Working in the Garden Tomb

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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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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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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.

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.

Okay, so it turns out, that my timing in writing my blogs is rubbish. Saturday afternoon I thought to myself “I’ll just write today’s blog at lunch as nothing interesting is going to happen in the afternoon, and I’m just going to a BBQ tonight.” Little did I know that I has quite an interesting afternoon to come.

First of all, within about half an hour of the Garden opening after lunch, a group of tourists came up to me asking for help. I couldn’t really understand what they were saying as they were buddhists, but I followed after them to see what was wrong. Turns out that one of the men had been looking into the cistern, and his glasses had dropped in. This was a first for the garden tomb and we really weren’t quite sure what to do. Fortunately the glasses had managed to hang on one of the steps of the ladder.

Fraser and myself set to work at trying to open the lowest door to the cistern to get at the ladder. It took quite some getting into as it hadn’t been opened for years! However, eventually we managed to get inside. The Buddhist man then climbed down the ladder, into the massive cistern that can hold nearly 1 million litres of water, and got his glasses back.

The final eventful episode of my day occured when I took a south African group around the garden. They seemed like lovely people, and were clearly all christians. However, I had just finished speaking about the first part of the tour when the leader got up and asked if he could quickly say something about it as he was going to be preaching on it later in their communion service. Unsuspectingly I said yes. Little did I know that he was just about to start rambling on about a load of rubbish, speaking about an archaeologist who claims he has uncovered the Ark of the Covenant, and this same archaeologist has discovered the exact site of Jesus’ crucifixion. Apparently he knows this because he found the rolling stone at the site. He claims that the disciples carried it from the tomb to the site of the crucifixion (bear in mind this stone weighed around 3 tonnes! That’s some pretty beefy disciples) and used the stone as the base of a meeting place after the crucifixion. Everything he was saying was a load of rubbish! I couldn’t do anything about it though as he had already started. I just had to let him say his piece.

It was clear from my face that I wasnt happy, but I continued with the tour the same as I would with any. Then when I got to the last stage of the tour, I tried with all my might, in a kind way, to cancel out everything the man had said at the start of the tour, and save the minds of this poor misguided tour group, by laying out what the garden tomb believes on the matter. I got a few “amens” so they must have agreed with something I said! Of course he still went on to preach about it in his sermon, but there was nothing I could do about that!

So to think, i nearly missed out on giving you all that information!

God bless,

Tim.

I know what you’re thinking. You think that I forgot to do this blog yesterday. Thought that I wouldn’t be able to keep it up for the whole trip hey? Well, usually you would probably be right. I would have given up by now, but this time I am determined to keep this blog up for my entire trip!

The reason that I actually decided not to write for yesterday was because I did not have as much to write about yesterday and thought I didn’t want to waste a blog, so I would double up on today’s and yesterday.

Yesterday was a fairly quiet day, and just a normal one by most accounts. I took around various groups including another group which required translation which was an Indonesian group and was quite interesting!

For the evening once again I just had a relaxful night as I didn’t get much sleep the night before!

This morning I decided to treat myself to a bit of an extra lie in! I started doing my daily mopping at 6 30 instead of 6! What a treat!

The morning has gone pretty well so far! I am writing this at lunch time, and still have the afternoon ahead.
I had an interesting group with me this morning. They were a group of Archaeologists who were working on an excavation around the Jerusalem area. This of course meant that I had to be careful that I got all my facts right as they would have certainly known what they were talking about!
The tour itself went very well. However they asked me three or four questions that were really quite difficult and I honestly couldn’t answer. I managed to apologise and then put in quite a few jokes which got them laughing and they seemed to be able to forgive me for not knowing because of the jokes! I then went and found out the answers from Phillip afterwards and reported back to the group to answer there questions.

Tonight we are having a BBQ on the roof to celebrate the end of the week, I’m quite looking forward to that! I have to make a potato salad to take with me.

Hopefully updates on this blog will be every day, but if there is a quiet day, I might double up like I have done with this blog.

God bless

Tim

First of all, I would just like to apologise for some of the appalling spelling and grammar in my previous posts. As some of you will know I have an iPad, and it isn’t the easiest thing to type on, so when you are writing messages as long as this sometimes you make mistakes! No doubt I will make more even in the post, but at least I have apologised in advance!

Today started off much like yesterday, and in the same fashion I took around a few smaller tours in the morning. This time I really felt as though I was getting the hang of it. My script was memorised, and I was even adding in more jokes to relax myself a little, the tourists seemed to like them as well!

For lunch, we decided to go to downtown Jerusalem for lunch. Jerusalem is a confusing place and it’s split into lots of parts. You have the old city which me and Dan visited last night, but down town Jerusalem is a separate part completely. It is split into 2 different areas, east and west jerusalem. The divide is literally one main road known as “route 1”. Either side of route one are like two different worlds. One side, the east, belonging to the palestinians, and then the other, the west, belonging to the Jews.

