God's Chisel

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No picture this time...

It's June 29th and this is our first genuine day off this month! Every other day we've been working, or travelling, or both. Even so, we'll be going in to the Ellel East base this evening to welcome Slovaks who have come for a Holiday Week at beautiful Úr Rétje.

Meanwhile, we've been shopping for trees. We got six Russian Olives to make a hedge across near the bottom of the garden, and a Weeping Cherry to replace the much-lamented Weeping Pussy-Willow which succumbed to rot earlier this month. Total cost for all seven less than 10,000 forint or about £30. We love Hungarian garden centres!

Mystery Egg

We found this egg under a bush in our garden - but where on earth did it come from? We've never seen any hens in the garden, and it's too big for anything else. Mystery! Please use the "Comment" link for suggestions, because we're baffled.

Bulgarian Wedding

We are sitting in a church in Plovdiv where a wedding is taking place. This is the same church where we have been teaching all week. We were asked to speak words of encouragement and blessing to this couple, and it was a real privilege to be able to do this.

The Sword of the Spirit in Plovdiv, Bulgaria

This is the first Ellel Modular School in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. We have nearly 50 students learning about the ministry of healing and restoration. We try not to emphasise "deliverance" because they are sometimes a little too keen on it...

However we were very impressed when Pastor Angel (what a good name!) took a long shiny sword during worship and started to cut off religious spirits from the people! This was a wonderful symbolic act.

This was not "Our Finest Hour"

When the State of Israel was re-born in 1948, thousands upon thousands of Jews wanted to return to their homeland - but the British actively prevented them and would only allow 1,500 per month to return "legally". Boatloads of refugees were intercepted and turned back. Sometimes the passengers were interned in Cyprus before being sent back to Europe. Some of the boats were sunk by the British Navy, with great loss of life.
Those Jews who avoided the British patrols and entered Israel "illegally" were rounded up and sent to the internment camp at Atlit near Haifa.
Here they were met again by barbed wire and watchtowers.
It looked just like the camps they had just left, only now the guards were British.
First they had to go to the shower block where they were de-loused and their clothes were put in a giant pressure-cooker. Many were traumatised by this - they knew what happened in "showers" in internment camps.
Then they were sent to the bare wooden huts.
They had to live in the huts for weeks or even months. Their belongings were hung from the rafters to keep them away from the rats. Men and women were separated, husbands and wives were in different parts of the camp.

They were prisoners in their own country. Some managed to escape, and once there was a mass breakout. They walked many miles through the night to a kibbutz on Mount Carmel where the local people protected them from the British patrols.
This was not "Our Finest Hour". Britain turned its back on the people of Israel, partly in order to appease Arab interests. From that time, an empire which covered 25% of the Earth's land surface has shrunk to nothing, and Britain's influence and reputation in the world has gone rapidly downhill. Will we never learn? Will we ever repent?

The Druze

This is a Druze village on the slopes of Mount Carmel near Haifa. The Druze are followers of a very secret religion which started as an offshoot from Islam. You have to be born a Druze; there are no converts. Only a very small number of Druze - the "Sages" - know all the teachings of the religion.
This poster (despite the supposed secrecy) is intended to show the history and structure of Druze belief. No, I don't understand it either. Never mind.

Haifa and Carmel

This is the Kehilat Ha-Carmel, the Carmel Assembly, a big Messianic centre on the top of Mount Carmel. This was our second visit there, the first being in January of last year.
Inside we were able to hear once again the vision for the "One New Man", united in Yeshua Ha-Mashiach, destroying the division between Jewish, Arab and Gentile Believers.
Back in Haifa we spent more time looking at the amazing view over the harbour.

Elijah on Carmel

This statue is almost certainly at the place where Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal. There is a wonderful view over the valley of Armageddon.

Haifa

This is the amazing view from our hotel window looking over the port and bay of Haifa. We're looking forward to a great week!

Strictly for train fans

Chris and I have always liked travelling by train, but for me it's more than just "liking". There is something special about trains that no other form of transport can match. Here are some examples:

This is the real thing! A communist-era Hungarian locomotive preserved at the transport museum in Budapest.


Here's something else from the communist times: an interesting use for a Russian "Chaika" limousine.


I think I'd call this the "Darth Vader Train".


Here is a view from the Pannonia Express as it speeds through rural Romania on its 14-hour trip from Bucharest back to Budapest.


Back in Hungary, this is a preserved "forest railway", a former logging line in Lillafured.


Here, a local train trundles across the Lake Tisza Nature Reserve on the Great Plain.


Finally, this is our "Ellel East Regional Nations" team, plus families, boarding another "forest railway", this time at Szilvasvarad near the Slovakian border on our day out last week. Wonderful!