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....

Little girl with healing power

Ever since I arrived in the area last month, people everywhere have been talking about a little girl in a village who has been healing people. The village is located right in the middle of the area which saw a lot of conflict in recent years.

It all started in January this year. The little girl’s mother was sick, some say with cancer. One version of the story is that a man in white appeared to the girl one day on her way home from school and told her how to heal her mother. She went home and did it and then began to heal others too. Word soon got out and people began arriving from all over the island and from other parts of the country. Some are said to have come from as far away as Singapore.

The little village has been flooded with people, most of whom camp in the village square. There’s a short video being passed around that someone filmed in March, interviewing some folk who said they had been healed. Several were young people reported to have been deaf and dumb, some from birth. They say that stacks of crutches and wheelchairs are now piling up from people who were healed. Although the girl is Christian and says that the healings are by the power of Jesus, people say that far more Muslims are being healed than Christians.

There is no charge for the healings. But not everyone is healed. It has been reported that some people are told to go and make restitution, or they are told that because of some certain sin they can’t be healed. Others seem to have partial healing. Some say it is a process and that depending on your faith it will become more complete later. Some say that if you start disbelieving the healing is reversed. (The one person I personally know who went and got healed, died three weeks later.) Although a large number of those who go are elderly, it has also been reported that some are told they should not expect healing because they are already old and everyone has to die. But other elderly come back able to walk a little after years of using canes or wheelchairs.

The healings are now “organized” so that Friday is the day. People travel up on Thursday and spend all day Friday hoping to get healed. One eyewitness I talked to had gone and taken her grandmother. She said that the person is asked three times (by the girl’s mother or a preacher) if they believe Jesus heals. You are supposed to answer yes. Then you are told to sing “God is powerful”, a song that is sung over and over and over by everybody up there. Then you are told to walk or talk or whatever, depending on your ailment. People are encouraged to pray according to their own practices, (ie Christian or Muslim) and to believe.

The “power” seems to have moved from the little girl now to her mother. She was reported to be worried that her daughter can’t lead a normal life what with people starting to follow her around and touch her all the time. So somehow the mother took over, it is said.

It is quite controversial, many people pro, many others think it is a fraud. One thing for sure, it is providing hours of conversation…

Floods

Monday May 7, 2007
Today it looked like more rain so I hurried and put on my soggy shoes and went into town as I had several errands to run. I left my computer at a friend’s house and then headed off to meet somebody I needed to see. When I got to that part of town there were police everywhere, traffic was crawling, and lots of people were standing out on the road. I wondered if there had been another bombing! When I got to the office I asked what had happened and they said that the neighborhood between there and the river were flooding. As I crossed the bridge on the way to the next stop I was apalled at how huge the river had become. I have never seen it that full. It was near the top of the concrete retaining walls that were built a few years ago. Apparently the tide was coming in at the same time the river was carrying all that water from the previous days’ rain. Downstream from the bridge towards the sea there were giant waves like you’d see in the sea. Police were on the bridge waving traffic on and telling people not to stop. The sidewalks were full of gawkers. The little mosque on the river’s edge on the other side was just about to flood. When I crossed back again a couple of hours later, about noon, there was water filling the street just before the bridge, you had to pass through it to get to the bridge. The concrete retaining walls were only a few inches above the water and were breaking in several places, you could see water pouring over the broken places.

Later I heard that my friend’s house - which had never flooded before - was thigh deep in water. The water had started coming up about 6:30 in the morning as she was getting the kids off to school and getting herself ready to go off to teach. She texted her brother to come to town and help, so he went to town with his car. He had to park it on the main road but they were able to wade out and load up some things to take to a niece’s house. Other things they stuck up above the ceiling. He said there were other houses flooded much deeper. He saw all kinds of debris being carried along including motorcycles, refrigerators, and even a wardrobe tumbling along in the current. The police tied 3 ropes across a place with a particularly strong current so that any people being carried away could grab the rope, if they missed it there was a second and a third rope they could try for. Meanwhile police were on standby with a boat and rubber inner tubes to help rescue people. (I was impressed to hear that they actually were doing something useful for a change!) People were saying what a good thing it happened in the daytime and not at night. And also a mercy that the sky cleared up and it didn’t rain anymore.

Unfortunately my friend put her cellphone in her pocket and then forgot about it as she was in and out of waist deep water salvaging their things. So the cellphone is now ruined.

The nearby Salvation Army office was putting up a tent and getting organized to cook rice and noodles for lunch for flood victims. Some of their staff were busy helping people rescue their things, or accompanying any injured to the nearby hospital. They expect the water to be high for a couple of days and then there will be a huge mess to clean up. One lady I talked to said rather heartlessly that it wasn’t really a humanitarian crisis, that those people shouldn’t have built their houses so close to the river. Maybe so, but on the other hand this IS the worst flood ever. Many of those places have never flooded before. I suppose all the chopping down of forest up stream also contributed significantly.

More Rain

(for Sunday May-6)

Today we went on my motorbike up the mountains to visit some folk in another village. The thing I especially like about driving a motorbike is that I can sit up stright! I can also enjoy the scenery better because you have a pretty unlimited range of vision. Amazingly, none of the folk I wanted to see were there. Some seemed to have gone off to a wedding in a remote area, and others???? We had planned to go to another village too but it started raining and the clouds were hanging low, completely covering the mountains. It looked like it was going to rain all day so we decided to just head back home. There’s a stretch of hairpin curves that is especially prone to landslides so it seemed better to not wait, because the more it rained, the more likely a landslide would be. It rained hard the entire way back, I had to stop several times to clean the fog from my goggles. We had rain ponchos but they don’t cover your legs and so eventually the water soaks its way up your pant legs. Since I was driving and got the rain pelting in my face (no windshield), the water also drips down the front of your neck and inside the poncho so eventually you are wet all over. Arriving home in the valley it was raining hard there too and was unusually cool. In fact I was getting down right cold what with the wet clothes and all. It rained all that afternoon and night and since the power went off at sunset everybody just went to bed.