The main differences are that in east Jerusalem it is quite messy and the way the markets and stuff are laid out it’s like you have stepped back in time. West Jerusalem on the other hand is quite tidy, and the shops seem modern. Pretty much like any city in the UK. However, even though the shops are modern, the people most certainly are not. West Jerusalem has a lot of ultra orthodox Jews who I can only describe as looking like Amish people. It is incredible to see, and really does make you feel like you have stepped back in time.

We went to a nice place to get some food, and I had something that resembles a falafel, but has meat in instead and I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called! (anyone who knows, I would appreciate you commenting and telling me!) but it was delicious!! I really enjoyed it!

We then headed back for a very busy afternoon in the tomb. I took around three groups and by this point was really starting to feel my feet. I even lead round a group of people from Hong Kong and did my first tour with a translator. There were over 40 of them, so it was a great experience!

After all if this, it was the first evening since been here where I haven’t had something on the night, so I have literally sat and relaxed all night, and I’m just about to turn in for the night, ready for 6am wake up!

So, sleep well all you people who read this blog, and I’ll speak to you tomorrow ;)

Goodnight! xx

First full day of work started today, so I had to wake up at 5 45 in order to start mopping and cleaning the benches in the garden tomb for 6. I was doing this for around 45 minutes before coming back for a shower and breakfast. We then had to be back at the entrance for 8 15 ready for prayer before it opened for visitors at 8 30.

I was very nervous today as I had been up late writing my script for the tours and knew that this was the day I was going to use it for the first time in front of visitors.

My first family arrived at about 10, and it was a family of 3 from Holland. It was a mother and father and then their son. I started to show them around and finally had chance to put my script into action. All I was thinking was that I hoped I would remember it all! They were a verynice family and therefor fortunately were a good starting group for me. They took in all of the information and seemed to be enjoying it! They also weren’t Christians, so I had to tell the story differently for them as they didn’t know many of the characters.

I had 2 more families that morning before lunch and I seemed to improve as the day went on!

Me and Dan made pasta for lunch and then returned for devotions at 1 45 in the staff room. Richard (the head of the Garden Tomb) was running it today and spoke from 2 Chroncles.

After lunch was probably the scariest part of my day. I had to take ard my first tour group and I was SCARED. Firstly because I’d never taken around a big group of people before, secondly because Philip (the head guide) was watching me to critique me afterwards, and thirdly because the group was American. “They always seem to ask the most awkward questions!” I thought to my self. However, the group weren’t too bad. My tour on the other hand was the worst it had been all day though! Typical that it would be the one Philip was watching. I think it was mainly due to nerves, but I knew it wasn’t good before Philip even critiqued me.

Philip was very kind to me I think, but still pointed out the places I went wrong clearly so I knew for next time. Firstly, he said that my details and facts were good (bar a few minor ones), and that my narrative story telling was good. The main downside he said was that there was a big enough spiritual climax, it lacked the excitement of the amazing news of what Jesus had done for us, and that was what I needed to work on for next time.

It was very helpful all in all!

After work, myself and Dan ventured into the old city of Jerusalem in search of the church of the holy Sepulchre. After walking around through markets for another 45 minutes we finally found it, and I honestly wasn’t very impressed. There was no sense of anyone showing you around and there was no way you could find your way around properly yourself and it just seemed like a pointless trip.

Anyway, we left there and started heading back in the direction of the Garden Tomb and picked up some food from the Market on the way there. I have to say it was very delicious! It was kind of like a sweet pastry thing.

That night we had a fellowship and bible study on the roof with the other volunteers and it really was a great time together. I lead worship for about 6 songs and Iain bought us a bible study into Deborah in Judges. It really was a nice time to sit and have fellowship as well as learn more about the bible. We then had a short time of prayer and ended the session.

I retreated to the apartment and now I am sat here on the sofa writing this blog entry!

I’d just like to say thank you again to all of you who read this and I hope you enjoy it!

God bless,

Tim x

Our second day started with a short “lie in”, with us waking up at around 9 o’clock ready to start in the garden tomb at 10. This lie in will be a rare luxury as most days we have to be up and working at 6am!! (4am British time).

This morning consisted of us been shown around the garden by a fellow tour guide, who also happens to be around our age (20), Iain. He is from Scotland and a really nice guy! He quickly calmed our nerves and explained that it was quite easy to get the hang of, and once you have done a few tours it becomes drilled in your mind.

It was at this point that I realised what a great opportunity this was! Iain explained that it is some of the youngest staff they’ve ever had in the garden tomb. Normally the only people allowed to work here are retired ministers, so it is a great privilege to be selected to do this.

