The Thursday night meetings are gaining momentum, with more attendees and good discussions.
Last Thursday we looked at the Book of Nehemiah, and compared the opposition he faced with that facing modern-day Israel. He tells his enemies that they have no part in Jerusalem or anything he is doing, because the city never belonged to them. The weapons used against him - harrying, propaganda, and attempts to make him lose his sense of rectitude and thus to sin ( so that this can be used to incriminate him) are so reminiscent of today.
The new website is still under construction, with a fresh new logo. Hopefully it will be launched in the not-too-distant future.

Looking forward to Thursday's meeting, when we'll be examining the book of Nehemiah. I've always loved this book - it has a real feel-good factor to it, but at the meeting we'll be looking at the parallels with the setting up of the State of Israel and the continued opposition to Israel as a nation - complete with adverse propaganda! A story for our time indeed.

Exodus

Back from Egypt, adopted land of my forefathers, and a very interesting place, too. What I didn't know was that so little of the land is cultivated - not much more than in biblical times, with the desert taking up the vast proportion on both sides of the Nile. The narrow cultivated strips support all manner of fruit and vegetables, and everywhere there are these lovely wading birds called egrets.

The ship was wonderful, food fantastic, but the sight-seeing was intensive, and undertaken in the morning because of the heat.

Another thing I learned on the trip was to love Nasser. Apparently, our and France's dislike of him was founded solely on the fact that he wanted to do what was best for Egypt, not for himself, and his nationalisation of the Suez Canal was only done when he was unable to extract UN funding for the High Dam. The revenue he received from the tariffs from the Canal he used for the dam, which has freed Egypt from its dependency on the annual inundation of the Nile. He was the first Egyptian-born leader since the Pharoahs, so it's not surprising that the people loved him. He also brought in free education to a high standard.

Enough waffle. It was interesting, finally, to have confirmed that there was no slavery in Egypt. I had sort of known about this before. The people helped with building work for the Pharoahs after the harvest, but they were well treated and well-paid. The Hebrews were fed up because they had previously been exempted from this work, but their complaints brought great hardship on them at the hands of a (probably) foreign Pharoah, who knew nothing about their history.

Two days to go!

Two days to the long-awaited Nile cruise. Will I feel pharaonic (not, I hope, moronic) sailing down the river to Upper Egypt? It'll be fantastic to see the antiquities, and to get a taste of where Moses grew up.

Olive Tree monthly meeting

We had a brilliant meeting last night, the first with a substantial attendance from outside the church group. 6 attendees at the day conference came, and Heather gave an amazing presentation about Shavuot (Pentecost) and how the NT activities tied up with the OT ones.

Some of the group expressed joy in finding a place to learn more about God's plans for Israel, and to learn howo to pray effectively.

God spoke to me recently about taking the ministry up a notch, including making a new website (currently under contruction). From time to time in the past, it's felt like nothing much was happening, and the ministry was moribund. However, I waited (not always patiently!) for God to move me on, and now I feel that He's doing just that.