On the wonderfully long flight last night ole Van got zero sleep. That's Mr. Blutarski's grade point average - ZERO..POINT......ZERO. While as terrible as this may be, it did make for some pretty entertaining hallucinations. The bus driver was purple and singing Kumbaya in this fashion, while the rest of us danced in the ocean on the backs of neon yellow turtles, which, I presume got their neon yellow tint from all that nuclear testing the French did on Bikini Atoll back in the 50s. That's the same testing that produced Godzilla! But I digress...
As I write this blog I can hear the Adhan being sung from the Muslim Mosques in the area. There are several going at the same time, which causes some confusion because of the echos and because they are not in sync.
When we arrived today we made our way through customs and were all praying that our luggage would be there. Fortunately, Delta is a winner because they didn't lose any of our bags. We exchanged some money and went on our way from Tel Aviv to Bethlehem.
I slept most of the drive out of sheer exhaustion. I'm sure someone got the "Hey look, Van is drooling" picture, but it hasn't reared its ugly head yet. When we arrived in Bethlehem I was surprised to read the signs going into the city. The signs on the wall read, "Israeli's keep out!" and "No Israeli's!" The entrance to the city is surrounded by a giant wall that the Israeli's put up, because, you know, those dirty Palestinians might contaminate the water. Speaking of the water, Palestine's water supply is controlled by the Israeli's who only turn it on twice a week. To say it more clearly, Palestine has water two days a week! In order to live properly, every Palestinian house has giant plastic tubs filled with water. Another oddity is that when Palestinians want to fly anywhere, they have to go to Jordan, because the Israeli's won't let them fly from Israel.
Don't you find it interesting that the Hebrew people for most of their entire existence have been persecuted or under the thumb of some other regime, and now that they have power they are the first to persecute, oppress, and exclude others. I'll be interested to see how this theme plays out for the next three weeks.
We walked around the city tonight, and honestly, it was enchanting! What a cool place! We turned and looked over our shoulders at one point to see the full moon rising between some rose bushes. We walked through the market and got some Arabic dessert. It was delicious! As we walked down this narrow street filled with markets, the full moon was shining in between the buildings. We approached the Church of the Nativity, which is traditional site where Christ was born and it was beautiful! There were 5 distinct crosses on steeples framing the full moon between them. Amazing sight!
But, that's not my favorite part of the night. As we walked back to our hostel, we stopped at a local grocer to buy some water. There were the cutest little kids running around and waving at me. They kept asking me what my name was, but they didn't know how to tell me theirs in English. I had so much fun laughing, waving, and trying to get these kids to slow down enough for me to get their names. One of the kids finally asked me for a photograph, and I was more than happy to do it. I got my picture with all of them and it was so awesome! It made my entire day. Now think about what I just said - I'm in the Holy City where Christ was born, I just saw the place where He was born, and my favorite part of the day was spending ten minutes with some beautiful, wonderful, and crazy Palestinian children. Words cannot express the joy that was in my heart when they asked me to take a picture with them!
I wondered as I walked back to the hostel, what can this moment teach me about life? What did that ten minutes with those kids mean to me? What did it mean to them? They had to know I was a Christian, or, at the very least, they knew I wasn't from around these parts! And I knew that they were Muslim, but, that just simply didn't matter. What mattered was joy, and peace, and laughter, and smiles, and the sheer excitement of meeting someone new! They were giving me something, and I was giving it right back to them - pure joy! The gleam in their eyes said it all. And so now that's it, that is what Christ meant when he said, the kingdom of God is like these children. One simply cannot understand the kingdom of God unless one understands what it's like to love like a child. You see, little children don't exclude, they don't bash each other because of their faith - they just love, and laugh, and giggle, and talk to anyone who will be their friend. Because the thing is, to them, you're already their friend, that is assumed already by the child. What can we all learn from this? If we put down our pride, our prejudices, our fears, and our exclusions and just love on each other like children do, how much better could this planet become? Don't miss moments like this my friends, because moments like this are life-changing.
The full moon rising over the city of Bethlehem
The moon over the market alleyway
The absolutely precious children I met tonight. I hope to see them lots these next two weeks!
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