Thursday and Friday and Saturday in Review (as far as I can remember)

The sun is setting which means the beginning of Shabbat. Everything is shutting down. The restaurant downstairs is staffed by Arabs (I hope I’m using the correct qualifier) whereas the hotel upstairs is staffed by Jews. In this way everything continues to run ‘smoothly’ for all hotel guests.

Across the room from me is a Jewish woman sitting reading a book-looks like a Bible. This hotel in particular (and the one we are in) is very Jewish oriented. The restaurants are kosher and in the evening many young couples populate this coffee lounge talking chasedly and embarrassingly to each other.

I appreciate very much the modesty abounding here. The Muslim women dress beautifully. The Jewish women dress beautifully. So far from buttoning up and looking to repel every thing that even slightly resembles a man, the modesty codes are thoroughly lovely. In every shop, on every corner, I see something that I could imagine myself wearing, which never happens to me in America. If I had my druthers, I would dress this way all the time, and so would my girls. Hmmm.

Today was spent working on the GAFCON communique or statement that will be released on Sunday. I won’t say anything about it until Sunday after it is released. Don’t want to spoil it for you.

Yesterday, after the morning workshop, Matt and Baby (or rather GAFCON BABY! as she has come to be known) and I went back into Old City Jerusalem to the Holy Sepulcher. I’m going to post about it separately because there’s a lot to say.

Today we went to Galilee-to Caperneum particularly and to the Mount of the Beatitudes, which also needs to be its own post.

Overall, I am completely overwhelmed. I feel a little like I’m sitting in front of a vast banquet and I’m likely to go hungry because I don’t know what to eat first. I think its going to take me months to sort through everything and remember it all and write it down. Its completely true, if someone wanted to write down everything that Jesus said and did and all the people he healed and all the interactions he had, there wouldn’t be enough pages, enough books to do it.

Tomorrow we review again and accept the Statement and there is the closing Eucharist. So, I’m going to post this and try to keep writing. I’m going to post little by little the things that come to mind so that I don’t miss too much.