Still Safe

We have now been in Israel for 4 days (since last Saturday) and we are still well. These days have been fairly non-eventful. We are helping around The Shelter (where we are staying) each morning from 7:30-12:30. That includes some cleaning and just being 'on duty' if there are any problems. Not that we have any clue what to do if there is a problem, but luckily not too many people are staying there these days (it has a capacity of 40 beds, and only 4 visitors are there right now.) Each morning Trevor is given the set of official 'keys', most of which we have no clue what they go to!

After our duty is over around 12:30, we have simply been hanging out here in Eilat. Reading, running errands, and taking walks.

Here are a few unique events:

We went to the mall the other day and new we were in Israel when our bags got searched and we had to walk through a metal detector to go into the mall. As we walked through the mall, we couldn't help comparing this mall to American malls and their busy-ness and Christmas craziness, which this mall had none of. It was nice to be in a mall on Dec. 17th and not have to wrestle through crowds and Christmas mayhem. And yes, we did eat a slice of pizza at Sbarro's. Although no sausage available as a topping, since it is not kosher!

On Monday afternoon, John (the one who runs the Shelter hostel) took us and some other visitors to hike through the Red Canyon. This was up in the mountains right outside of Eilat. on the way up, we stopped off at a viewpoint where you could see 4 countries at once: Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. John didn't mind that the viewpoint was closed off by barriers, and as we walked around looking at the view, we noticed the Egyptian border patrol taking an interest in us. (The viewpoint was right on the border of Israel/Egypt.) Therefore, we had to run back to the van and make a quick escape. We also got to see a portion of the Highway of the Kings, the route that Israel took coming out of Egypt, that was later paved by the Muslims 700 years ago as the road on which they made their Haj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. When we finally got to the canyon, we took a beautiful hike through a wadi (a dried up creek bed, that floods when it rains and erodes the banks into steep cliffs.) Part of the cliffs were made of red rock, thus the 'Red Canyon'. We stopped after a while and John broke out his ingredients and made pita bread from scratch in the coals of a fire. (Using wood from one of the few Acacia trees we passed.) We enjoyed the bread with hummus and hot tea and a good time of sharing and Bible Study, focusing on Moses and the Israelites coming out of Egypt. God really met us as we encouraged each other in the wilderness! On the way back, we were stopped by a road block for about 20 minutes, with no explanation. (Later we saw the news on the internet and saw that a Palestinian had approached the Israel border up by Gaza and gotten shot...that is why we think we may have been stopped, as we were so close to the border of Egypt.) But, we returned home without a problem or incident.

Today we went to the hospital to get our last round of Hepatitis shots. That was an interesting experience, as we walked in and first had to pay to see a doctor. Then we saw the doctor, who gave us a prescription for our shots. We then had to go to the pharmacy to pay for the serum. Then we took that to the nurse to have it injected. The funny thing was that sitting in the hallway outside the nurses' room there was no order whatsoever. You see people come out of the nurses room, and then push your way in ahead of the others. It actually worked quite nicely and the whole process only took 1 1/2 hours!

We have enjoyed walking down by the beach here in Eilat, where there are many nice hotels, and Trevor keeps saying we could be anywhere in Florida.

The weather is mostly sunny and about 65/70 degrees, a little too chilly to swim, but nice sitting outside weather.

Pictures may come later, but no facilities now. Sorry!

Love,

Alison and Trevor