This Could Go Very Bad

What a day!  We started off with the pyramids and ended with the Egypt Museum where the mummified remains of Tutankhamun and all the contents from his tomb are kept.

My last post was called "Never a Dull Moment".  This day beat the last for sure.  Our first stop was at the Pyramids of Giza.  Last night Rania, our guide warned us to be careful about the very aggressive vendors selling their souvenirs.  She said, "Sometimes they will put things in your hand and tell you that it's free, and then once it's in your hand they have their hook set and it will be hard to get free."  She reiterated that same caution this morning.  "Just say, 'No thank you!' and walk away", she cautioned.  She also said that they would tell you to get on their camels and tell you that the ride is free and then not let you off until you pay them what they ask.

Well, I got off the bus and a couple of the ladies in the group said that they were afraid to walk around by themselves, so I said that I would be glad to let let them tag around with me.  I would be their knight in shining armour.

No sooner did I get off the bus than one of those aggressive vendors.  "No thanks" I said, with a voice of authority.  "Where are from?" one of them queried.  "Canada", I said politely.  "Canada Dry, never die!" came the reply back.  "Um, yah", said I.  One of them offered me an Arab head dress "for free. No pay."  I rejected him firmly.  "No, I don't want it.  Thank you."  "Look", he said, "I'm not bad guy.  I give you.  Welcome to Egypt!"  He put it in my hand.  I tried to give it back, but they refused to take it.  "Present!  You keep, free from Egypt."  I tried to walk away.  I stopped to take a photo of the pyramid and two of them moved into the frame of the photo.  I snapped the shot against my better judgement.  Then two of them came over to me and took my hat off and put the headdress on me.  "I don't want it," I pleaded firmly.  "Why? It's free.  Take it."  Then, they forcefully pulled me over to their camel, they physically lifted me up while I was try to plead with them to stop.  At that point, their was a lot going through my mind.  First of all, I was trying not to laugh because it was kind of funny.  I could imagine what it must have looked like to an onlooker.  And speaking of onlookers, what happened to those women who said that they were going to tag along with me.  They fled the scene as soon as they saw what was happening.

But, at the same time, I was thinking this could go very wrong.  And it did go from bad to worse.  They took my camera from me and said that they would take my photo on the camel.  "Don't worry.  We aren't bad people.  Welcome to Egypt!"  I actually didn't feel very welcome at that point.  Then they led me away from the group whilst I was begging them to let me down.  "I don't want this", I said.  "I want to go to the pyramid."  There were five of them by now.  I was starting to get angry.  "Let me off," I yelled, while they continued to lead me away.  "Look, I've had enough.  I'm done.  Let me down."  "You pay me 400 pounds."  "What?  Why should I pay you 400 hundred pounds? You forced me up on your camel?"  "We are poor.  You take advantage of us.  We have family."

The banter went on like this for quite some time with me sitting on top of the camel.  In my younger days I would have just jumped off, but with my bad back and knees I didn't want to chance it.  So, there I was helpless and pleading.  Finally, they let me down.  I asked for my camera.  "$50", the aggressive one said.  "No, I'm not giving you $50.  Give me my camera."  Then they surrounded me and started pushing, and they wouldn't stop.  I walked with purpose towards the guy with the camera and said with my most authoritative voice, "Give me my camera back."  He handed it to me, and then the aggressive one started pushing me again.  Just then, one of the tour bus drivers, who was talking with Simon, our bus driver tapped on Simon on the shoulder and pointed over at me.  Simon walked briskly over and stared the guy down.  They argued back and forth in Arabic and we walked back to the bus.  I was a bit shaken up, but I wanted to get some more photos so I walked over to the pyramid and snapped a few.
Once back on the bus, I excitedly told everyone that I got some good material for my blog.  All in a day's work.

After that we went to the Great Sphinx.  We took a few shots there.  We got some teaching from Rania.    She said that the materials used for the pyramids are singly hewn stones, some of them weighing 15 tons.  And there are thousands of them.  We still don't know what kind of technology they could have used to construct these amazing structures.  I can't even imagine how we would do it today with our modern machinery let alone how they could do it in the ancient world without the convenience of the big machinery we have at our disposal.

