Thursday 12th March 2008

Pastor Daniel, a wonderful soul, picked us up from the airport and drove us to The Anglican church’s guesthouse. We saw huge amazing birds in the trees on the way that can swallow bones up to 2 feet long! We got a well needed nap in the arvo and did some emailing. Tomorrow we’re off to Pastor Daniel’s remote village in northern Kenya right near the equator, 250kms from Nairobi. They have no power, no water and definitely no internet. We’ll be there for 10 days. It will be like an episode of a TV show we saw called “cross culture”, where an American family came to Africa. Their teenage daughter didn’t cope too well. I remember wondering how our kids would go in the same situation. Guess we’ll find out... Next blog update - 10 days!

Wednesday 12th March 2008
Today we leave for Africa. Unfortunately there are no direct flights so we went from Tel Aviv to Amman, Jordan. Changed planes to Cairo where we were going to have to change airlines and re-check in. Forgot how Egypt works- These official looking airport staff told us they would look after our check in with Kenya airways for our next leg. What a nice service the Cairo airport offers! They ushered us into a truly dodgy transit waiting room - it looked more like a footy locker room after the game - a dozen sleeping African kids strewn on metal benches. A strange way to check in I thought. An hour later and I was stressing, they had our passports too, but they eventually came good only to request a tip for “helping” us. After they gave us the passes they let us go through to the boarding lounge just around the corner and we were met by a nice comfy lounge area complete with cafes and shops with only 2 minutes to go before boarding realising that we were supposed to do our own check in and wait here in heavenly bliss. Any hoo, that flight was delayed and ended up leaving at 12.30am (midnight). Another stop in Khartoum and I lost my empty row and was squished between 2 nice Arab guys who also had been ousted from their roomy rows and were no doubt thinking the same thing as me ... “stupid Khartoumians!” Arrived in Nairobi at 7.30am totally wasted and sore necked.

Tuesday 11th March 2008
Yep. It happened again. Our neighbours got a wake-up call at 5am and the TV was on exactly 13.5 seconds later, nice and loud. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and found myself knocking on their door only to be greeted by a naked Nigerian wondering what I wanted. While looking for spider webs on the ceiling I asked him politely to turn the TV down and stumbled back to our room (still gazing up at the ceiling) determined to find another hotel for our last night in Jerusalem. And that we did! The “Moriah Classic” to be precise, and may I recommend this fine establishment to anyone planning a trip to Jerusalem. 4 star quality with 2 star prices! After checking in to our gloriously quiet hotel I headed off to the old city while Kaz and the kids relaxed in the room. I went back to the shop our tour visited last week where an orthodox Jew does lectures on bridge-building between Christianity & Judaism. I chatted with him for an hour about faith and forgiveness. It seems to me that we all agree that what really matters is for people to be connected personally and intimately with God. Then “religion” steps in and adds all the bigotry, arrogance, idolatry and manipulative rules. Back to basics I say! As the Bible says “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Anyway, I choofed off to pray at the wailing wall for a while and was tapped on the shoulder by Jewish guy (black hat, black overcoat, long side-burn hair) who told me it was good that I was praying there, placed my hand on the wall with his and prayed a little prayer in Hebrew. He tied a red piece of wool around my wrist and just as I was feeling all warm and fuzzy about my deep spiritual experience with one of God’s chosen people, he puts his hand out and says “now you give me money”. I gave him a US greenback but he wanted more. I said no, he insisted, I punched him, he punched me. A truly sublime spiritual experience at the wailing wall. (Just kidding ... he didn’t really get one in).