After visiting the Mount of the Precipice, we visited a replica, working, first century farm in the middle of Nazareth. It was quite interesting, as we were being taken round by the guide he would explain how parts of the farm worked into the parables that Jesus taught. it really brought a whole new angle to the parables when we saw what the kind of farm Jesus referred to would have looked like. Below is a picture of the threshing floor at the farm, for some reason I’d always pictured it looking similar to the malting floor in a traditional Whisky Distillery.

After being served lunch at the farm, we visited some Churches in Nazareth: The Basilica of the Annunciation, St Josephs and the Greek Orthodox church of the Annunciation. all 3 Churches were awesome to visit. I have long come to the conclusion that i don’t really care how historically accurate the locations of all the Churches connected to Biblical characters/events are. To get anal about that would serve only to take away from the experience of God that so many people have in them. but lets not get into that quite yet….
Basilica of the Annunciation. This was visible quite clearly from the precipice. It’s a huge Church, quite impressive to look at. As its name suggests, It is named for the event of the Angels announcing to Mary that she was to give birth to Jesus. In the courtyard, there are many pictures of the Madonna and Child, each individualised to a different country, below is a picture of my favourite one, from Croatia. Inside the Church, there is another Church! This second Church, known as the grotto, is believed by many to be the original childhood home of Mary, mother of Jesus…..The Basilica is the site where Roman Catholics believe the annunciation took place, we also visited the Greek Orthdox Church where they claim the same event took place. Excavations on the grotto are still taking place, it was quite cool to watch archaeologists at work for a short period…



After the Basilica, it was on to St Josephs Church, which, as you may have guessed, was built for Joseph, “Father” of Jesus. Again, this was an incredible place to visit, complete with a green lit cavern that is reputed to be Joesphs workshop. What was interesting to find out was that, although we typically describe and think of Joseph as a carpenter, it is thought to be more likely that he was the 1st century equivalent of a construction worker/handyman. Able to turn his hand to most things involving stone or wood work. Which comes back to us in many of Jesus comments about wood/stone in his teachings.
After St Josephs, we went to to the other Church of the Annunciation, the Greek Orthodox site. This wasn’t as huge a Church, but still impressive nonetheless. As a Greek Orthodox Church, it had an impressive Iconostasis at the front (picture below) and also had a small chapel built over a spring that iscalled “Mary’s Well”. Guess why? Miss Whyte was given a row by one of the caretakers of the Church when she crossed her legs, we were then informed this is an insult in Arab cultures!

Once we returned to the hotel, we enjoyed an amzing dinner and then headed to the bar to chill and chat about the day. In the bar over the next few days, a small group of us, Jonnie, myself, Nicola, Rachel and Suzi became quite freindly with some of the bar staff. One in particular stands out: Lavi, a fantastic guy, always up for banter and introduced me to Arak, a fine liquer that is quite tasty!


So thats a “brief” account of the first day in Israel. An easy day to write about, in that all we did was visit sights, it was a Biblical history day, whereas some other days had a much more humanitarian/political aspect to them…….
Hope you enjyed reading this and that you’re up for some more over the next few days, I’ve a lot to write about about the trip!!!

Now, this blog post is just a brief introduction to my thoughts from this pilgrimage. We experienced far too much to get it all down in one post, it might take quite a few, so bear with me!
We spent the first half of the week staying at the The Scots Hotel in Tiberias and the second half of the week at the St Andrews Guest House in Jerusalem. I have to say, so many of the places and the things we saw blew my mind, I still can’t quite belive I was there!

I will be adding some photos to my blog post on the pilgrimage, but if you’re on facebook, you could check out the full, comprehensive selection there, as well as a couple of videos!

A brief rundown of the trip goes like this:
Thursday 20th: Leave Glasgow early morning and arrive in Tel Aviv early evening, then bus to Tiberias.
Friday 21st: Bus to Nazareth, see some awesome places from the precipice, visit replica 1st century farm, visit 2 of the churches in Nazareth.
Saturday 22nd: Hope to attend a messianic Jew service of worship, visit to an unrecognized village, visit to a Church where one of the groups churches was hoping to link with (Suzi’s church in Linlithgow).
Sunday 23rd: Sail on Lake Galilee, visit the Capernaum, Visit St Peter’s Primacy and visit the Mount of the beatitudes.
Monday 24th: Drive from Tiberias, through the Jordan valley, to Qumran, then go for a “swim” in the dead sea, then on to Jerusalem. In the afternoon we visited Bethlehem and the Wi’am centre there.
Tuesday 25th: Visit the Yad Vashem (Jewish holocaust memorial museum) in morning, visit Tabeetha school in Joppa in the afternoon.
Wednesday 26th: All day; discover Jerusalem; including walking the stations of the cross, going to gethsemane and the wailing wall.
Thursday 27th: Attempt visit to the UN in Jerusalem, then free time.
Friday 28th: Fly home…

thats the trip in a nutshell. I’ll be coming back to look at specific aspects of the trip more closely over the next few days.

