"Squeeze the World"
Saturday, October 21, 2006
the Lavi Forest
For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
--Ephesians 2:18-21 ESV
Today was an all-church meeting for the Galilee region. It was great to see believers from Nazareth to Haifa all together for worship, food and fellowship. It felt like home since we met in the open air of a new growth forest with the weather being equivalent to an early Septemberish Wenatchee Valley. There were always two pastors in front, one speaking Hebrew and the other Arabic, as translators were scattered. There were large areas for English and Russian translations, and then the less represented languages sat clustered around their own translator. We had worship in both Hebrew and Arabic, but then we sang all together in our own language "King of Kings, Lord of Lords" (I don't know if there's an official name for it). It's an underrated song for it's simplicity, but hearing the different voices in unison was pretty amazing. The message was appropiately about Identity.
After the service was a huge potluck, then denominational tug-of-war which was all good. I actually missed the tug-of-war because I was exploring the forest more. I think only in Israel do forests include cacti and olive trees. There were some pretty impressive ant colonies and I almost considered dissecting a cactus, but I didn't have any band-aids on hand. Afterwards, I was invited to a day-trip for Haifa tomorrow, which I'm pretty excited about. The only other opportunity I've had to visit Haifa was near the beginning of the war, so I've only had a glimpse of it.
--Ephesians 2:18-21 ESV
Today was an all-church meeting for the Galilee region. It was great to see believers from Nazareth to Haifa all together for worship, food and fellowship. It felt like home since we met in the open air of a new growth forest with the weather being equivalent to an early Septemberish Wenatchee Valley. There were always two pastors in front, one speaking Hebrew and the other Arabic, as translators were scattered. There were large areas for English and Russian translations, and then the less represented languages sat clustered around their own translator. We had worship in both Hebrew and Arabic, but then we sang all together in our own language "King of Kings, Lord of Lords" (I don't know if there's an official name for it). It's an underrated song for it's simplicity, but hearing the different voices in unison was pretty amazing. The message was appropiately about Identity.
After the service was a huge potluck, then denominational tug-of-war which was all good. I actually missed the tug-of-war because I was exploring the forest more. I think only in Israel do forests include cacti and olive trees. There were some pretty impressive ant colonies and I almost considered dissecting a cactus, but I didn't have any band-aids on hand. Afterwards, I was invited to a day-trip for Haifa tomorrow, which I'm pretty excited about. The only other opportunity I've had to visit Haifa was near the beginning of the war, so I've only had a glimpse of it.
A, 11:31 AM
2 Comments:
Beautifully spoken!
Must have been cool to experience this gathering. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall. Anna, your writing is fabulous. Keep it up. Can we see some pix of the forest?
