Catching Up

Well, my computer is not fixed yet so I'm using my husband's computer at work. There's no telling how long it will be before I will have a computer at home again. We've ordered a new hard drive for our laptop, but it may not be here for at least a week or two. We've found out more about our shipments -- not very good news I'm afraid. Our express shipment (the one that went by air) is sitting in Tel Aviv, an hour away, but we can't get it until our paperwork gets changed to say Jerusalem. It's just a technicality, but they won't release it to us until that's fixed. Now with the 4th of July holiday coming, there's no telling how long it will be! Our household goods shipment is the one that goes by ship, and they said that they've given them a no-later-than date of September 2nd!! They packed up our stuff on June 2nd, so that's 3 months!! I'm really hoping that it won't take that long. Anyway, I'll try to catch up on what's been going on here. I won't be able to post any pictures yet since I'm on a government computer, so those will come later.
Saturday we went to the Israel Museum. This museum has several exhibits, but the only one that interested us was the Shrine of the Book. This building was specially designed to house the Dead Sea Scrolls. No pictures were allowed to be taken inside, so I don't have those for you, but it was very interesting to see. When I can upload the pictures I took, I'll explain more about what these scrolls are, in case some of you don't know. This post will be long enough without going into all of that!
Sunday we set out to find this church that has eluded us so far. I know that Satan has been attacking us concerning this church because he has made it so difficult to find and has made it seem dangerous to even attempt to go there. But, as always, if you follow the Lord's will everything will work out perfectly. We found the church no problem this time, and the neighborhood didn't seem bad at all. In fact, I even found a nice little fabric store along the way -- I'll have to go back and explore that another day! We got to the church and they were very happy to see us. They were looking for us since I had talked to the pastor about visiting. There were only 12 people, including our four and the pastor, but it was wonderful just the same. They sung old-fashioned hymns with the 1st and 3rd verse being in Arabic, and the 2nd and 4th in English. Then the preacher got up and started his message with, "If this were the day of Pentecost then you could understand what I'm saying. But since it's not Pentecost, and I don't speak English, I'll use a translator." I really enjoyed his message too; even with the interruption of translation. You could tell that this man was on fire for the Lord and it was so good to see; especially here in this predominantly Jewish and Muslim world. Needless to say, we will be going back -- most likely joining -- and we even have a visitor to bring next week! The Lord did want us here after all -- it just took a little persistence to find it and faith to walk down these streets!
That brings us to today, which is Tuesday, the 3rd of July. What is so special about today? Today, 8 years ago, my first child was born. My beautiful little girl who is growing up so quickly into a beautiful young lady. She is such a help to me and a blessing to have in my life. We had a small party for her with her best friend in Okinawa, before we left. But, of course, we still wanted to do something for her today. I'm glad that I had the foresight to pack her presents in our luggage; they wouldn't have gotten here in time otherwise. I didn't have our usual decorations for the house, but I managed to find a bag of balloons at the mall and I decorated the living room with those. It's a tradition in our house for the kids to wake up on their birthday to a house full of decorations celebrating their day, so I wanted to do that for her. My husband is still very busy with work, but he made a point to say that he was taking a half-day today so that he could take his little girl to the zoo. We got to the Biblical Zoo and spent about 3 or 4 hours there looking at all of the different animals. Both of the kids had a wonderful time; and the grown-ups enjoyed it too. It's been a good birthday!!
I'm not sure when I'll be able to post again, but I hope it won't be too long.