peace out

Chris

Jonnie and Susie have asked the family to choose flowers to lay at her grave on saturday. They’ve decided they want to lay a single red rose on her coffin, which will be white. Linda and I want to get pink gerberas(how on earth do you spell that!?!?) while Ann and Andrew are toying with getting flowers in the shape of a teddy bear for her.

Jonnie and Susie asked Andrew and I tonight to be pallbearers. We don’t have to carry the coffin to the grave but the 4 of us (Jonnie and his Dad too) will be lowering her down. I’m so touched and honored to be asked to do such a thing, but so scared too. I’m terrified of messing that part up somehow……..

It’s such a lovely feeling that they want me to be a part of that though. i know thats selfish, but it feels good to have something useful to focus on, other than hugging everyone as I do! It’s going to be such a hard day, even harder than all this week. We’re all dreading it, wishing it hadn’t come to this.

Heard a lovely story today from one of Linda’s good friends: Vicky answered the door to another friend Gill, who had come to tell her of Iona passing away. Gill just burst into tears which vicky read correctly as Iona dying. So they just cried and hugged each other. Joshua, Vicky’s 3 year old son came in and said “Will I not get to meet baby Iona then?” to which Vicky replied “No darling, i’m sorry”. Joshua just looked at the 2 of them and said “Don’t be sad then, Iona’s with Jesus, he’ll look after her”. Possibly not 100% acurate on what they said, but it’s such a lovely story and makes me fill up everytime i think about it.

Thank you everyone for all your prayers and messages of support, they mean so much to us. We know so many people don’t know what to say, and we understand that. We’d rather hear from someone than have silence. The best phone calls Linda’s had in the last few weeks were with Vicky, they both just sat on the phone and cried together….

I just miss her so much, we all do. It’s amazing how close we all feel to her after 7 weeks of knowing her, kissing and cudling her, praying for her and talking to her.  Pray for Jonnie and Susie, they’re gonna need so much prayer in the coming days, weeks, months, years.

Peace out

Chris

(In pink, for Iona)

How do I speak of the indescribable to You
I will try to explain these feelings that are true
So looking to the sky I will sing and from my heart to You I bring

All of the words in all of my life that could never explain and never describe
All of my love, which is nothing to hide so I lift up my hands and I worship
I worship You

In your presence I forever choose to live
I will praise You for it’s all I have to give
So looking to the sky I will sing and from my heart to You I bring

All of the words in all of my life that could never explain and never describe
All of my love, which is nothing to hide so I lift up my hands and I worship

By Your grace You let me come talk to You
It’s not that I’m worthy I thank you Jesus
For the love that You have shown

All of the words in all of my life that could never explain and never describe
All of my love, which is nothing to hide so I lift up my hands and I worship

With all of the words in all of my life that could never explain and never describe
All of my love, which is nothing to hide so I lift up my hands and I worship
I worship You

In short, I’d love to be in a Church where I feel supported by the minister, where I have a minister that I can actually talk to without being patronised, surprisingly, I do have a clue about Youth ministry! I’d also love a family I could feel close to (parents/siblings wise, not wife wise), a family I could talk to about things. I’ve also been going through a real downtime in my relationship with God, I want to end the dwontime and begin again with God. I just struggle to spend time reading the Bible or praying, I don’t know why, I used to be really faithful at both those aspects of my faith, but I’ve fallen away recently.