After that we went to the Egypt Museum.  We weren't allowed to take cameras in, so I have no photos. I don't like museums at the best of times, but this was fascinating.  We saw the mummified remains of Tutankhamun, Ramses III, and many others good looking Egyptians.

I am dead tired now.  I've been falling asleep while typing for the last hour.  I'd wake up and forget what I was doing until I gained my composure.  I don't have the energy to write anymore.  Our wake up call is at 6:00am and breakfast at 6:30.  We are off to Mt. Sinai, to the Red Sea, and then our midnight camel ride up the Mountain to view the sunrise at 5:00am.

It was a great day!  The adventure with the vendors made it more interesting than I had anticipated.  God is good!  We are enjoying our time with him and with each other.

I'm not sure if I will have internet tomorrow, so I may or may not be able to do post a blog until a day or two later.

Blessings, and keep growing in Christ,

PJ

Never a Dull Moment

Catching Some Zeez

The Twelve Disciples at YVR

Cristina Resting in London

At the time of writing this, we were about 200 miles from London on our British Airways flight. We had a bit of a scare at the airport in Vancouver.  I arrived at International Departures at about 5:15 with two members of our group,  Cameron and Donna Treloar. Cam is a good friend I went to Bible college with back in the day.  Immediately upon walking through the doors I saw Cristina leaning against a column waiting with her baggage.  The others trickled in. Malou, Fae, Justin, Sandra, Ria, Cathy, and finally, longtime friends, Rand and Shirley arrived.  Their flight from Calgary was delayed, so they arrived later than planned. We got our baggage dropped off fairly quickly, everyone, that is, with exception of Justin.  He has a Philippines passport,  and the ticketing agent said that she wasn't going to let him board because he needed a visa to get to Egypt.  She was very adamant that there was no way that she could allow him to go with us.  

I called Brian Watt from www.christian-journeys.ca and asked him to talk to her.  No luck.  I asked Justin how would feel if he was rejected.  He said he would be disappointed, but he would be ok because it's in God's hands.  My heart was very moved to see Justin's faith in God.

I suggested we gathered in a circle and pray for God to intervene.  At the same time, Brian prayed with his family in Ontario.  A couple minutes later a different ticketing agent came and motioned for Justin to come to the ticket desk.  We started heading that way, and Cam hollered for him to come back and get his suitcase as a display of faith.  She told Justin that she would check him in, and hoped that things would work out once we got to Cairo.  We were so thankful to God.  We publicly praised his faithfulness.



Our flight was delayed an hour, which meant that we had lots of time before boarding our plane.  Everyone was pumped and eagerly anticipating God to speak to us on this trip.  He had already proved himself faithful.  We went through security and then gathered to pray God's blessing on our journey.  We prayed that our hearts would be right and that we would be ready to receive whatever the Spirit of Jesus has to say to us.

Justin and Ria en route to Cairo from London

Our flight to London was nine hours or so.  For some reason the seats seemed a little more cramped than what I can remember from other flights I have taken.  Maybe I'm gaining weight, or maybe I'm getting older.  Both are true, but I'm not sure if they were a factor in my perception the space seemed smaller.  All in all, it was as comfortable as can be expected in economy.  I was, of course, envious of the luxurious, roomy stations that the first class guests had, but hey, we are all so thankful that we get the opportunity to go on this trip. 

We had a couple hour layover in London.  Some members of the group got some shuteye, while others did some window shopping.

While waiting to board our connecting flight, Cam struck up a conversation with an Orthodox priest.  He beckoned me to come over an meet "my brother."  We chatted for a bit.  He told me that his name is Theophilos.  The name sounded familiar, then I realized that it is the same name as the recipient of of Luke's Gospel and his Acts of the Apostles.  He urged us to come and visit him in Alexandria while we are in Egypt.  I don't think we'll be able to but, it was interesting to talk with him.

