shown in the US—ha! We come here, it goes there! But the library is never available to the public here anyhow. I did see a copy of the writ of protection that was given by Mohammed in the 600s and signed with his handprint--wow!

I was so tired at this point I thought I was going to be sick. I had felt a little queasy on the mountain, again, lack of sleep, exhaustion, and possibly bad water all contributed to this. But what I really needed the most was sleep. We finally crawled into the Land Cruiser and sped off down the highway. We weren’t going off road today at all, hallelujah. As soon as we took off, I laid down on a pile of luggage, and went immediately to sleep. When I awoke, an hour and half had passed, and we were pulling into another Bedouin encampment for lunch. A repeat of yesterday. Tuna, cucumbers, tomatoes, little baby bananas instead of oranges, and Egyptian bread instead of Bedouin. There wasn’t much difference.

When we climbed back in the truck, I went right back to sleep. I woke up briefly as we went through another military checkpoint, and then back to sleep until we reached the border—three hours in all. I think I could have slept standing up.

We said goodbye to our new friends, Ahkmed and Mohammed. Mena accompanied us to the first passport station (you show your passport to leave Egypt, and again to enter Israel.) This time there were a lot of people at the border—they all wanted out of Egypt!- Just as we were saying goodbye, Mena said to Brian, "perhaps you would come back and speak to our people at the church someday?" I hope it can happen. It would be awesome to be a part of what God is evidently doing in Egypt!

We walked out of Egypt, (the Exodus!) got in a cab, and went to the airport. Hassled again by security, had a chicken schnitzel at the snack bar, and flew to Tel Aviv. I slept on the plane too, and got to the hotel in Tel Aviv at 9, knowing we had to leave to catch our flight to Athens at 3:30. We’d had quite an adventure in the Sinai!

pilgrimage to sinai

posted by Peri Zahnd on November 10, 2006 at 5:19 AM Wednesday, November 08, 2006

After a nice breakfast at the Queen of Sheba Hotel in Eilat, Israel, we got in a taxi with a representative from International Tours. We thought we would spend the next two days with her, but it turned out to be only ten minutes. She took us to the Egyptian border, and told us we would need to take our luggage and an Egyptian tour company rep would be waiting on the other side. We went through passport control, out the building, trailing our luggage behind. There was nothing to do but keep walking. It was a deserted area—there were no other travelers, the place was just devoid of people—the DMZ?? Finally we went through another gate where a man was waiting—when he saw us he stuck out his hand. Brian reached out to shake it, saying, "I’m Brian Zahnd." The man said, "I’m happy to shake your hand, but what I want is your passport!" ha—just another checkpoint, a precursor of things to come. And we kept walking.

We went on down the brick walkway, our luggage clattering behind us. We soon came to another building—I would have walked around it, but Brian went on in. Turned out we were supposed to—I’m not sure what would have happened if we had bypassed it. We were told to put our luggage on the belt to be x-rayed. Still there was no one around, and we waited for someone to come x-ray it. In a few minutes, three men showed up, and scanned our belongings. They went quickly through the x-ray, and then the hand search began. They didn’t look at our big bags, but scrutinized the hand luggage. I had a magazine in my bag, and they began to turn every page. Another man approached, and explained they were looking for "erotica". Whew, I’m glad I didn’t have a Victoria’s Secret catalog! They looked through Brian’s bible too, and finally said we needed to follow them. I didn’t know if we were in trouble or not. We went into an office where four men were sitting and talking—they didn’t seem to pay us any attention until they had finished their conversation, but finally just gave us the stamps in our passport we needed. I stood in the doorway and kept our eyes on our bags.

So we walked a while longer, and finally came to a Land Cruiser waiting for us. We piled in the back with our bags—two benches facing one a nother. The man who gave us the "erotica" information turned out to be our guide, Mina. We had a driver, Ahkmed, a Bedouin with a scarf on his head, and a security guard, Mohammed, wearing a suit and tie, with a machine gun protruding from under his jacket. They weren’t in any hurry to leave, seemed to have things to do, but finally we were ready, and Ahkmed turned the key in the ignition. We were afraid for a minute the battery might be dead, but finally it roared to life, and we took off down the highway. He had to baby that battery the rest of our trip.

We drove right along the Red Sea for quite some time, there were many beautiful resorts and beaches all along the way, but they all looked deserted, no signs of life. We were told the parking was underground, and it was too early for people to be out on the beach. 9:30? They’d be out in the US! It was kinda spooky, like all the people had evacuated, and here we were traveling with a personal security guard....what’s up?

After some time driving with the sea on the left and mountains on the right, and passing through numerous military checkpoints, we left the road and began to go cross-country through the desert, through a valley with mountains on both sides. It was the roughest ride I’ve ever taken, for miles and miles and miles. That Bedouin drove that Land Rover HARD, but I was glad he didn’t go any slower. I wanted to get there and get out. After a while Brian leaned forward and began to look intently out the front window. After a while, I asked him what was so interesting. He said he needed to focus out the front to keep from being sick. In 26 years of marriage, I’ve never known him to have motion sickness. I had also noticed Mena grimacing and holding his stomach. For some reason, that has never seemed to affect me. THANK GOD!! Finally we arrived at our destination, the Colored Canyon.

