Working in the Garden Tomb

Day 15-20

Wow, guys been a while since I’ve written on here ay?

Well dont worry, I didn’t just give up, there is a good reason. I’ve been ill all week. Haven’t been in work since tuesday. It’s been horrible actually! Well, I won’t go into the details of exactly what I was sick with, it was basically food poisoning. We think it was to do with the fact we left washing up on the side for ages and then cause of the heat here in Israel, bacteria grew on it, and then when we washed them up and used them again, it got into our food. Yum yum! But the good news is, I’m alright now, and today is Saturday, my first full day back at work! Unfortunately, it is also my last full day at work, cause all I have is a half day Monday, then we leave on Tuesday! It will be sad to go, but I’m also extremely looking forward to coming home as I have missed everyone so much! Can’t wait to see you all!

So today is hopefully gonna be a pretty laid back day to break me into it easily as I haven’t done a proper tour in a while due to being ill.

Then tonight we are going out for a meal as it is saturday night once again, and the end of the week! :) as far as I’m aware we are going to a non-kosher Israeli restaurant which should be interesting. Although I’m a little nervous for my stomach!

Sorry again for such a late post! I would have posted sooner, you know, if I was dying and everything.

God bless

Tim.

Day 14

It’s been a really nice relaxing day.

I woke up at about 11 and just watched films all afternoon until about 4 30 when we had to leave for church at king of kings.

It was a good service and after it had finished we went to Mokishima for a Shawarma, and it was great. I love Schawarmaa so much!

It had been a really nice day, and then to top it off, I had a Skype phone call with my amazing friends who were all up North for Annies birthday weekend. Wish I could have been there, but it was great to hear their voices.
Guys, I don’t know if you’re reading this, but if you are…

I love you all! Thanks for being such amazing friends, and I can’t wait to start the new year of college with you all. I miss you!

God bless,

Tim.

Day 13

Saturday had finally arrived and it was only one more day to the weekend!

The morning looked very quiet, so Richard said that me and Dan could have the morning off to do some sightseeing! We decided to go the Israel museum for the morning. It was a very interesting place, and very well designed.

The first thing we went to look at, and I think the thing that we were both most interested in was the dead sea scrolls. It was fascinating to see the real dead see scrolls! It is also one of the only places where Isaiah 53 is on display in Israel. It was amazing to see them in real life.

We then went onto the other sections of the museum. There were 7 more rooms, and unfortunately due to the fact I hadn’t eaten, my attention span was not very high at all. It didn’t help either that it was a saturday so all the Jewish food places were closed. Not only that, but as it is Ramadan, all the Palestinian food places are closed till 7 30 as well so there was nowhere to eat! We had to wait till we got back to the garden which was torture!

The afternoon was fairly busy with a constant flow of people. I gave my first tour to a Mormon couple since been here. It was quite interesting. They kindly informed me after “we believe you! We don’t need convincing. We believe this IS the spot, because our modern day Mormon prophet has said it is, and we trust our prophet!”. Very interesting to see how misguided they really are.

For the evening we went out for dinner, all of the volunteers that is, to a restaurant literally a 30 second walk away to eat to end the week, and then returned to the garden to watch “the kings speech”. It was an enjoyable time and a nice way to end the week!

God bless,

Tim.

Day 12

Today was another good day. It started off the same as any other.
A very quiet morning (which by now we have got used to), and then a busier afternoon, much like most days.

However, this afternoon I had one tour which was very interesting indeed. I started off the tour by speaking about myself and why I was working in the Garden. I always say about how I’m studying at regents for a degree in theology. Once I had got to the end of my introduction, the father of the family I was showing around told me that he was the Principle at All Nations bible college! And he had visited regents himself a year or two ago. So this made things a lot more interesting, and also put me under a bit of extra pressure to make sure I got all my facts right!
The tour went very well and they thoroughly enjoyed it and congratulated me on the tour afterwards. They were very nice people.

In the evening, we decided we would go to the Church of the Nazarene service just down the road. The pastor there is someone I showed around the garden recently and is only young himself (late 20’s I’d say). We enjoyed the service a lot! It was great. Very laid-back, with a lot of young people. We were all sat on comfy chairs and sofas and it was very enjoyable. Afterwards we had cake and were invited to the church the following week for a meal, as well as to the house group on the Wednesday, so I am definitely looking forward to that.

It was a great day, and a great night!

God bless,

Tim.

Day 11

When the week gets to Thursday night, you can always start to see Sunday getting nearer and nearer. As much as I love working in the Garden Tomb as a tour guide, it is also extremely tiring! Getting up at 6am every morning and working through until 6pm isn’t exactly an easy job! Sunday is always my first day off for the weekend so I certainly look forward to it.

Today has been a fairly busy day actually, I have done 3 tours, and although that doesn’t sound like many, that was actually quite a busy three groups as they were so big.

Each of them were different and from different parts in the world. That is one of the things that I love about working in the Garden Tomb, getting the opportunity to meet so many new, different people from everywhere in the world. Different nationalities, different cultures, different lives!

Today was the day that we said goodbye to Iain, which was a sad day. He came to our apartment for lunch before he left and we fed him sandwiches so that he did not need to mess up his cleaned kitchen. He then went off to the airport at about 1 15. 

After work, I put on my first wash since being here! Now, that doesn’t exactly sound like the kind of exciting news that you would put into a blog, but I tell you what, it was difficult! The washing machine instructions were all in another language, and all of the setting were in another language and I just seriously didn’t know what to do! Fortunately I guessed, and guessed correctly as my clothes came out fine and clean!

