Across the valley a bonfire three story’s high flickered up into the smoky black sky. Me, Doron (a friend of mine who lives next door) and two other kids sat around a smaller version, talking about nothing in general. Just stuff like, ‘want another hot dog?’, ‘its burning!’, ‘why don’t you shove that board cross ways on the fire now?’, ‘pass me the fan’ and ‘I’m gonna have a marshmallow now’. The only serious subjects that we touched were about religion, what we were celebrating and a how most people don’t know what most cuss words mean. They asked me about Christianity.

I learned that many secular and religious Jews light bonfires on May 22 (but the celebration usually slides passed midnight) to celebrate the death of Rabbi Akiva. 24,000 of his students died in a plague. Some say that the ‘plague’ might have actually been the roman soldiers. Whatever the ‘plague’ may have been, it ended, and to let everyone know that it ended they lit fires on top of the hills. Hence the bonfires.

We helped a group of six girls light their fire at about 11:00. Then we went over and watched Lavi (Doron’s brother) and his friends built a very tall teepee fire. As the base was burning, we bet on which way the fire would fall. Lavi was ready to run for the fire extinguisher if it fell on the trees. Finally it toppled over safely. Later some people came by with a ton of paper files and asked if they could get rid of them. They tossed them on the fire. A huge blaze flared up and lit a tree near by. Luckily the fire extinguisher was at hand.

We stayed up till two, said our farewells and went to bed.

WARNING: DO NOT READ THE NEXT PORTION IF YOU ARE A FEMALE… Since it was just us three middle school boys after everyone else had gone to bed, we peed on the fire to put it out. We took turns. What a manly thing to do.

“The ants go marching one by one, Hurrah! Hurrah! The ants go marching one by one, Hurrah! Hurrah!” Mom sings as she empties and bleaches the cupboard for the hundredth and first time. Ants are everywhere! Little piles of them in the corners of the room show battles fought in the past. Their crowded into the bathroom and all over anything left out on the counter. One night when I was really hungry, I crept into the kitchen, found a pot of beans on the stove, and shoved some on my plate. After eating about half of the beans, I realized what I thought was spice was really, well… ANTS!

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Mom and I went to the wailing wall or the Western Wall or the Kotel (however you like to call it). I walked up to the wall and saw many people weeping, wailing, praying, kissing it, writing prayers down on paper and folding them up carefully to put them in the deep crevices of the ancient wall which probably dates to about 30 B.C.. The Wall was filled (literally!) with prayers. Wow… Jesus probably walked right past this old city wall. Maybe he touched it! Other people were taking pictures as tourists, and some were reading from the Torah (our Old Testament). Some were praying some laughing and playing in a Jewish celebration. Jewish women were standing on chairs to peek over to the men’s side to try and join in on their party. I wonder what God thinks about that sacred wall.

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Darth Vader mysteriously walks down Ben Yehuda Street. Jewish hippies with huge afros laugh at each others wigs and tie-dyed mohawks. It is Purim, a holiday that celebrates when the Jewish people where rescued from a guy named Haman who wanted to destroy the Jews. Go read Esther if you don’t know the story. Keep reading and you’ll find a video near the end of this post…

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Playing soccer with Jews is much different then playing with Spaniards. The Jews actually tried to help each other, were careful not to foul each other, and well, (I hope I don’t seem rude) were much nicer than the young Spaniards I’ve played with over two years before moving to Israel. Also if they fell down, or got hurt, they wouldn’t roll around on the ground pretending to be so badly hurt that they could hardly play any more, they would just hop back up and take a foul shot.

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On March 6, 2008, dozens of teenagers were studying in their school library in Jerusalem. Some were planning a celebration of Purim, the festival initiated in the book of Esther. Suddenly, a 25 year old Arab burst in spraying bullets from an AK-47 machine gun. read more »

This is a picture of one of the Iraqi boys who had heart surgery recently in Israel and in now ready to head back to Iraq. He lives near the Iran border and speaks Kurdish instead of Arabic. Despite the language barrier, nothing brings on a temporary smile like a banjo. His smile lasted through his first lesson, but by the time he was playing solo, I think he was ready to be done with that bright obnoxious bluegrass sound and get back home to familiar music. Hopefully there was enough demonstration of love given by Christians in Israel that he will someday be receptive to the gospel of Yeshua, and obtain a smile in his heart that never fades.

This past Sunday, the director of “Shevet Achim” (www.shevet.org) invited me to travel with him to the main Gaza crossing to pick up a child with heart condition for surgery in Israel. On the drive from Jerusalem to the Erez Crossing, Alex told me more about Shevet Achim and how they work to locate and support families who will be medically served by “Save a Child’s Heart” (www.sach.org).

Today’s child, a 6 year old that I’ll call Amy, came accompanied by her grandmother. It must have been frightening to enter Israel given the culture of hatred Gaza expresses toward Israel. They sat quietly in the back seat. Even though they neither spoke English, I was sure I could rely on my years of teaching elementary school to draw out a smile. Fortunately, Alex speaks Arabic, Hebrew, and English. After some small talk I played my harmonica but, to my surprise, Amy showed no spark of interest. No songs, no smile. The grandmother pulled up Amy’s coat sleeve to reveal a withered right arm ending with finger nubs at the elbow. read more »