It’s a Small World

Sunday in Israel is like Monday at home. The weekend is over, school is back in session and, unlike home, the traffic is at its thickest. Our destination today was Tel Aviv Port and ultimately Joppa. There is a small boat club called Sea Time that rents out sailboats to people like us, so we had one scheduled for the day. Sadly it only holds 6 people at a time, but as the day was hot and sunny and the marina is on a 20 mile beach, we couldn’t whine too much.

We hauled our big coolers, backpacks and other goods (what IS all that stuff that always trails along) to the docks, and then Steph, Marshall and I waved the others off on their first 3 hour sail. Salt, sun and sea makes one hungry, so we headed off to the beach to spread out our blanket and lunch and bask in the beauty of the Mediterranean. Why are sandwiches always so good on a beach? Point of interest: Steph and I are twins. I have never found a twin before!

We hadn’t known we’d go swimming, but the gorgeous water kept up a persistent calling, and after wading and walking along the beach, Steph and I suddenly succumbed to the call. Luckily there were a couple porta-johns set up nearby and they were soon shaking and rattling as we quickly changed into our swim clothes. The doors would swing open and shut as we poked various elbows and knees out, or threw clothes onto the sidewalk. Johns are so disturbing to change in, as you can’t touch anything and they are so very tiny!

The water was cold, but felt marvelous! We bobbed and swam and visited until it was time to rejoin the rest at the boat.

They came back with one bandaged hand and an accusation that we had taken all the chips at lunch and left them none. A reasonable assumption, as we so happened to be the chip hogs in the group, but in this case highly unjust! We had Talked about taking all the chips, and then hugely denied ourselves and left them at least half a bag. Too bad for them they didn’t look properly in the lunch box, and we got to eat them anyway. As Marshall said with a bit of reverence, “it’s almost a miracle”.

They said they’d had fun on their sail, and I believe they did! The water was crystal clear and you could see the bottom even where it was deep. Apparently Dalen dove down to 25ft and proved it by bringing up a handful of sand. He was a fish, that one. Karen had the bandaged hand cause she placed her hands incorrectly on the swim ladder when climbing into the boat and got a mega pinch. Her fingers were very purple later. We had fun too, and spent our time watching the jelly fish that were everywhere, gazing at the Joppa port, where Jonah set sail from, and reading the story to refresh our memories. And eating chips, of course. We gazed at the old port at Joppa and in general relaxed and enjoyed. There were tiny little sailboats flying around with one little kid in each one. They were a sailing school and were watched over by a couple of adults in a power boat. I somehow couldn’t imagine trying to keep track of 20 boats run by 8yr olds but I suppose they don’t loose too many.

Near sunset we climbed tired, sandy and sunburned into the van and headed to Joppa, by land this time, to meet Yulia. She is a Ukrainian or Russian, not sure, living in Israel who has become friends with our Ukrainian church sister Dr Lena, who also lives there. We had got in touch with Lena through Karen’s sister and she really wanted to meet with us. For sure since Andrew has lived 9 years in Russia and Karen has spent time in the Ukraine. They both are fairly handy in those languages, so that made it all the more appealing!

Back to Yulia. She is quite disabled, cerebral palsy I believe, so she couldn’t take public transportation to the church we planned to spend the evening at. Once again my heart nearly burst with pride over our fellow travelers. They were so enthused to be meeting this stranger, and when we rolled up to her as she stood, leaning on her canes, most of them bailed out, greeted her enthusiastically and proceeded to help her to the van. It was so beautiful. Yulia was not shy, and seemed quite overcome with amazement at the welcome! She giggled and chattered and told wild stories about Jesus literally moving her vehicle, a possessed mother, and her childhood trauma. We stopped by a restaurant to grab some food, and then proceeded to the Beit Immanuel Church.

Beautiful Dr Lena was there to meet us. She has the sweetest look and I liked her instantly. I think we all did. The church had a dining area where we could eat and Dr Lena had brought copious amounts of sweets and drink to add to our offering. The supper was interesting, but right after we took our last bite Lena hauled out her songbooks and sheet music. Her, Andrew and Karen sang Russian for awhile and after a bit the rest of us joined in, only we sang English while they forged ahead in Russian. We ended with some more modern English songs that Daniel Johnson’s had given her. Oh it was fun! That old church had marvelous acoustics so the singing just rang. It got later and later but always we sang one more. Finally, after seeing that if we didn’t soon leave Heath would never get us home without crashing, we took our reluctant leave. Dr Lena pressed all the leftover sweets onto us, we made promises to meet again, and parted ways. And thus ended a perfect Israel Sunday.