Tennessee Volunteers #2

Hello dear families and friends.
Today (Monday)was a beautiful day. We delivered the food baskets we prepared last night and met some truly lovely families. We are finding the Palestinians to be warm, inviting and very open. We saw lovely gardens outside most of their homes (no grass and the only thing green is the leaves on the trees, but still beautiful) with olive, fig and pomegranate trees. We learned that when you visit a Palestinian home and are invited to drink tea or coffee, it is impolite to say no. And while it was delicious, it became clear that you can only do so many visits in a morning because it’s also impolite to ask to use their facilities! But it was worth every sip to have the opportunity to visit.

After we finished delivering all of the food, we visited the Church at Emmaus. It was once a very popular tourist site, but is now rarely visited because of the separation of Palestine from Israel. We walked on the original Emmaus road where Jesus met the two believers whose eyes were opened and they knew Him. We broke bread together as we lunched on another part of the ancient road just outside of Emmaus. We were high on a hilltop and you could see all the way to Ramallah in the background. All along the hillsides as far as we could see are step agricultural plots with ancient (1000 year old) hand-made rock walls. It’s very dry here because it’s only rained twice since last April. One of those days was yesterday. Thank you Lord. This evening we made more food and hygiene bags which we will deliver tomorrow.

Our apartment is in a very busy part of the city. We can see a lot from our 4th floor (no elevator, 71 steps) apartment. J Our legs are getting a very good work out and there is no need for additional aerobic exercises! We had a group of friends visit this evening for a meeting of the minds. It was an incredibly passionate time of unity. T’s big take-away today was walking through the city when a little boy about 10 years old pointed at him out of the blue and said “I love you, do you love me?” T’s immediate delighted response was “Yes, I do” and the little boys face lit up. A connection made thousands of miles from home. Thank you for your prayers. We are praying for you as well.