After giving us a brief tour ourselves, Iain took us out to the local shops down the road and introduced us to the only christian Arab shop in the area. He quickly showed his loyalty to the garden tomb by repeatedly saying “you are welcome, you are welcome”. I feel that this shop is going to be a regular stop most days!

We then returned to have our lunch and at 1 45 went into the staff room for our first devotions in the GT. Today it was being run by another volunteer, this one from south America, called Cesar. A really nice, chatty man, who asked me to lead a song for him. We sang “as the deer” as a corporate body and it was a great way to start our first devotions. Cesar then went on to speak about the supremacy of Christ, and why he is “the greatest thing” and better than everything else, before a short time of prayer.

The garden tomb then reopened at 2, and we spent our afternoon shadowing 3 tour guides to watch how it was done. The first was Iain, then Fraser (the volunteer who came with Richard to pick us up from the airport), and then finally Philip who is the head guide on the site. All three of the guides had a different style and I learnt quite a lot from each of them.

The day then ended at 5 30, and we went off to write our own script from what we had learnt from the guides in the day. Just before we left we had been told we would be doing our first tour in the morning… Pressure!!

After finishing writing my script, at 7 45, we went round to Iain’s apartment for dinner as he had invited us round. He made a delicious chicken curry and apple crumble and it was truly a great time of food and fellowship, along with discussing our different beliefs. Myself being from a Pentecostal church, Dan from a Baptist and then Iain from a Brethren church we had some fairly different beliefs in some areas!

After finishing food at around 9 15, we returned to the apartment in order to get a good night sleep ready for the 6am start!

I am nervous about my first tour, but look forward to it as well.

God bless,

Tim x

As I’m writing this I’m lay in my bed in the apartment I’m staying in at the Garden Tomb.

What a long day! Incredible, but long.

I woke up at around 6am and got ready to leave for the airport. We picked up my friend Dan at 6 45 and travelled to Luton Airport. After having a breakfast at the airport we moved through and checked in at about 10 25. After going through all of the security procedures with ease we were on the plane by 12 25. However there was a 20 minute delay in taking off for an unknown reason.

The fight seemed long and was uncomfortable as there was not particularly much leg room, but we survived. After the 4 hour 55 minute flight we arrived at Tel Aviv airport. We had been warned that there would be heightened security, but I’d never seen anything like this. We were stopped at every possible opportunity by the Israelis police. Apparently, we look like terrorists.

At one check point we were stopped and asked questions for around 20 minutes. Once he had finished questioning us he stamped a sheet and put it inside our passports whilst saying “enjoy your stay”. “Yes!! It was over!”, I thought to my self. However, I was very wrong. As we got closer to the next check point to hand in our stamped pieces of paper, I noticed everyone else had a different one to us! The sheet he had stamped was actually instructed the next check point to hand us over to the israeli police for questioning! After been questioned for a further 20 minutes or so, they finally realised we were no threat and sent us on.

We made our way through the baggage claim, picked up our luggage and met Richard Meyron (the person who is in charge at the Garden Tomb), and one of the other volunteers Fraiser, who were waiting to drive us to the garden tomb.

As we walked to the car we told them about what had happened and they seemed surprised that this had happened on the way in to the country, apparently it’s a lot worse on the way out! Great, I can’t wait for that!

Richard suggested a stop at a local restaurant for some Israeli salad would be a good idea. So we stopped off and got some food. It was delicious! And the portions were unbelievably big. It was so weird being in the restaurant though. It is a completely different culture to anything I’ve ever seen before. On the table next to us was a group of people having a fun night out, however they weren’t just normal people, they were from the military corps down the road! They were sat drinking with friends with massive guns on the table! Definitely not something you see every day!

Richard explained that every Israeli between the age of 18 and 21 has to serve the country in the army for 3 years once they leave school before they can go into any normal occupation such as a doctor or teacher. This therefor means that every Israeli you see on the street has had military training, even the waitresses serving us that night! Israel has trained enough troops this way that it could mobilise an army of over 1,000,000 within less than 24 hours!
Next, after finished our meal we moved back to the car and drove the rest of the way into Jerusalem. Along the “road of Ascent” which a few of the psalms are named after as they were written here. This road of ascent was the was into Jerusalem even back in Jesus’ time.

When we arrived near the Garden Tomb, the street was filled with people! Wed forgotten that this was the first night of Ramadan and we had to drive through the Arab bus station to get to the Garden Tomb. We had never seen anything like it in our lives, it was utter chaos! Cars everywhere, and people just shouting at everyone. I tell you one thing, I was glad I wasn’t driving!

We finally made it to our apartment and have settled down now. It’s a nice little appartment and is very homey. Just looking forward to my sleep now!

So that is the end of my first day! Hope this isn’t too long for you to read! And I hope you enjoy it.

God Bless

Tim.

x