On Wed Feb 2, we started our training - me in the gift shop and Don following the other tours around so he would know what to say. Fortunately I have experience working at the till (thanks Davison Orchards), so that wasn't hard; but exchanging money from shekels to US and giving change back in shekels or American dollars or some of both has been a little challenging. It doesn't help that part of the brain is still somewhere between Canada and Israel - so hopefully as jetlag disappears it won't seem so confusing. Another one of my duties is to prepare communion for the groups. That was pretty straight forward and even in my jetlagged state I figured that out quickly!

The weather has been quite cool. It has rained almost every day except yesterday - Sunday was beautiful and sunny. Israel really needs the rain and the snow on Mt Hermon as they are experiencing very drought like conditions. We are happy that we brought our Olympic CANADA hoodies with us. They manage to keep us warm; but our apartment is quite chilly. I think being tired doesn't help with feeling the cold - but having a hot bath helps a lot. As I am typing this now, we are experiencing a thunder storm and it has just started to hail. We feel bad for the tourists who can not appreciate the beauty of the garden in the sunlight; but no one seems to complain as they pull out their umbrella's.

We were blessed to be invited over to another volunteer's house for dinner last week. It was nice to have a meal, but also an opportunity to get to know them better as well. They are a couple (Peter and Ann) from the United Kingdom, and have been to the garden a few times already. They have already been here for a couple of weeks; so they were able to give us some pointers and some more background on the garden.

Our mornings start at 6:30am to start the cleaning that needs to be done each morning. There are many sections to the garden, so every morning we clean/wash all the benches, chairs etc; and then sweep all the pathways so it is looking nice and clean when all the visitors come. It takes us about 45 minutes which still gives us lots of time to have breakfast and get ready for the garden to open at 9am. Our day ends around 530 - 6pm when the garden closes. We get a break from noon to 2pm when we reopen for the afternoon. Every afternoon at 145pm we meet in the staff room for a time of devotions and prayer.

Don did his first tours on Thurs. We had a group of 170 people from all over the United States including Mike Huckabee who was running for President of the United States and Jon Voigt an actor who has won an academy award and who I remember from the movie National Treasure. Don had to explain to me who he was or he would would have walked right by me and I would have had no idea! They had an amazing worship leader, and listening to them worship and praising the Lord brought tears to my eyes even if I was in the gift shop.

We also have many groups here from Nigeria. For many years the government was paying for all the muslims to travel to Mecca; and finally the Christians said HEY if they can go to Mecca to worship their God, then we should have our way paid to go to Israel to worship our God. I'm not sure how many hundreds or thousands come every year but we have seen hundreds ourselves this week alone. Boy do they know how to worship! We often have more than one group in at a time, and their singing must be heard all the way to the old city which is at least 3 blocks away!

We had another large group (650 people) again from the US as part of a tour led by Joel Osteen. Unfortunately it rained while they were here, but it never dampened their spirits. Because it was such a large group and the garden was closed to other groups, we were able to enjoy their worship and message. We never saw Pastor Joel, even though he had been at the garden a couple days earlier filming. We're not sure why he wasn't there, but the other pastors that led the communion and brought the message were very inspiring. As I walked around the garden listening to them worship, I couldn't help but cry and thank God for bringing us to this wonderful place to serve Him.
Everyday and actually every hour we have groups that are singing praises to God, some in English and some in languages that I have no idea what country they are from. I think this must be what heaven is going to be like. Continous singing all day long.
I know Don has been keeping track of how many people he has already led and what countries they are from - so he will be sharing on that.
I have to remember to take my camera with me when I go to the gift shop so I have it handy when the opportunity arises - then I can put a few pictures on our blog.
In the mean time we thank you for your prayers, and hope we can update again in a day or two with some pictures.
God Bless!
Don and Glenda