We boarded our flight to Cairo and just under five hours later we arrived in the land of pyramids and Mt. Sinai.  We walked off the plane onto the tarmac.  The weather was quite mild, about 20 degrees Celsius.  We boarded a bus that took us to the terminal and were met by a guy with a sign, "GERMO GROUP".  "I'm Simon", he said.  "Simon Hani.  Like honey."  I was so thankful to see him.  He gathered us together, put our visas in our passports and the whole group went through security in less than ten minutes.  By the time we got through our luggage was already on the conveyor.  I was impressed. 

We put all our luggage together and a customs officer came over and asked if we had anything to declare.  "No", I said.  And then he was off.  Another guy came and loaded our luggage on a trolley and pulled it out where we were met by Rania, our tour guide.  They took us to our 50 passenger bus.  We have four seats each.

Before driving to our hotel, Rania asked me if I wanted to say anything to the group through the microphone in the bus.  I thank her and reminded everyone to not eat anything raw, or drink the tap water, while we are here because, I know from experience how uncomfortable it is to have a bug as a travel companion.   Then I prayed for protection and God's blessing our journey.  I prayed for blessing of Rania and for Simon and our driver.  When I was done she said that she liked traveling with church

 

Cathy and Sandra in London

groups because everything seems to go so much better than with other groups.  "God seems to go ahead of the group", she said.

We are settled in our rooms.  It's 3:35 am right now.  We have a wake up call in less than four hours.  We have breakfast from 8:00 to 9:00 am and then to the bus for departure at 9:00.  We were thankful that Rania suggested we could sleep in this morning since we are a bit sleep deprived.

Tomorrow is a full day.  The Pyramids, the Great Sphynx, and the Egypt Museum.

I am closing this off with a very thankful heart.  I wonder what God has in store for us.  I am going to keep my eyes open for divine appointments.  God is going ahead of us.  We can expect something good.

Shalom

PJ

One More Sleep

One more sleep until we take off to Egypt.  I am so very excited.  I haven't had a good night's sleep in a couple weeks.  So much to do.  I'm usually a last minute packer.  And when I say last minute, I mean last minute.  This time I am getting ready one day ahead.  I impress myself.

We fly out Sunday night at 8:30ish.  We have a small group this time.  Last time we were 42.  it was good, but I'm looking forward to a more intimate cadre of Jesus followers.  We are twelve. That seems like a good number to follow the footsteps of Jesus in Israel.  Twelve disciples, following, learning, growing, becoming -- like him.

The stone I am sitting on in the above photo is one of the places that we know Jesus would have walked on.  For almost two weeks the twelve of us will go to places where Jesus and his disciples would have walked.  We will learn some history.  We will become more familiar with our Bibles.  We will experience the geography of the land where Jesus was born, raised, crucified, and then victoriously resurrected, and ascended to heaven.  As we walk in those places we will meditate on Scripture.  We will, at times, be overcome by emotion with the thought that our Lord and Saviour walked in the very same places.

Reading our Bibles will never be the same.  The topography of the land will jump off the page at us.  When we read about Jesus healing the man at the pool of Bethesda in John 5:1-18 we will imagine him in the very place that we experienced.  When we read about Jesus asking his disciples what the word on the street is about him in Matthew16:13-20, and then asks them who they say he is and Peter rightly answers that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, we will picture the place at Caesarea Philippi.  We will see the great rock wall that Jesus likely alluded to when he called Peter "The Rock".

This will be my third trip to The Land.  I am more excited than ever.  I know what to expect this time, but I am also expecting Jesus to speak to me in a new way.  I am going to drink in the teaching of Eitan, our tour guide.  I am going fall more in love with Jesus.

Please pray for our group.  You can click on this link and follow the place where we will be each day.  I will be trying to blog on a daily basis again so that you feel like you are there with us.  Pray for safety.  Pray that our hearts would be open to how the Spirit of Jesus wants to speak to us.

Pray for me as I will be spending a few extra days to connect with the Hebrew family that I stayed with last time I was in Israel.  I will stay with the Freiman family for four days.  I am looking forward to having more deep conversations about real life things.

Thanks for walking with me on my journey.

Pastor Jeff