Day 3 - Bethlehem & My new apartment

So when I left off, the plan was to go to bed. But somehow that did not happen. I stayed up until 6am. It was cool though. I spent time talking with Mary Eileen (Denver) and then Analia came in from Bolgaria. Somehow or another I managed to wake up at 9am. Shibolit made Turkish Coffee for me. It smells like Cedar (yes the tree - and it looks like there are little bits of bark in it too). It was very tasty (even though I disappointed Shibolit by putting milk and lots of sugar in it). Apparently, this particular type of coffee can only be found in Galilee (yes, like in the Sea of Galilee). Analia provided breakfast of Croisants stuffed with strawberry jam (yum!). Today we headed to Bethlehem for a small service. It took 2 buses to get there. As we drove through the area, i felt like I was in a ghost town. There were many abandoned buildings. Some looked like they were started and never finished. Much like Luke 14:28 ("Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish."). Like the drive from Tel Aviv airport to Jerusalem, the buildings in Bethlehem were all the same rectangular whitish/grey stone.
We were able to see one of the settlements that is causing so much of the fighting in this area. I quickly learned upon arriving in Jerusalem that there are 2 political colors here. Orange for supporting the settlements and Blue that don't support (Bear with me because I may have gotten that wrong). In any case, it's hard to combine this image of Bethlehem with what we Americans are most familiar with...Jesus' birth, the 3 wise men, the manger."O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see the lie...".
The service was really cool. The lesson was given in Arabic and translated to English. It was incredible to hear the bible preached in Arabic, to see a bible written in Arabic and to sing songs in Arabic. Yes, of course I tried to sing in Arabic. It was pretty difficult, but fun none the less. Of course we sang Sanctuary (in English) as well. The Arabic songs were very pretty. I did my best to sing along, but Arabic is super difficult to pronounce. The disciples there were great.
Leaving Bethlehem we had time to stop at the fruit stands. Most of us got grapes and nectarines. But Sara just had to have this monstrosity of a watermelon! I'm still not sure how she managed to carry it back to the bus!
Once we got back to Jerusalem it was time to move into my apartment. I have been sleeping in the church office because our apartment wasn't ready yet. My roommates are Mary Eileen (Colorado), Sharifa (who was detained at the airport for over 6 hours, apparently her name is Arabic although she is not. She's from NY), Cathy (Boston) and Elizabeth (Los Angeles). Elizabeth missed her flight so we're not exactly sure when she's coming in. My apartment is in the Old City in the Christian Quarter. There is also a household of brothers staying near us. So we all headed off in a couple of carloads to our apartment. We pulled up to Damascus gate (one of about 5 gates that lead into the city). According to Nubar, we've arrived. My first thought having been through the old city a few days earlier was, "how are we going to carry all of our luggage through town". I had been hoping that we were in a car friendly part of town. But no worries, because Nubar has it all planned out. He hired some little kid pushing a wooden cart to carry our stuff. But the cart was the coolest thing. The brakes on the cart was a small deflated tire that the boy would step on to slow down the cart. Very cool! The only problem was that we had a lot of stuff! So much that it was spilling over the cart. The boy looked concerned but I guess the price Nubar offered was right. So once we got through the gate, the fun began. The main street is about 1 and 1/2 lanes wide with stores flanking both sides and running down the middle. So in essence our cart was taking up a large portion of the street. Before I get to far along this tale and give you the wrong image. When I refer to street, I mean a cobblestone road. Ok, back to the story. Everything was going well with our luggage until we hit the first intersection. It took a bit of manuevering to turn the cart and even more to get it up the first few stairs. Yes, i said stairs! The entire trip to our apartment is uphill! It's on a very narrow street (about 1/2 a lane wide). I'm not sure how long it took to get our luggage to our apartment but we had to stop several times. The cart driver (the little boy) was sweating up a storm. People along the street would stop and help us. It was really cool to see the community spirit. The people weren't mad at all, they just wanted to help. Very inspiring. One tailor even offered his advice on how to get the cart moving again. It worked! They must have a lot of experience with this type of thing. At some point though it just became to ridiculous so we unloaded the suitcases and dragged them up the hill the remainder of the way.
The way to our place is packed with character. From the open air fruit/bread/veggie market at Damascus gate to the wild cats roaming thru the narrow streets. By the time we got to the door of our apartment half of us were excited, the other half really nervous.
We openeed the door to discover an open air space flanked by 2 rooms, a kitchen and a staircase. Our neighbor was also there. She totally took care of us until our keys arrived. Oh, I forgot to mention that our keys were with Aziz back at the church office.
Our flat was at the top of that narrow staircase! We walked in and were amazed! The intricately hand carved furniture, the leather floor cushions, the textiles on the chairs and the antiques were so incredible. For the record, Aziz threatened us about breaking anything.
The next step was to get the suitcases up the staircase. We were all exhausted, but we headed back downstairs. And to our suprise there were a handful of brothers there waiting to take our suitcases up to the apartment. Woo Hoo!
Once back in our apartment we got yet another suprise - There's a rooftop patio! You can see what seems like all of Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Spechlure (sp), and some other cool stuff that I haven't figured out yet - Absolutely Incredible!
Oh, I almost forgot. We were welcomed into our apartment by a giant cockroach! (Yuk!) He didn't last long though, once Marie Eileen got a hold of him. We made a trip to the market which is about 2 blocks from our apartment. The markets in the Christian Quarter are super tiny. you can't even turn around without knocking things over (which of course is exactly what happened). But we were able to get milk (3% fat which apparently doesn't require refrigeration until after its opened).
Highlites of the day: 1 - Our apartment rocks! 2- Singing songs with disciples in Bethlehem in Arabic and Hebrew 3 - There is a singing/chanting prayer that is done across the city with someone yelling from each side of the city. We could hear this from our apartment. It was very cool!

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