the loved hated culture and some other stories.

I dont remember if ive told this story on my blog, but will do it again if I have.
a year ago when I was in london doing a short term mission thing,
I worked at a turkish church.
there was a korean pastor there.

one day he saw turkish youth on the other side of the road as me and another finnish girl
were sitting with him.
he said that we should go and take pictures with the youth and take their e-mail addresses.
as typical finnish people we were quite shocked about the idea and shy about doing it.

but after some persuasion we did. we went, talked with the youngsters and took a photo with them. as we returned to the korean pastor I said: this really was not a typical thing for a finnish person to do.
and the pastor said:
well, we shouldnt do things the finnish way, we should do them the kingdom way.

here one really wonders what is the good thing in culture, and what is not.
especially cause we are blondish western girls, and there are many men here.
its a struggle. how to meet them the right way.
and also how to liver the kingdom out,
and not to just present this western gospel to the people,
so that they have to be stripped from their own culture entirely.
cause I do see the beauty in these cultures, and how God can be glorified in different ways through them. oh Jesus, come on, just help with this all.

and an example from the living life in jerusalem.
i was taking a walk alone and a jewish man stopped me and asked something in hebrew.
I answered:
ano lo medaber ivrit (I dont speak hebrew)
and he asked in english about the policecars he has seen.
I didnt know about any policecars, so he then asked
if i am from finland.
as I said yes, he said:
oh I know people from finland, they always tell me about Jesus, you belive in Jesus?
with a glimpse of warning in my head I responded yes.
he asked me if I wanted to tell him about Jesus,
if we could go somewhere together.
I offered to give him the number of my pastor,
if maybe he could tell him something,
but the man was not interested in that.
as I shook his hand to say goodbye,
he slipped his hand inside my sleeve and asked me to give my hand to him.
I just wished him a good evening and walked away.
oh come on. how frustatrating is that?
and how much discernment does one need in this?
cause I do realize that Jesus can also work thorough wrong motives as well.
but yeah, waiting to be taught about this by the Holy Spirit.

ayman, the arab guy (one source of our frustration at them moment with these cultural things and where and how to draw lines and stuff)
took us to the mount of olives and to the mount scopus.

I saw the golden gate fot the first time.
(there are eight? gates in the walls of the old city)
the golde gate is the only closed gate, its not able to enter thourgh it.
it lead straight to the temple area, now the dome of the rock area.
the jews expect the messiah to come through this gate,
so the muslims have placed a cemetary right in front of the gate,
cause jews are made unclean if they touch something thats dead.
the muslims expect their al-masiuah to come through this gate as well.
the gate faces the mount of olives.

I think its my favourite gate.
there defenitely is something in it.

(woops, this post is really long)

we went to betlehem again.
to listen to a concert by a palestinan choir.
we kind of entered with faith,
cause people told us there arent any buses out cause of the ramadan.
but Jesus is overgood :)
we actually got a ride back to jeru in a car of a man who has started
an organization called musalah here in israel.
an organization we have wanted to get to know right from the start.
well done Jesus!