NOTES FROM GUIDING AT THE GARDEN TOMB - PART 6

• Gordon and Donna Reeve arrived this week from Canada.  When I am guiding I can't refer to Glenda and me being the first and only volunteers from Canada anymore.  I also have to share the Canadian groups with Gord too. It's wonderful to have them here and I know that once they get over the jet lag they will feel very blessed to be here.
• I had 35 people this week from Papua, New Guinea on tour.  What a beautiful experience!  They started singing at the tomb while they waited to enter.  Everyone close by stopped to listen and encourage them.  They were all crying before they went into the tomb, during the time they were in there, and afterwards as well.  They understood what it meant to be here.
• The more I read and learn about Israel, from the politics to the biblical history, the more I realize how little I know.  There are so many civilizations that played a part in history before the Jews came back to the land.  There is such a melting pot of people here in very close proximity.
• I guided a group from Canada yesterday. One couple came up to me and said they were married in Vernon many years ago. I asked them where he worked while he was in Vernon.  He told me Vernon Motor Products.  I said that's interesting - it's now called Bannister GM and I work for them. Then a second couple came up and told me their daughter lived in Vernon - her name is Cynthia.  I asked if her husband's name was Mark.  She said yes.  I said your daughter and son in law come to my church.
• Each weekday afternoon we spend time in prayer and a short devotion.  Everybody gets an opportunity to lead, including our workshop maintenance guy, Yoni.  He hails from New Zealand and told us his mother in law just turned 86.  She was one of 10 children during the war.  Their father did door to door evangelism, but was arrested and placed in a hard labour camp for ten years - certain death.  However his carpentry skills kept him alive with the guards and both he and his entire family survived many dangerous incidents where they very easily could have been killed. One time, Yonnie's mother in law was rounded up with other women and was waiting in line to board a train to one of the camps where they would be gassed, and as she stood there, she heard a voice saying, " walk away." She did so and couldn't believe that no one spoke up and even noticed that she left the line and thus survived.  Yonnie felt that incident and many others were because God was honoring the father for his Christian efforts.
• Thank you God for allowing us to serve here.  Thank you for allowing us sunshine and temperatures in the mid twenties today for the first day of December, when back home some might be shovelling snow.  Thank you for your prayers everyone.  God Bless.