This has been an interesting week, on Monday evening we hosted a group of Bridges for Peace Leaders, some like Rev. Rebecca Brimmer, president, CEO and Editor in Chief of BFP and her tour-guide husband, Tom, (old friends of ours) Cheryl  Hauer, the International Development Director and Daniel Kirchevel,  from the Jerusalem office who helped to co-ordinate the hosting evening, are all resident in Jerusalem. With them, we hosted Keith Buxton, the BFP National Director from Australia and the Canadian national Director, Eric Malloy.  All delightful people and amazingly well- informed about Israel and Judaism. The remainder of this group of over thirty were hosted by other families in Jerusalem, including our friend Jim Solberg the International Director for America.  For those who don’t know, Bridges for Peace is a “Jerusalem –based, Bible-believing  Christian organization supporting  Israel and building relationships between Christians and Jews worldwide through education and practical deeds expressing G-d’s love and mercy.”  BFP gives a great deal of financial help to Israel both to various projects and to needy families through their food bank and other sources. Before you ask, no, they definitely do not have ulterior motives and are not interested in converting us all to Christianity.

Shabbat evening we were delighted to receive a visit from our old friend, Canon Andrew White, now more usually known as The Bishop of Baghdad, who has been away from Israel for far too long, happily, he is again engaged in work here and will, hopefully, be visiting Israel more regularly. Just before writing this, we received the news that this morning he has become extremely ill (Andrew suffers from Multiple Sclerosis) and was on his way to hospital in Baghdad, he needs all our prayers for his speedy recovery.

On Wednesday we spent the day in Naharia at the Hospital for the Western Galilee in the Opthalmic Department, for Norman to have his second cataract removed  and, as on our previous  visit, were fascinated by the ethnic mix of patients, ranging from ultra-orthodox Jews to Arabs in various traditional garbs, (none of the women with their faced covered, I am happy to report) also many Druze, the men in their unusual loose trousers and tall white hats and various other religious ‘uniforms’ that we were unable to place.  During the Lebanon War, we were told that the hospital received a direct hit from a rocket which destroyed the Ophthalmic Unit. Mentioning that we were going to the hospital to Bridges for Peace Director Rebecca Brimmer on Monday, we were amazed to hear that it was BFP money that had rebuilt the Opthalmic department after the hospital was severely damaged by a rocket during the Lebanon War. We had not realized just how close we were to the Lebanon border until we looked out onto the foothills from the windows of the ward.