I had no clue what the Colored Canyon was, or what we would do there. There was a phrase on the itinerary I had been e-mailed, "drive through the Colored Canyon." Turns out we drove to a spot where we could HIKE the Colored Canyon. That’s right up our alley! We used the toilets--Egyptian style! (When in Egypt, do as the Egyptians!) I was standing around looking at a trail that went snaking down into the canyon below us. I thought it might be fun to walk down a few minutes, and asked if we could go. Mena said, "Of course." Turns out that was part of the plan all along. We went down into a beautiful canyon, and did a circuit. The "colored" part was mineral deposits in the rock, very pretty. The hike was probably an hour and a half, and some of it was real climbing. There was a very thin spot where you had to climb down through a hole under a rock—some tricky climbing, a real bottleneck, and the only way to get through. I said to Mena, "There are some people who couldn’t get down that." He told me about a woman who did get stuck in there. When he had gone to a local hotel to pick up his group that morning, he told that particular woman she couldn’t do it, that she was too big. She told him, "If my friends are going, I’m going." She got STUCK in the rocks, and sobbed in fear for two hours. He said he finally got her calmed down, and they worked her through, pulling on her legs from below. Poor woman!!! There was quite a line of people that had formed behind her, as this is a popular place to visit for tourists.

We climbed up a fairly steep hill with switchbacks to get back to where the Land Cruiser had moved—there was a tea house, a Bedouin place to buy cokes, and more Egyptian toilets, which were in this case outhouses. There were several guides and drivers waiting there, they were discussing that a guide had taken three people down quite early that morning and had not returned. His driver was concerned they were lost. I can imagine that would be quite disastrous! There would be no place to get water, and a seemingly endless maze of corridors.

We then took off—more bouncing and swerving—it was even difficult to have much of a conversation in the back of that Land Rover. There was no road, just ruts in the sand. After about 10-15 minutes of driving, we could see a man waving us down. We stopped, they had a conversation in Arabic, and finally turned to us.

"He is the guide that was missing—his client had a bad knee and couldn’t go any farther, and they looked for a way out that was not so difficult. They found their way to this Bedouin camp (yes, there was a "camp" in sight, if that’s what you want to call it. A tent, a truck, a fenced enclosure, maybe for sheep?) He asked the Bedouin to take them to the driver in his truck, but the truck had no fuel. They were asking for a ride back, but our driver would only agree with our permission, as he was working for us. Brian said, "Sure, I would be happy to help, but we’re not riding back there...we’ll just get out and wait!" So we did—we climbed out of the Land Rover in the middle of the Sinai Desert, Mena and Mohammed got out too, the Land Rover sped off, Brian sat down on a rock under the only tree around, and fired up his computer! When worlds collide! He showed the guys some pictures he had on his computer.

Half an hour later, they were back. We went on down through the valley, slowing down several times, Ahkmed downshifting as we got stalled in deep sand. Another hour, we arrived at Ein Hudra, a desert oasis and a Bedouin encampment. I had noticed some groceries in a bag under our seat, vegetables and some tuna. Ahkmed took them in to the Bedouin women who prepared a great meal for us—Bedouin bread (a cross between a tortilla and a pita), tuna, chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, another dish of the same except with mayo added, and orange slices for dessert. We had Bedouin tea while we waited for them to prepare it—tea boiled with sugar and water (like sweet tea in the South—boiling the sugar gives it a syrupy taste) and then some spice added. It tasted like cardamom to me, but the guys said no—they knew cardamom but this was something else. We were becoming great friends with Mena and Ahkmed and Mohammed.

Lunch was served Bedouin style—blankets were laid out like rugs in the sand in an open enclosure under a roof. We sat on the ground around a low table. It’s quite comfortable, but pretty messy—you just pile some stuff on a piece of bread and wrap it up burrito style, but since you’re just sitting on the ground it drips all over your legs—there are no napkins or plates.

We didn’t finish lunch until around 3, drove back the same way we went in, and finally reached a good road and continued on to St. Catherine’s Village. It was dark when we finally arrived. We checked in to St. Catherine’s Village guesthouse. The village has grown up as a result of the monastery. Everyone who goes there goes to visit the monastery or climb the mountain—there is no other reason to go there. The guesthouses are awesome—very quaint, comfortable, REAL—no sterile Holiday Inn Express! We got checked in—supper was provided. We had a wonderful meal--onion soup, then a stuffed potato appetizer—very different but delicious, followed by shish taouk, rice, vegetables, and finally, a coconut dessert with oranges. Since we were planning to get up at 1:30 to climb Mount Sinai, we went to bed right after supper.

DIVINE APPOINTMENT!

The day was a surprise from start to finish. We didn’t expect the unusual border crossing, we didn’t expect a crew of three to take care of us, we didn’t expect the wild ride through the desert or the hike or the visit to the oasis and Bedouin camp. Sometimes God just cooks up fun things for you! How grateful I am that I like those kind of things. Lots of people wouldn’t have liked the hike—it was the very thing we love most to do. I’m glad I was dressed for it, wore my Keen hiking shoes—led of the Spirit! I know lots of people would have HATED the drive, especially those who are inclined to have motion sickness, but we considered it a real adventure, and we LOVE adventures.

