A busy time in Jerusalem...

We have been very busy in Jerusalem over the past couple of weeks.  The number of tourists coming to the Garden continues to increase each day (we had almost a thousand guests through the Garden yesterday in the matter of a couple of hours!).

We have managed to squeeze in a little sight seeing in between busy times.  Several trips to the Western Wall (our favorite outside the Garden) in Jerusalem, visited two churches, walked through Hezekiah's Tunnel and our friends from England (Roy and Mavis Haywood) returned to the Garden for three months.  

We went through Hezekiah's Tunnel this past Spring with Roy & Mavis but wanted to go again.  The tunnel was built in the 8th century B.C.  The aqueduct is 1,575 feet long.  There are no lights unless you bring a flashlight with you.  We did!  Water still flows through the tunnel from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam.  The water was one to three feet deep and cool - very refreshing on a very hot day!  Amazing!  It is 2700 years old, built without machines and water still flows through it today!

Roy & Mavis Haywood

We were out and about with our friends the Haywoods on our day off this week and wound up at the Central Police Station.  Al found a wallet with a fare amount of cash in it on Ben Yehuda Street.  A young man came running up to him and said "that is my wallet."  Al thought; "no it isn't!"  Took the young man into a shop and asked the shop keeper to check the ID (our Hebrew language skills are non existent).  The shop keeper looked at the ID card inside the wallet and asked the young man, in Hebrew, what is your name?  Hmmmm.... NOPE not the name on the ID card.  "OH, it is my friends wallet!"

Can you see where this is going?  Al suggested that we call the police and let them sort it out.  The young man decided he would go get his friend (say "Yeah right"  with me).  We took the wallet and went to the Central Police Station.  I think we shocked the police that we brought the wallet (with cash) to them.  They looked up the owner (a 77 year old Jewish man) and called him.  He came to the police station right away to claim his wallet.  The police asked us to wait until he came so he could say "thank you."  We did...

The best part of the day was the conversation with the Police.  We answered questions about us... Are you Tourists?  Why are you here?  What do you do?  They had never heard of the Garden Tomb but were impressed... not with the Garden but that we had turned in the wallet.  What a golden opportunity to say; "we knew that bringing the wallet here was what God wanted us to do."

Don't you just love Al's new best friend?

Night before last we went out with friends from the Garden for coffee and stopped off at an overlook for incredible Night Views of the City of Jerusalem.  

We are off Sunday and Monday and have made arrangements to go up to Galilee and spend the night in Migdal.