Browsing Tag

river

Israel Trip

Israel Day Three: Jerusalem

Travel from Nazareth to Jerusalem

IMAG0481We left Nazareth this morning as the sun was rising in the sky.  Perhaps something I didn’t convey in my last post is the culture and nature of Nazareth. Nazareth is in the mountains. Houses are built on the sides of hills. Rain and water are in low supply and the locals have holding tanks above their house and apartments. Most dress in very trendy and modern. There are some funny signs around here such as “Lady Clinic”. I’m guessing that’s a health clinic for women.

It was explained to us that many of the buildings and homes are built illegally. Many are Palestinians and as such, do not have permission to build. So, many buildings are left unfinished. Many of the dwellings would fail Western code standards. Our hotel was generally very modern, but no clothing irons or wash cloths.

We traveled from Nazareth to Jerusalem, we drove through many farms. Olive trees, lime or lemon trees, banana trees, and other agriculture. One the interesting things about Galilee is that many of the people around the area do not fish! Commercial fishing is not allowed in Galilee because the lake supplies much of Israel with water. They don’t want pollution. Most of the people in the time of Jesus, around Galilee were not fishermen but farmers.

Continue Reading…

faith

Rivers of Faith

Continuing my theme of music on Fridays, I couldn’t get a song out of my head when I was thinking about this blog post. “Rivers of Babylon” is a song written and recorded by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of The Melodians in 1972, and popularized mainly by Boney M.’s cover version in 1978.  Boney M.’s version is the most popular because of its Caribbean sound.  Check out the totally 70’s music video complete with 1970’s camera work.  The Boney M. version is even sung in churches.

The group, Barefoot Truth has a great version of it as well:

The lyrics are important. The lyrics are:

Continue Reading…