What I Have Been Up To...

I am trying to stay more current on my blog. So I am doing a picture collage of the past few months since I created blogs. I heard that a picture is worth a 1,000 words so my life in photos for the past 5 months.

JANUARY HIGHLIGHTS




I moved in with a new host family. The daughter Jenifer and I would do gymnastics together.




It SNOWED!


FEBRUARY HIGHLIGHTS

Part of my English class on the last day! We had a celebration and invited the parents.



My baby lamb count was 5!


My first glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv.
I went with my host family for a fun family outing.


Attending my first Arab wedding. It was at the Greek Orthodox Church.
It seemed to me that the priests sang the entire 15-20 minute wedding ceremony.


A ladies night. We dressed in sari's and watched Bride and Prejudice.
What a fun night!

MARCH HIGHLIGHTS


Spring has arrived at the Village! But don't blink because it will be gone before you know it.


A refreshing weekend trip to Turkey to renew my visa.
This is the old port of Antalya.


Out for a night of bowling with some friends!
My team WON! A new concept to bowl in teams... actually we just saw which lane had the high score. I contributed 80 points for my team. (maybe less?)


Sunrise service on Easter Morning.




Getting ready for a production at the Village. The film crew was prepared.
They had make-up, props and costumes for all of us.

APRIL HIGHLIGHTS

Hosting a tea party for the wonderful women in my life.


My parents came to visit! I toured around the country and saw many great things!


I enjoyed having my parents meet my friends at Nazareth Village.


Teaching EMU students about shepherding which was part of my grad course requirement.

MAY HIGHLIGHTS

A church picnic. They know how to picnic here. (3 or 4 different kinds of meat bbq'd).




The caper. The last flower to bloom when everything else is withering away.


Bottle feeding the twin goats!


Shearing the sheep! This took several weeks to get them all done because they were sheared while school groups came to observe.

This is a quick peek into my life over the past few months. Let me remind you that these are the highlights! Most of my days were normal. Wake up, go to work, go to an Arabic lesson, return home, work on lessons (for my English class, grad class or Arabic class), go to bed.

Goat Kids

I would officially call myself a mother because I have kids. In fact, there were 8 goat kids born at the village this spring. They range from black and white to tan in color, male and female, long hair to short hair, horns to no horns. What a lovely bunch of kids they are.


Meet my firstborn, Jude. He is a twin. Below is a picture of me holding his twin sister, Judah. My host sister, Jenifer, named them. It is common to have a masculine and feminine form of nearly every name. You simply add an a ending to the masculine name to make it feminine. Hence we have Jude and Judah.



Goon had 2 babies, but the little girl didn't make it. I got to the barn moments after she had given birth to find her cleaning her babies. Here she is cleaning baby Samson who is 30 minutes old. I witnessed his first steps. He was quite shaky, but within 35 minutes of being born, he was taking his first steps.



As a mother, you shouldn't have favorites, but I just can't help myself. There are twin boys who I have bottle-fed and babied since they were born. Their mom had mastitis and so her milk was no good and we needed to give them milk replacer. So everyday I would go out in the morning with 2 bottles to feed the babies. They are growing up now and are turning 2 months old this week!

Here I am with Tra. He is probably my all-time favorite since he isn't quite as mischievous as his twin brother. These two are the biggest highlight on the Nazareth Village Tour. The people simply adore them. They are very friendly and stay calm when people pick them up for pictures. I love that they cry for me and come running when I call their names. This isn't to say that they are perfect! By no means would I classify them as angelic. They like to eat things they shouldn't and don't always follow me and lag behind at times and get misplaced for a little bit. But they are always elated to see me after an episode like this.



Jude doesn't have any problems getting his nose into things like a typical goat kid. He feeds nicely from the food trough. The sheep don't seem to mind too much. Occasionally they butt him out of it, but he gets right back into it.

The Beauty and Intrigue of Lambing

Just so you know.... some of these pictures are the "real thing". I am trying to share the experience of lambing. Even though I haven't been present for the actual labor of any of the lambs.

This is a story about a quiet or not so quiet village, nestled in the mountain of Nazareth. The terrain is hilly and getting green since the winter rains have come. Roughly 14 sheep and goats graze on the 5 -6 acre "village". Quite a lovely place, as you can see below.

This story is about: Seneca (on the left) and Mish-mish (on the right). All seemed well when I penned them up separately from the other sheep in anticipation of them lambing on Monday evening, Jan. 8. I had a feeling that something special might happen overnight. In fact, there were several people praying that they would lamb on Tuesday. Two special volunteers, David and Doris, were helping at the Village for 9 days. Doris is a mid-wife and has delivered many babies, so I thought that lambs and humans have some similarities. (Didn't Jesus refer to us as sheep?)

Well, on Tuesday morning I walked out to the sheep pen with David and Abu George (a co-worker). Abu George exclaimed that we have babies! I was overjoyed. Babies! I thought we must have had twins. What is the likelihood that 2 ewes would birth the same night?

Part of the mystery was that there was only one placenta.? But upon closer examination, we found that the one didn't disspell her placenta right away. I found this to be rather fascinating. It is all part of the miracle of birth.

This is the sight I saw on Tuesday morning. 2 little lambs, a boy and a girl. The boy(on his knees) was sort of lanky and skinny. The girl was much larger and seemed healthier. But I was just overjoyed to see 2 clean baby lambs. I felt good that they were clean since I know that the mothers first job is to clean their lamb(s). This develops a bond between the ewe and lamb.

I wasn't sure what to name the little ones, but David my c0-shepherd came up with quality names for the lambs. Petunia and Junior.

Petunia, the sweetest flower I have ever seen.

