Is it safe?

I did not see a gun in Israel until about day three. Relating my travels upon my return, my family's biggest question was if I felt safe. The answer is an unhesitant yes.

Sure, there was lots of security, but it was the kind that made me feel safe because it was there; not feel unsafe because it was necessary.

I rode public transportation. To visit a settlement on disputed lands - "disputed" lands being a term not acceptable to those who have settled there - I stood with a friend at a combination bus stop and "hitching point." Local custom says pick up persons waiting at the bus stop if you are going their direction, giving you a traveling companion and saving them some bus fare.

Cars carry identification stickers on their windshields indicating their home area. When my friend saw an underpowered Renault delivery van sputter into the bus stop with a sticker indicating the settlement of our destination, we got in and drove off. The trip entailed a wrong turn and about 20 miles but when I offered money to help buy the young driver some $8 a gallon gas, she was insulted.

We walked several blocks in frigid winter air when we got to the settlement, then drank tea, talked politics; ate soup and fish and drove up behind the settlement to Amona where residents are still furious that their government had knocked down nine houses on the most recently developed street. The residents said they had a permit to build; the government says they did not.

Ninety percent of the land in Israel is state owned and thousands of "squatters" build houses under the radar. The home I visited was 25 years old and Pesach and Sheila had raised 10 children there. Still, they know the government at some point may require them to leave.

I asked David Baker from the prime minister's office about the case the next morning at breakfast. He said he was unfamiliar with it, although his eyes opened wide when I told him I had been to Ofra the night before. He said if settlers build houses without permits, the law eventually would catch up with them.

Of course, settlements on disputed lands are a huge issue in finding a way to peace. An eventual two-state solution, which the Israeli government favors, may require dismantling of more settlements, such as happened with Gush Katif in the Gaza strip in 2005.

I caught the bus back into Jerusalem, then a cab to the hotel. All the while, my only fear was of getting lost.

Every government official we talked with expressed appreciation for evangelical Christians "standing by" Israel by continuing to visit, even during times of unrest. Tourism is 10-12 percent of Israel's economy and they realize people will not come to a place where they do not feel completely safe.

When Muslim extremists kept the nation in turmoil in 2002-2004, tourism fell off 70 percent and the economy was on the rocks.

You do not owe Israel a visit. But if you are considering a trip, you owe it to yourself to investigate factors beyond the headlines before deciding to stay home.

Posted by jameson ( Jan 18 2008, 10:23:39 AM EST ) Permalink Comments [4]

Vocal Stones

OK. OK. I know that guides in Israel who think you don't know any better have been known to point to indentations in a wall and tell you Jesus put them there as he braced himself to keep from falling beneath the weight of the cross.

But you already know all the sites in Jerusalem that Jesus might have seen, or places where he might have walked are buried beneath many yards of rubble from destruction and rebuilding on top of the rubble. Until now.

Recent archeological discoveries in this city already ridiculously rich with them have uncovered stones, foundations, pathways and walls that Jesus likely walked among. In just the past four years a clumsy backhoe driver and an alert archeologist on his way home from work discovered what is almost certainly the pool of Siloam.

[Read More]
Posted by jameson ( Jan 14 2008, 05:44:23 PM EST ) Permalink

Rock the Boat

Tomorrow might be different with a visit to Massada, but after three full days touring with Baptist editors ancient sites that make the Galilee a rich destination, my two highest spiritual moments have to do with boats.

The first came this morning on a brisk ride on Lake Kinneret, or the Sea of Galilee. We made typical comments about who would reprise Peter’s attempt to walk on the water, then piled into the boat, which was not large, but was significantly larger than a fishing boat of Jesus’ era.

After a few minutes powering through the placid water and learning the geological attributes of how storms arise suddenly, encouraged by down drafts sweeping through a gap in the hills, the captain shut off the boat motor and we drifted to a stop.

The wake fell flat and only small waves slapped the hull to keep us audibly connected to the world. It was our first moment on a whirlwind tour "running where Jesus walked" to contemplate the enormity of our environment.

The silent slapping rocked the boat very gently and with eyes closed and David Williams from Texas praying, the clocks stopped and we were simply aware in the presence of God.

This was the water on which Jesus walked; the shore from which he addressed crowds; the waves he calmed; the storehouse from which he withdrew bounty. I imagined Him listening to the same slapping of waves on the hull.

We've all found the natural sites around the lake more inspirational than the structures built over "holy" sites where certain events in the life of Jesus were purported to occur.

The second boat incident occurred immediately after we left the lake this. We went immediately to the museum at the adjoining Kibbutz Ginosar where on display is the 2,000-year-old boat found in 1986 buried in mud and exposed by a dropping lake level. Two sharp eyed brothers, fisherman who for years had hoped the lake would reveal an archeological treasure to them, spotted iron nails in the mud and the water softened edge of a buried boat.

Eleven days later volunteers from around the nation had helped uncover the boat, and move it to a conservation tank where it sat 14 years, the water in its soaked wood slowly being replaced by a wax substitute so it could go on display as the oldest boat ever found in fresh water.

