First month in Jerusalem

One month has passed away.. But we feel that already now it will make some footprints in our hearts for the rest of our life. We are falling in love for Jerusalem with every day more and more - such a beautiful city, so many different people, tasty food, super weather (some days we had even +33!)...

This month we were exploring the city. Very often we just went out from the house to another direction just to look around. Usually on holidays when Alex doesn't need to go to the school or excursions we are taking some food, water, snacks, big blanket and going, making picnics, playing, going, resting, eating and like that all day long. 

At the beginning girls didn't want to go more than 200 m (because in Sweden we went everywhere with the car), but now they are so used to it that sometimes they don't even complain about it. They can walk 10 km per day and still have a lot of energy in the evenings.

We are going very often to the market. We love this atmosphere (right before the Sabbath there are so many people that you can't even go through, everybody is shouting, selling, buying, but there is something in it), and there are much more cheaper fruits, vegetables, bread and candies (this is very good reason for girls to go such a long distances - they will get a candy). Now we are getting more used to the prices - we know where to buy, what to buy and what is in the packages. But still we don't understand about promotional campaigns - it looks that it is 2 for 1 or twice cheaper, but in the end it turns out that it is just with member card or every second has half price. So we ask everyone to translate for us or buy twice expensive. 

We can't used to that very many are speaking in Russian. Usually we start the conversations in English and when they replied that they don't speak (it is very seldom), we usually forget to ask if they are speaking in Russian. 

So life goes on.. Alex keeps studying in Bible school, attending a lot of excursions (Museum for Islamic art, The Holocaust History Museum, Parliament, Supreme Court), but I'm taking care of my household and children. God is teaching me a lot, most of all patience;) (three kids, repair work all around the house and few more strange things in the house..). Although sometimes it is not very easy, I’m happy for these lessons what I can take here. I don’t want to go home after three month from the Holy Land without any changes in my heart. 

We started to take a part in the prayer meetings with other Israel Total students. We are taking also kids with us and as there is this Swedish family girls have a company to play with. First meeting we had picnic on the top of the mount, where you can see the valley. We started to get to know more each other, testify about how we get saved, eating and praying. It is such a unreal feeling when we realise that we are praying in the same places where Jesus was praying with His disciples 2000 years ago. We went also to the Upper Room to pray a little bit. We started to sing some worship songs and we felt such a strong God’s presence, I can’t even describe! 

We continuing also to go to the same Church and with every service we understand that God send us there. Every preaching is so strong that we have even goosebumps, and all our way back home we are so touched with the Word that we are discussing about that long time. Despite of language barrier girls feel like home there, they have even new friends. They really enjoy the activities what children have there. So we are more than happy that we have Church what we can call as ours even in Israel.

We took a chance to go with all the family to excursion with the class. This was fantastic walk on (yes, on) the walls of Jerusalem. As it was impossible to go there with the stroller, we took David in the baby carrier and went for 4 hours long walk. This was so interesting to see the city from that point of view. We could see the outside as well as the inside of the Old City in the same time. 

It was a little bit challenging for kids to make such a long distance (and also for us to carry David and sometimes Katrina), but after we came home late in the evening we understood that we could do all things through Christ Who strenghtens us. Nothing is too hard to follow God or to discover Him more in the Holy Land.

One nice Sabbath day when all the shops were closed and there are much more less cars on the streets we went with our Latvian friend and her husband (he is tourist guide, so we had VIP trip through the old city) to the Christian Quarter where is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He told us a lot of interesting things about history, today’s life, culture and so on. 

After that we went to another place where according to different tradition Golgatha is. To get there we should go trough Arabian market. What a spiritual pressure we had there! There were no other people than Arabs and we saw one women all in black, even the face was totally closed. When you see this on the pictures or video, it doesn’t make any impression, but if you see this face to face, it feels really scary!

Later this evening our husbands went home by feet and on their way friend told Alex a lot of stories what you usually don’t hear from tourist guide (about the places where were terror acts and happenings like that), but we (girls with the kids) were driving home with the car and by accident went by the Orthodox Jews district, and as you maybe know they don’t work (even driving by car) during the Sabbath, and they (around 100 men) blocked one street and were shouting and yelling at us. Only because of the police what was there we could go trough and they didn’t throw the stones to our car...

But some other day somebody did that... 

You can read the friend’s story who was together with Alex there:
"Today, Me and Alex went for a long walk to make some pictures. And as we walked, we saw sort of a green pastures and we thought we could make some good pictures there. As we walked further, we noticed that we are getting closer to some properties, cause we noticed some houses and mules. We started making pictures and within few minutes we saw 6-7 guys in age 6 to 10 throwing stones at us. After stones, glass bottles started to come. We started walking away and they ran after us screaming something in Arabic including "allah akbar" and kept on throwing stuff in us. So we left there under fire basically... You always hear these news about them provoking other people, but you are always careful and sceptical of which part is true or false. Here we saw pure provocative actions from their side (we didn't really bother anyone, didn't even cross any fences or w/e). Saddest thing about this is that they are just little children, 6-10 years old!!!! They are supposed to play toys yet and be happy. Instead they are filled with hatred by their parents. All they are being taught is that there is an enemy and that they should hate it. It is scary to imagine who are these people going to be, if those seeds of pure hatred are being sown in their life since they are born... And I'm pretty sure that it is happening world-wide with those muslim children. That is very sad and the same point scary. We must truly be rooted in Christ, because when the times will come, those young boys will be young men with knifes and guns. An empire of those. When you hear those muslim prayers all over the city, it kind of hits you that it ain't no joke... These are the ones to be prayed for..."

So we are really experiencing the Holy Land from the inside. We believe that God has a plan for our life and all this experience one day will be needed.

p.s. More pictures you can find here .