Close yet far away

Another impression is how close yet how far everything is. As the crow flies, it is a small country and nothing is very far away. But the problem is that very little of the land is flat, and what is flat, is sloping at an angle. So to go from point A to point B requires descending and ascending, perhaps multiple times. It is not a place for people with weak knees! In addition, buildings tend to enlarge by going up rather than spreading out.

Fate of empires

One thing that impressed me on this trip was history. You could be sitting in a coffee shop that was built on the ruins of something from the Ottoman era, which in turn may have been built on something from the Crusader era, which was built on a Mameluke ruin, which was built on a Byzantine ruin which was built on a Roman or Hasmonian ruin which was built on something from the Israelite monarchy era destroyed by the Babylonians. And that might have been on top of ruins from the Canaanite period – or even earlier! Some of the Roman ruins are impresive indeed – and Herod the Great was no wimp when it came to building projects either. Massive marble columns, raised platforms acres in size, bath houses, swimming pools, aquaducts and water storage. But as mighty and glorious as it once was, it has all collapsed and broken into shards and dust now. Really truly sobering when you start thinking about what the probable fate of current empires will be...

Barbie's Dream Church

Barbie's Dream Church?????





(Actually, it is a Greek Orthodox church near Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee.)

There and back again

Just got back this afternoon from a grand 2-plus week study tour. I did NOT have my laptop along on this trip. In fact, I had to take it to the computer ER this afternoon because after 2 1/2 weeks of not being used it didn't want to boot up. (Still not sure what the problem is but we found that if you just punch a bunch of keys at random it will eventually kick it into "boot" mode. Don't you love these technical fixes??!!)

I have not had time yet to process anything or write anything or download photos, but one of the guys on the trip DID bring his laptop along and sort of kept his blog going. So, for your interim reading pleasure may I recommend Robert's blog:

http://robsreg.blogspot.com

I will be rushing madly about for the next few days trying to get photos downloaded, things put away and also getting ready for another trip already on Sunday - my second attempt to go to the "smokey" place. More later, if my computer cooperates!

Little boy that heals

June 3

Last night I arrived at the border town, if a seaport can be called a border town! Tomorrow I will fly back home to the third of my worlds for a few days before travelling to a world I have never been to but have heard about all my life. But more on that later.

It seems that in this area there is a little BOY with healing power. He is elementary school age and just started healing recently. He goes to school in the daytime and then has healing sessions in the afternoon until about 6pm. His family is Muslim but when he heals Christians he uses Christian type prayers. I was told that here too is a growing pile of wheelchairs and crutches left behind by people who were healed. The people telling me about it said that it shows that God can use anything.

Fuel conservation

Every kind of travel has it’s own adventures, though if you live here long enough you more or less get accustomed to it. Like air travel. After a series of recent plane disasters, it was noted that it was rather difficult to always determine who was even on the planes because despite a law requiring everyone to show an ID so that the name on the ticket and the list are the same as the name on the ID, it still wasn’t being practiced and so the passenger manifest lists are usually inaccurate. A hue and cry was raised and this practice was reinstated. How long did it last? Yesterday only passengers travelling on the national airline were advised to show an ID and it was checked at check-in, and again before boarding. But I wasn't riding the national airline and my ID wasn’t checked anywhere. (And no, it’s NOT because I’m famous!)

It is said that pilots are offered incentives to decrease fuel consumption. This is one of the factors thought to have contributed to a recent crash. One way to conserve fuel is to land at high speed and stand on the brakes rather than taking the time to circle around a little and slow down. This particular crash occured when the plane landed at very high speed and overshot the end of the runway, plowing up a nearby rice paddy.

Another way to conserve fuel is to avoid turning on the ventilation and air conditioning systems for as long as possible. Every flight I was on this trip was waiting far too long for my comfort before they turned on the air. These are tropical countries and the planes are always packed. People here are accustomed to heat. But one flight was particularly bad, over half the people in the plane were madly fanning themselves with the handy emergency instruction cards from the seat pockets. Several were starting to stand up and move into the aisles. Two people even got up and headed for the door as though to exit the plane – or maybe they went to shout at the pilot. It was at that point that the pilot FINALLY turned on the air. Nothing like the smell of fellow travellers’ fungus infections and heated up stale sweat-scented clothing...

Tides

Something really weird is going on. The tides have been very unusually high recently on the western end of the Indian Ocean – that includes the western and southwestern edges of Indonesia (the south coasts of Bali and Java) and includes the areas hit by the tsunami, the west coast of Sumatra, the Andaman Islands (owned by India) and the west coast of Thailand. In some areas in Java, people’s houses which had never flooded before were flooded 3 feet deep. They say it's in part because of the moon and maybe the SW monsoons, and maybe low pressure area. But they also say it's never been that high before. But why isn't the north side of Bali or the east side of Sumatra also having high tides???? Isn't the tide basically water sloshing back and forth? How come it's high only in certain areas???? The moon is full everywhere....