I have no illusion that Jesus ever sailed, rowed, paddled or sat in this boat. But it is definitely from His era. Beyond simply marveling at something made 2,000 years ago by the hands of mortal man, seeing it provides a healthy perspective of my own mortality and prompts me to reevaluate my contribution to things that might live beyond my brief tenure on this great blue marble.

Posted by jameson ( Jan 12 2008, 06:03:07 PM EST ) Permalink

Wisdom Grows

I took my first international trip in 1979 at age 27. I was still young enough to know everything. I spent my days as part of a press tour in Israel and Jordan trying hard to be unimpressed.

My biggest memory is that children in a camp asked me what I thought Ted Kennedy's chances were of winning the democratic nomination for president in 1980.

It blew me away that those children were following the primaries in America. I felt certain most American children of their age would have been hard pressed to name the president that Kennedy was trying to unseat.

I'm back in Israel this week, a guest of the tourism ministry. They want Americans to know it is safe to travel to Israel and that all the things that make a visit to this county special for a Christian are still here and available - with the possible exception of Bethlehem - the city of Jesus' birth.

Muslims have pressured most Christians out of that city in recent years. Our guide suggested those in our group who truly want to visit Bethlehem hire an Arab taxi driver one morning and zip out there, see the church erected over some supposed sites where the manger lay, and scurry back.

I think they've decided not to go.

We visited the Baptist Village in Peta Tikwa this morning, a site I'd visited 28 years ago but barely remembered. A fence surrounds the village now, because it became almost impossible to keep cars and equipment on site without being stolen. However, the fence shut the facility off from its surrounding population, exactly opposite the intent.

So Baptists there have become very involved in sports activities, hosting hundreds of baseball games at several levels - including professional - on "the best fields in Israel," starting American style football, hosting zillions of children for soccer, baseball and softball camps.

Baptist Village is also like the Camp Caraway and Mundo Vista of North Carolina Baptist life - a place where young Christians can go and interact with each other to encourage and build faith.

David McInnis of Henderson, NC, directs Baptist Village. Formerly a medical professional, he and his wife Terry started out as missionaries in West Africa, but moved to Peta Tikwa a couple years ago.

He says hello!

Remember to pray for men and women who serve us as they serve God in faraway places.

Posted by admin ( Jan 11 2008, 12:30:36 PM EST ) Permalink

Naming the beast

While walking around in Ghana, I often came across members of the lizard family that looked as if they could eat any North Carolina lizard for breakfast. I saw males (below, with a reddish head and a red stripe around the tail) that were well over a foot long. Females (right) had different markings, usually in green.

I like to know the name of things, so I said to my Ghanian friend Elli Yabani, "I'm familiar with chameleons and geckos and tokays -- what do you call these?"

He looked at me quizzically, and said "We call them lizards."

So much for my science safari. I took pictures, and later learned from wildherps.com that it is properly called a "Red head agama," and that it can be found in Florida as well as Africa.

Ghanians are more interested in the names of people. I could not approach the beach without hawkers coming up to befriend me, always asking my name and telling me theirs -- and then explaining that they are a "designer" and a student and they want to show me their work so I can buy something and help put them through school.

I forgot to remove my name tag before a brief bout of shopping one day, and from every stall shopowners called "Mister Tony!"

Names are important. It values someone else to learn their name. And sometimes it clarifies an issue to simply call it what it really is rather than to hide it in euphemisms.

For other blogs from Ghana, click on these links:

Goat light soup

Where's Waldo?

The Door of No Return

Celebrating Freedom

Others celebrate, too

Use your head

Eye of the Tilapia

God in Ghana

Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 09 2007, 03:34:06 PM EDT ) Permalink

Goat light soup
I'd hate to try "goat heavy soup."[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 07 2007, 06:17:21 PM EDT ) Permalink

Where's Waldo?
African-American worship gets turned up a notch when it loses the "American" part.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 06 2007, 08:58:25 PM EDT ) Permalink

The door of no return?
The evils of slavery should never be forgotten -- particularly since it's still around.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 05 2007, 07:01:47 PM EDT ) Permalink

Celebrating freedom
Should BWA adopt a membership test?[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 04 2007, 07:46:49 AM EDT ) Permalink

Others celebrate, too
There's more than one way to skin a rabbit, and to celebrate independence.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 03 2007, 06:55:56 PM EDT ) Permalink

Use your head
A word from the mountain.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 02 2007, 01:48:03 PM EDT ) Permalink

Eye of the tilapia
I'd rather my food not look at me while I eat it.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 01 2007, 05:35:53 PM EDT ) Permalink God in Ghana
God can be found all over Ghana, for those who look.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 01 2007, 05:14:28 PM EDT ) Permalink

Good eats
There's lots of good food in San Antonio.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jun 14 2007, 04:04:26 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Superturtle
Sea turtles make a super impression on those who stop to consider their ways. [Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( May 30 2007, 08:44:44 AM EDT ) Permalink