Love the Lord your God, listen to His voice and hold fast to Him, for the Lord is your life! Deut. 30:20


Thursday, June 27, 2013

A restaurant, the Herodium and a vineyard

Our time in Israel was wrapping up.
On this day, we were driven back to Bethlehem and 
stopped at the Shepherd's Tent Restaurant.


















From Tulsa, Diane and Marcia


Amy and Jan, North Carolina and Neal and Carol, Wisconsin

This was a local restaurant - not so much a touristy type place

 They enjoy their hooka bars.
"One elderly patron of an establishment in Turkey describes the advantages of the hookah lounge as follows:
"The important thing is not what you put in the pipe, but who is with you while you're smoking...it's a complete experience...in a cafe like this one, you find the good people, the old people, the interesting people. As long as there is a need for company and friendship, as long as people want to stop and think, there will be nargile cafes."
A disposable mouthpiece is provided for each user for hygiene reasons.



Leaving Bethlehem


This home belongs to one of the wives of King Hussein of Jordan.

This is the Herodian, the only fortress Herod named after himself.  It was to be his burial place. King Herod got his builders from Bethlehem, which is but 3 1/2 miles southeast.
He had it built by shaving off the top section of an oval-shaped hill and moving the earth to the adjacent hill, forming a volcano shaped base.

On top there was a Roman bath complex, banquet room, living quarters and colonnaded portico.
 Pat, from Texas



Those in Bethlehem who were victims of Herod's viscous murder of their babies, were daily reminded of this evil ruler.


On our way back, we stopped at a vineyard.




 "I am the vine - you are the branches"    He prunes us, He does not cut us off.  He wants each branch to be healthy, to bear fruit.  It is the work of the vine dresser to do what needs to be done to produce fruit.

"I will lift you up"  - see the rock?  The vine dresser is protecting the vine from moisture and rot.

Galatians 5:22-23  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

I will never forget how Steve F. taught us how to memorize the 9 fruit.  The 1st 3 have 1 syllable, the next 3 have 2, and the last 3 have 3 syllables.  I found that very helpful.

I guess it could be argued that it really was originally written like this:  But the fruit of the Spirit is love; which looks like this - joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.     That seems quite interesting to me.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Celebrating

This past weekend my mother celebrated her 87th birthday.
Josh's came up from Arkansas.  
After a 5 hour car ride, the children needed to run off some energy!


On Sunday morning, we went to Grace Hillsboro as a family.
 Josh helped with worship.



Walking home from church.

 Lunch!



After lunch!


That evening we went to Mom's place to celebrate her birthday!





 We went outside for a family picture.  Just as the timer was set to go off, Eli took off running.  I love Mom's bursting out in laughter and look at Allen's face!  And below, Eli is included.
 Never know with this fella!

On Monday, we went to sing with Dad at the home.

 and the cousins went to the Hillsboro pool.
















and made a trip to the Igloo for snow cones!


 On the last day, the cousins went on a walk by our home.  Here they are doing "Pooh sticks".

The wheat is ready to cut!  Miss those farm days when we would go back to the farm to do this.  These days, Al's brother has it hired so we no longer go out to help.
 Josh teaches my Arkansas grand kids about wheat.








 

Time for a cousin photo