weekend excursions

Hello all once again, (we added some more pics to our last post FYI)


Well we finished off at the arrival of kibbutz Elrom, since then we have been on several excursions and taken many pictures. Most of which we'll have to show once we return but for now we will start with,

The Valley of tears

This is on our way to the valley, we we're heavily cautioned by many local folk to avoid the interior of these MINE fields, marked by little red triangles along the rows of barbed wire and the occasional yellow "warning: you may blow into peices" sign.

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These are pics from the underground dugout used by the Israeli armed forces during the 6 day war against Syria. The white mountainous rock is Syrian territory.

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This is a speaking platform in the tourist area.

In an unrealated domestic dispute between the Kelly quest couple, blasts of fire power were spotted by passersby as sergent Johanna drove over top of private Nicholas leg. In retroactive spite towards the opressor, private Nicholas took vengence in his own hands by blasting a bazooka rocket (unseen) in the general direction of the enemy resulting in the decapitation of the tank in which sergent Johanna resided. This vengance is certainly frowned upon by the teachings and life lessons of Jesus, specifically LOVE your enemies... DO GOOD to those who hurt you ... PRAY for those who persecute you.

These pictures include shots from mount hermon near the border between Israel and Syria, and a picture of mount Bental and the water resevoir that feeds into Kibbutz Morom Golan(the neighboring Kibuttz of ours), a meal that we shared in Mas'ade, some local druze villages and lastly our kibbutz dinning hall on a celabration night(independence day:Israel).

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Isreali National Trail:
This trail definetly takes the cake in scenery so many pics not enough time (or patience) to post them all.

Heading to Kibbutz El Rom

Hello All!!! How is everybody?!

We are thouroughly enjoying hearing all your comments and so happy that you are following along with us on this wonderful journey.

We have attached a short video of our ride from the Moshav in Amirim, to our Kibbutz El Rom here in the Northern Golan. On our way Roi (our host from the Moshav) decided to take us to the Jordan River via a VERY small, curvy, dangerous, bumpy, think I might die, dirt road. On top of all that he let Nick drive. AHHHH!! lol....



This is the Jordan

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We also stopped at various places near Qazrin( a local town ), one place was the home of a local historian who had horses imported from Europe and let us pick fresh oranges, grapfruits and cumquats from his trees of esthetical purpose.

We also stopped at a beautiful guest house which we have attached some pictures of.

Once we arrived at the Kibbutz we were suprised to find a furnished one bedroom apartment all ready for us to move into. Complete with satalite TV(which we have gotten rid of!) and the promise of internet access that finally started to work last week. Our go to guy on the Kibbutz and work supervisor, Peter, has been an encouraging and supportive person. We both experience him as a great teacher in our new jobs as Landscapers, as well as informing us of the local history. He is a father of two very adorable boys (Boaz and Johav)and was the youngest sergent in the Brish Army as a young man. He has alot to share, including some new curse words we've never even heard of!!

Hope life is sweet in Canada, and that is it is warming up! Love you all and pray for the love of God in all your lives!! Bye for now!

Joey and Nic

Pessa Seder at the Moshav Amirim

Hello Again everyone, this is our second post this week were gonna try and make a third by the weeks end. We are currently at our Kibbutz but we are trying to play catch-up b/c our internet hasn't been availible untill recently.

Our Moshav experience included the wonderful blessing of participating in the carmel family passover(or pessa as the jewish culture calls it). We have a short video clip(that is more of an audio b/c we just recorded the family singing) to share and some pics as well.







Our pictures include the german friends of ours that stayed with us on the moshav, in it you'll find Melanie and Ortrun who coincidently ( or not) share our love for Jesus in the authentic sort of way. We are planning to join them as we visit Jeruselem, I'm sure we will have pictures and stories of that whence we come to it.

The small village of Amirim is located not too far west of the sea of Galilee. From the mountainside it seems as though its a stones throw. Distance is decieving here in Northern Israel, thanks to the mountains everything is alot further away then it aught to be.

Looking across the sea beyond into the horizon you will see the country of Jordan. We have many more pictures to display and not enough time to show them all just yet but we're getting there. Hopefully our computer and internet connection with stay functioning. God truly has made this place the land of milk and honey. We are most certainly blessed to be partaking in all of this, We are honored to be sharing it with all of you as well although the picture don't do justice to the real thing.

God bless

Moshav Amirim

March 25th, 2010 we traveled north, by train, up the coast of Israel through Haifa where we switched to a bus that drove us to this destination you see underneath. The 2 hours we sat eagerly


waiting on the train and bus didn't really prepare us for the darkness of the mountain side, in fact it was quite unnerving yet oddly exciting to step










off the platform onto the cold pavement. Looking across the road we saw this restaurant. We were comforted shortly by the bar tender who reassured us that he knew who Roi was, and that we actually had arrived at Moshav Amirim. When he pulled up in what looked like our old vans long lost cousin, we felt right at home.

That night we drove to our new home where we would be staying for the next 6 days. It was absolutely beautiful and lots of fun. Accompanying us on the Moshav was Roi and a handful of other volunteers all from Germany. We spend our days working together gardening and doing agriculture, along with lots of vegetarian lunches and relaxing. We got to meet many local Arabic and Hebrew people, and enjoyed the challenge in trying to understand each other!

Nick enjoyed himself so much he decided to convert to Judaism.... I though he was speaking in tongues when I realized it was just Hebrew(jk!)hahaha, refer to the picture with Nick and the skull
cap.



The next three pictures are of Johanna and the wheat grass from,




Guess where!??





thats right the side of the road.











. We shared this cup of sorrow together and continued in the persistant pressure from Roi for us to drink more wheat grass juice because it is healthy for you!!!! Our Adventure carries on.

we arrived!!!

hello to our cult-like members of the kool kelly kuest, (KKK...jk) we enjoyed our days at the big city of Tel Aviv treking through the streets of ben yehuda and allenby. If your interested Tel Aviv is our first stop out of the airport(pic 1). Its similar to toronto, maybe china town if you consider the language barrier. Our first few days we're spent meandering around on the beaches, shoppes and markets where we met our freind Rueben (not seen in pics). After frantically busing around to several different banks in order to withdrawl cash we were compelled to buy from the locals due to their large array of trinkets and whatchamakalits. during our wait in regards to our original destintation we stayed at a few different hostels all ranging in variety with tastes for many different types.

We now find ourselves in the North of Israel in a small village called Amirim beside the sea of Galilee. The Kibbutz office was unable to find us a Kibbutz early in the week, so we were sent to this village to spend a few days working at a nursery. Stay tuned to hear more about our grass drinking, german/arabic/hebrew speaking engagments...... Shalom!