So did anything happen at Youth Assembly to affect any of these things? With the Church/minister situation? No, not that I’m aware of yet anyway. Although, the 2 young people who went from Portlethen came back really excited about Jesus and Church, which i’m sure will feed into  what’s happening in Portlethen too. As far as my family goes, I think i just need a real dose of courage to actually speak to them about how distant I feel from them, but I suspect that’ll take a while with all the baggage I’ve got from and with them. I was definetly inspired and touched by God at the weekend. i’m not usually a fan of taize type worship sessions, but they always touch me when they’re done at NYA. I didn’t feel anything other than a touch of God, but it was enough. I also had a “pride” or “emotional” breakthrough. I’m not sure which yet, I’ve not been able to cry for the last 6 years, incidently, the last time I cried was at Youth Assembly 2002. I suspect the block came, because the last time I cried was over my ex, a relationship which left me with more baggage and was generally an unhealthy relationship, I just didn’t know how to recognize that at 17/18 years old. Anyway, this year, my niece, when 2 days old, was diagnosed with a heart condition requiring surgery. The last few weeks have been a real emotional roller coaster with everthing happening with her. Thoughout it all, I’ve done my usual and focused on being there for other people and burying my own emotions. I’ve had a stupid idea from when I was younger that tears = weakness. And given the last time I cried was about something that caused me so much pain. i’ve learned to bury feelings and rarely let them out. So anyway, i got a call on the Sunday night of NYA telling me that Iona (my niece) had contracted a blood infection and was not doing well at all. Linda was obviously quite upset when she was telling me all this, bt at the same time had her mum and dad with her. Over the course of the evening i felt quite distant from my family who were hurting, and then God used the worship session led by Fidge to break me, and I had a “good” emotional pray with Marjory and a comforting sit with Nicola, Ali T and Sarah Brown. So thats the changes that I’ve identified so far from the weekend! What about the event as a whole?

For me, it was a disappointing start, things didn’t seem to click as well as I’d (We’d?) hoped. Fair enough, it was the first time we’d tried the forma we had, but the Friday night session just didn’t seem to wrok at all. Whether it was what we did in the Healthy Relationships session that night or the fact that the small groups hadn’t really met each other, I can’t say for definite but i suspect the latter. The Saturday had a more positive start, Mark Yaconelli, the keynote speaker, was awesome. so passionate and heartfelt, so obviously a message from God for us, so, just awesome!! I can’t wait to get his talks downloaded!(once I remember where boycey said the would be). The morning session with the healthy relationships stuff went a lot better, and buoyed all our moods, which was quite nice. Though it felt kinda weird not really knowing what was going on in the rest of the “conversations”/”debates” whatever you want to call them. The afternoon seemed ok, though after only haveing beengetting into the debates for a session and a bit, I though it was maybe a wee bit too soon to all get together to work out where we were, but hey! Saturday evening i though was really good, the Burns supper. Meal was nice, the company at my table was awesome too. Enjoyed all the speeches, although I always get extremelly nervous when I’m required to do any sort of public speaking like that!! Thought the Toasts to the lads and lassies were pushing boundaries, especially with the Childrens ambassadors in the room. At this point, I have to say a huge thanks to my friend and roomate Scott McInnes. Being the consumate genius I am, I packed my entire Kilt outfit so I could be in tartan to do the immortal memory, except I left my Kilt in Aberdeen, but Scott, being the great guy he is, let me wear his Kilt(on the understanding I wore boxers, fair enough!). The Ceilidh that night was awesome, except for the basket dance when Laura Baxendale didn’t put her knee down in time and I got it full force in the crotch as Kenny and I were spinning her and Jamie! Stayed up very late that night with some friends, was great to spend time with them.

Sunday was also a really good day, including the God moment mentioned above!The debate sessions seemed to go really well in Healthy Relationships again. I’ve come to the conclusion that, despite some initial teething troubles, the format we went with this year worked quite well! I have to say, I didn’t think the lunches were the best, not when catering for 300 people, mostly under 25, not the most normal buffet I’ve experienced, bowls of seeds? dry pitta sandwhiches with olives and feta? Aye….  Anyway, had a Christmas dinner that night, which was ace, again my table was awesome company and as Ali T said “We’d never have the opportunity to really have Christmas dinner together”. Which is true, and it was lovely to hav the opportunity to do so together. The hootenany was alos that night, mostly good acts, the definite stand out for me was the “Unknown Magician”. Video available on facebook!! After everything on Sunday evening, I had another good night chatting to folks, including a really good chat with Andyb upstairs after everyone had gone to bed.

Monday was a good, but sad day. Sad because it was the last day, good because the final debate was really good and the closing communion was really good. Twittering during the final debate was really good, although it was a shame it was misused and taken down. I had lots of thoughts thrust into my head over the weekend and I’m sure many of them will appear on here! Overall the weekend, for me, was a positive experience, some bad points, but well outweighed by the positive points! I was really pleased by the lack of drinking this year, and am hoping that certain Impacters took note and that the word will spread that theres more to COSY events the drunken orgies!! But thats a post for another day! I think I rediscvered a wee bit about myself this weekend, a piece of me I don’t want to ever lose again. It was great, as always, to see friends again, although I’m never able to spend enough time with each of them at NYA! I’d love it to be a longer event! Mark Yaconelli was awesome, and I would totally recomend his writing to people, not just “Contemplative Youth Ministry” but the follow up book “Growing Souls” as well.

Shall be back on soon for more from the land of Chris

Peace out