I was a bit nervous to take my new babies outside- seeing is that I am a first time mom! But after some encouragement from the village staff and David we decided that they would enjoy the green of the outdoors more than the straw-filled pen.
The mothers were so attentive to their babies. They were so protective and nurturing. They never left them out of their sight. I think that the mom's were more relaxed than I was.
I got more relaxed each and every day as I took the babies out. I would let them wander at least 15 feet away without panicking. All the livestock loved being outside, eating the fresh grass that had sprung up.


But my little ones would get tired after being outside for the day. They would run around and jump and scamper over the rocks and tree trunks. They brought such joy and glee to my life. I loved to see them lie in the green grass and soak up the sunshine too.

Shepherding took on a whole new dimension with the addition of the lambs. I went from liking my job to loving it. Who wouldn't be overjoyed to have a cute, warm cuddly, woolly little lamb in your arms? Granted my job became much more demanding having to keep my eye out for the mischievous little lambs, but I did it with great joy. This was just the beginning of the lambing season. Many more were to come and goats too! But I will leave that story for a later date.

Lambing Season Has Begun

What a beautiful time of year. Lambing season. I don't know if this is the typical time of year for lambs to be born in Israel, but we have 2 new babies, with 3 more on the way. At least that is what I am thinking. They are so precious! See for yourself.


Petunia, at a few days old.


Petunia looking content and peaceful.





Junior soaking up the sun. Just a few days old. He and Petunia were born on the same day.


Lazy Petunia.

I guess it is normal to take a nap on a warm spring day, especially if you are only a few days old.





Petunia and Junior with Seneca, Petunia's mom.

Bringing in the NEW YEAR

New Year's was another major event!
I had several invitations and plans on how to end 2007 and bring in 2008.
First of all- I had the opportunity to accompany Hannah, a friend, on the piano while she sang, "I wonder as I wander". She has a lovely voice and it sounded great! The good thing for me was, I only goofed once or twice. My language teacher asked me after the service was over if I had made a mistake. I said - yes. She said that she could tell- BECAUSE I smiled.


Hannah singing and me playing piano.


After the performance at the church, Anita and I trekked to Abu George's house. We work with him at the Village. He is a very kind man and his family is very sweet. We entered his home and were greeted warmly by his wife and 3 daughters. Some other relatives were there and they seemed quite shy. Everyone got warmed up after we got out some cards and began playing "slap-it". A game where you try to get all the cards by slapping the doubles. The children really enjoyed it, as did Abu George. He is a kid/jokester in a man's body.

Playing "slap-it".


After playing cards, we ate and then played more cards. The time went so quickly that we began to hear fireworks going off. So we all headed to the roof of the house for a clear view of the fireworks. It was amazing. The fireworks were going on all around us. I nearly got dizzy from turning in circles trying to see all the fireworks.
FYI: nearly all buildings have roofs that are flat. I think part of the reason is that families often build new floors on top of their parents houses. So if a family has 3 sons, you can expect that the parents will have a place and each son will build a home on top of the next until you have a 4 story home. They are very family oriented here.
FIREWORKS!


Hanging out on top of the roof. Anita surrounded by Abu George's daughters and nieces. Abu George standing with his oldest daughter.

Pictures from Christmas

The cute children dressed up as Baba Noels.
(The Father of Christmas.)

Very cute!




Me, Manar, and Anita around her Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.

It is possible that the picture was taken on Christmas Day. We stayed at her house until 1 am, Christmas morning. She would have invited us to spend the night but her older sister, brother in law and 2 nephews were also spending the night. That would have been a tight squeeze.


Anita serving the delicious sticky buns at our Christmas brunch!

I was glad to eat the left-overs from that!




The leg o lamb. That slice was all mine.

We still have some meat in our refrigerator.
I am not quite as thrilled about these leftovers.

Christmas in Nazareth

I celebrated Christmas in Nazareth this year. Not everyone can make that claim. I suppose if you want to get technical, about 70,000 people celebrated in Nazareth this year. (that is the population)

I began my festive celebrations by attending the 25th annual Christmas Eve Parade. It was a fun time to be with friends, hear 3 bag pipe "bands", see school children country line dancing, meet 2 guys over 7 foot tall, and see hundreds, if not thousands of Santa suits. Not exactly the typical Christmas Eve I am accustomed to, but a memorable one.

After the parade- Anita, my current roommate, and I headed on bus #1 to our friend Manar's place. We celebrated Christmas with her family. We feasted on 5 different salads and then had kabobs, bbq beef on skewers and bbq chicken. It is important to pace yourself when eating at a local's home.

After eating and watching the children open up their gift we played Rummikub. We arrived back to the apartment at 1 am. (so we were there on Christmas Day ) I chatted with my family in America after I got home from Manar's house. It was good to hear everyone's voice again. It made me a little sad that I couldn't be there with them, but I am enjoying my time in Nazareth.

Christmas Day was busy with eating cinnamon buns for brunch that Anita prepared. In the afternoon, we trodded up the steep hill to our friend, Evonne's for another Christmas meal. This one included lots of salads, but the main focus was the stuffed sheep leg. It was stuffed with rice. In addition to that we had grape leaves stuffed with rice, squash stuffed with rice, and another rice dish. As you can see the theme was RICE.
I was served the largest portion of the "leg o lamb". I thought that she was going to cut it in quarters or at least half, but "NO" it was all for me.

Our feasting lasted for several hours. After the main course we had snacks. Then we had fruit and cake and tea. So, instead of walking down the hill, we waddled.

So, suffice it to say that Christmas 2007 was unlike any other. I saw more "santas" and "giants" and ate more meat and rice than I ever did before.