But the biggest surprise at all was finding about the spiritual journey Mena, our guide, is on. We were meant to meet him, and I know we’ll continue to keep in touch. Who knows what God will do?

As we were hiking through the canyon, he told us about falling 20 meters when his rope broke as he was doing some technical climbing there a few years ago. He had broken legs, but survived, which is a miracle. Then he showed us the place where he has a metal plate in his head, a souvenir of a bus accident of which he was the only survivor. I told him God had kept him alive for a purpose. I was assuming Mena was a Muslim, as both the others were. He was quiet for a few minutes and then said, "I will tell you something I don’t usually tell my clients." He told us about having been raised in the Egyptian Orthodox Church, but ceasing to believe in God as a teenager. He said that after experiencing several miracles in his life, he came to believe once again. I said, "So you believe Jesus is God?" "Yes, and I love Him."

We were thrilled to hear that! Brian told him about being a pastor, and began a discussion about the things of God that lasted for the next two days. Mena is part of a group "that is like a church but not a church" that meets regularly for prayer and worship, bringing together Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants together—something that I’ve not heard the likes of in any Moslem country. God is doing bigger things than CNN knows, that’s for sure.

What an awesome thing to walk in the Spirit, to go to Sinai to climb a mountain, but to become a part of something even bigger.

jetlagged!!!

posted by Peri Zahnd on November 10, 2006 at 4:56 AM

It’s a sort of sick feeling. You just have to keep moving. Lying down is very dangerous. Newark to Tel Aviv was ten hours and twenty minutes. It’s longer going home! We arrived about 10 in the morning, but that’s 2 am St. Joe time. We got through immigration quickly, and then were driven thirty minutes to another airport, Sde Dov. (You Americans just try and pronounce that.) It was a tiny airport, essentially one room, very old, a snack bar/souvenir/cigarette shop, a desk for security, a check-in counter, and three gates, in sharp contrast to the ultramodern, huge facility we had just arrived in, Ben Gurion Airport. The three gates were three doors all in a row, with the numbers above them. Go through any of those doors, and you’re still just three feet apart.

We approached the security desk first, we were essentially the only ones there, but there were at least four security people working there. Security in Israel has always been far more real than what we experience at home, and these (always young) agents are well-trained. We knew we would be questioned about our trip, what we planned to do, but this time we had a hard time convincing these very nice, polite folks we weren’t up to no good.

They asked the same questions over and over—why we were going to Eilat, what we planned to do there, were we going to cross over to Egypt, why such a short visit, why did we not fly out of Ben Gurion where we had just arrived (the flight left from THIS airport!) Why were we going to Greece? Who did we know there? What did we plan to do? Why? Why were we coming back to Tel Aviv again next week? Why were we leading a tour group? Did we personally know the people in our group? How did we know them? You’re a pastor in America? What is your other job? ("Uh, that one’s pretty much full time.") Do you have any documentation to prove you’re a pastor in America? Brian had a business card. It didn’t seem to impress them. They wanted something else. He looked through his briefcase, and didn’t’ find anything, and finally in desperation showed them his Bible and flipped through the pages, explaining all the notes and underlining ought to prove he was legitimate. It didn’t impress them either. We didn’t have any literature from the church, and they thought that was strange. I hadn’t figured I would need an announcement sheet while I was away. They kept stepping away, with much apologies, and conferring among themselves. Then another of the four would begin the questioning process over again.

After about 45 minutes with no progress, we decided we would call our Israeli travel agent—we had a cell phone. The agent said he would like to talk to him, and we were happy to oblige. I’m not sure what Gadi told them, but finally we got the papers we needed to enable us to approach the ticket counter. WHEW!

We finally got on the bus that would take us to our plane, and I slept most of the hour flight. I awoke as we were making our descent, looked out the window, and was awed by the stark mountains and cliffs of the Sinai desert. We landed, got our luggage, hailed a taxi, and went to the QUEEN OF SHEBA hotel. Our room wasn’t ready, and we sat by the pool, Brian checked his e-mail, and I nearly fell asleep again.

We finally ordered some Greek salads—they were huge, big enough for a family! (Wished we’d split one.) There was no lettuce, just lots of cucumbers, chunks of feta cheese, red onion, tomatoes, and ZATAR sprinkled on top. Zatar is a spice I’ve bought here but never found at home—great with olive oil for dipping bread in.

Now we’re checked in, have had wonderful hot showers, and are getting ready to go walk outside. (Must stay awake, must stay awake.)

It’s just 4:50 pm. The goal is to stay up until 8!

another urban legend debunked!

posted by Peri Zahnd on November 5, 2006 at 4:39 AM Can a woman really pack everything she needs for a 17 day trip to three countries in one medium-sized suitcase? NO!! Another urban legend bites the dust. I had my bag all packed an hour ago...except I didn’t have everything in it. I had to UNPACK it and start over with a bigger suitcase....oh well, who wants to go on a 17 day trip without your stuff? ha