I am starting to miss home a lot more as well now, and certainly miss all of my college friends a lot! You might not be reading this, but if you are, I MISS YOU A LOT, and I really can’t wait to start back in October at college together again.

Another day finished, not many to go now.

God Bless,

Tim. 

Day 10

Wednesday evening, and I’ve had a good but tiring day.

This morning there were very few tours at all, in fact, I didn’t take one all morning again! You can certainly understand why people say that august is the quietest month here. Hard to believe that at some points in October they can have 3000 visitors in a day.

At lunch time we went out and got some more food for our kitchen as we were seriously lacking in it.

The afternoon was a lot more busy for me, I had 3 tours in the space of around an hour and a half and it was hard work!

The first group I had was a group of 3 girls from the UK! Woohoo British people! They seem to be quite an anomaly here in the garden, but I managed to find some. They were researching for one of the girls dissertations. Next, after them, I took round a group of Americans and one south African. They were a lively group and quite talkative. Was hard to get them quiet to do the tour!! And then finally a group from somewhere in Africa, and with that group I had a few more British people tag along that knew Richard and Rosalind.

All in all a tiring day!

Then in the evening we had Iain round for tea as it was his last night. It is sad to see him go, but was nice to have a time of fellowship with him. I’d like to be able to say that we cooked the meal ourselves, but there is a very kind lady here called Connie who had some food we could have, so she gave us a chilli con carne as well as a lemon desert. It was delicious!

Tired now, and certainly ready for bed.

God bless,

Tim.
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Day 9

it’s Tuesday evening and I’m relaxing after the fellowship of the night. It was a good evening. We walked around the garden praying and singing worship songs before returning to the house for tea and some Ramadan deserts. I then asked if we could spend some time praying for the UK and all the riots taking place even as we spoke.

The rest of the day had been fairly quiet. The morning was so quiet with regards to tours that myself and Dan were cleaning benches all morning instead. It was hard work! But it was better than sitting around doing nothing. Then in the afternoon, I had the quietest afternoon yet with not 1 tour all afternoon! Very boring!

So yes, not much to report on today really. Sorry it’s so short!

Goodnight, and stay safe through these horrible riots.

Tim.
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Day 8

My first official day off (except for sunday) started with a 4 45am wake up! Not exactly what you’d expect for a day off, but we had booked a one day tour to go to Nazareth and the sea of Galilee. The coach left from a nearby hotel at 6am so we had to be ready, and then walk to the hotel.

The trip took us to a number of locations, all of which were incredibly interesting! If I was to write about all of them we would be here all day! So I will just list the different locations that we visited.

First we drove to Nazareth and visited the church of Announciation as well as St Josephs church. The COA is the church commemorating the place where Mary was spoken to by the Angel about her being pregnant with the Messiah. St Josephs church is the place where it is believed that Mary, Joseph and Jesus lived!

We then drove through Cana and on into visit Caperneum, before we moved on to the church of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes. (a bit of a mouthful hey?) There was an incredible mosaic here covering the entire floor of the church. It was beautiful.

We then went for lunch at a restaurant by the sea of Galilee where we ate St Peters Fish! It’s the same fish that Jesus and the disciples would have been fishing for over 2000 years ago, so it was amazing to eat that. It was quite tasty as well!

Next we visited the Jordan river, and had time to look around a paddle in the water. It was interesting to see different people getting baptised in the river, however it was quite commercialised. “buy your tshirt saying ‘i got baptised in the Jordan river!’” along with bottled “holy water” from the Jordan river for only 10 Shekels! “put this in your house and your house will be blessed for a life time”! The commercialisation was a shame, but it was still interesting to see the original site.

After this, it was time to head home and we drove through the Jordan Valley. It was incredible to see. It really got me thinking about Moses’ time in the wilderness, as it was basically just a desert. And at 40 degrees, it wasn’t exactly cold!

We’ve finally arrived back in the garden tomb and I am well and truly shattered! But I enjoyed the day so much, and it was good to get out of Jerusalem!

God bless,

Tim.

Day 7

Today was a good day! It’s Sunday, and my first lie in of my time in Jerusalem. I didn’t get out of my bed until nearly 11 o’clock and this was incredible!

For lunch, we decided we’d attempt to make a roast, I mean, it’s Sunday after all! What could go wrong?… Everything.

We spent nearly three hours trying to make a roast and ended up with a meal that was meant to have roast chicken, but ended up being a few sausages (and I’m not even sure what meat the sausages were made of, but it certainly wasn’t pork) along with carrots, peas, and a few roast potatos. Oh well! I suppose we still can’t complain, some people would dream of a meal like that!

After our poor attempt at making a roast, we went to King of Kings church in Jerusalem for the evening service at 5pm. It was an English speaking service, but still had some songs in Hebrew which was an interesting experience! The church is associated with AOG and meets in a cinema screen. It’s an impressive set up, and probably the most high tech church I’ve been to (sorry BCC).

The service was a really enjoyable service, and the speaker was quite incredible! His name was Joe Amaral, and he spoke on the Jewish roots of christianity. It was really quite eye opening! In order to understand a lot of what Jesus did, it’s important to remember that he was Jewish, so we need to understand the Jewish background! It was a great service. I went on to buy his book “understanding Jesus” afterwards.

After the service there was an interview with American Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, which was a great experience to see an interview with a Jew who supports Christianity even though he has debates with many messianic Jews. It was a good time!

We then went on to have a Shawarma after the service in Ben Yehuda street. This is a main street for nightlife in west Jerusalem. It was a delicious Shawarma!

God bless,

Tim.