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I’m finally back in Nazareth for a little while after a busy summer in and out of the area working with various groups.

While I was gone, an article about the Jesus Trail went out through the Associated Press, which resulted in extensive coverage announcing the creation of the trail, including articles in CNN, MSN, and Yahoo. We’ve been getting a lot of attention via emails and others working with tourism since, and anticipate many people coming to hiking in the spring of 2009. We’ve also completed a printable databook with the help of our volunteers Nate and Matt which provides turn by turn directions and maps, including all facilities and points of interest along the route. More information on all of this is available at http://jesustrail.com. Make sure to check out the video and multimedia presentations made by AP.

I’ll let the photo albums tell the story of the past three months, showing the most recent first. Click on the thumbnails or titles to view the entire album of photos.

Nazareth Youth Venture 2008
I co-led a three week service learning trip with Hinke Loewen-Rudgers for young adults through MMN, splitting our time between Nazareth, Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Check out the groups blog with journals and photos at http://nazarethyouthventure.wordpress.com/

Turkey

My time in Turkey was spent scouting a section of the St. Paul Trail for use with an EMU Cross cultural in Turkey and the Greek Islands for May 2009 with Linford Stutzman. My sister and brother-in-law, Jesse and Maria Rodriguez, joined Linford and I for some sailing and hiking, and then the three of us traveled together in Turkey for another week.

View the route of our hike below:

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Morocco

I assisted in leading a three week trip through Franconia Conference to Spain and Morocco, focusing most of my work on a week’s hike on the Camino Fisterra portion of the Camino Santiago in northwest Spain.

Below is the route of the Camino Fisterra hike:

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Spain

Barcelona

Sheldon and I traveled to Barcelona together and enjoyed a few days visiting the city’s sites, especially the Gaudi architecture. We were also able to connect with a friend living in Barcelona that I had met in Jerusalem with my parents in the spring, and she was happy to show us around the city.

London
Connecting with Sheldon Good at the Mennonite Centre, we spent a few days exploring the city and hanging out with folks at the center, including Sharon Kniss, a friend from EMU.

Since these trips have all finished, I’ve spent some time with Michael Blunk and Evan Parks who are with the EPIC Pedal Project, documenting stories of people they meet in Israel and Palestine as they travel through by bicycle. Check out there websites at http://epicpedal.org and http://epicpedal.blogspot.com/

And now I’m back in Nazareth, settling into a new room at the Fauzi Azar Inn and catching up on various projects from the summer. I’m trying to work more at learning Arabic these days and am looking forward to staying in one place for a little while and resting up.

Here’s what’s new for me:

May

A Canadian Mennonite young adult group called “Yella” was staying in Nazareth at the Fauzi for a week and hiked a few days of the Jesus Trail. They were a great group and you can read more about their experience on their blog: http://yella2008.blogspot.com/

We have two new volunteers with the Jesus Trail: Matt Cooper from Orlando, Florida and Nate Herr, a recent graduate from Goshen College. They will both be in Nazareth for about two months, creating a printable data book for hikers that will provide detailed directions and maps as well as practical information. We’ve spent a lot of the last two weeks hiking the route together.

View a couple of photos from one of our scouting trips here: http://dplandis.com/photos/main.php/v/may_2008/jesus_trail_with_nathaniel_and_matthew/

We will be hosting a TV crew from the Associated Press for the next two days who are filming a story about the Jesus Trail. AP is also doing an article with multimedia slide show which will be out in the next few weeks.

If you speak German, check out this new article and radio broadcast about the Jesus Trail here: http://jesustrail.com/press/wandern-auf-den-spuren-jesu-jesus-pfad-von-nazareth-nach-kafarnaum

In early May, I also had the privilege of meeting with the people behind the development of other long-distance hiking trails in the region, including Kate Clow who has developed the St. Paul Trail, Lycian Way, and routes in the Kachkar region of Turkey as well Joshua Weiss from the Abraham Path initiative. These interactions have been very helpful in learning more about collaborative trail development and promotion.

On Tuesday, I fly out for London, where I will travel with Sheldon Good and visit the Mennonite Centre, and then make our way through Barcelona to meet the Franconia Conference group in Madrid the following week.

June+
For the next month or so, I will be on the road throughout different parts of Europe and the Mediterranean:
- Spain and Morocco with Franconia Conference. I will be helping to lead this group, guiding for a week on the Camino Santiago, and we will be looking at themes of pilgrimage and the interaction of historic and contemporary Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities in the region as an educational leadership development experience. Check out http://verano.via-global.org
- Turkey, joining Linford Stutzman and Jesse and Maria Rodriguez (my sister and brother-in-law) and scouting out a new section of the St. Paul trail for use with an EMU cross cultural in May 2009

I will be traveling without my computer, so if you don’t hear from me in a little while, I will get back to you when I can. I will return to Israel in early July.

The holiday of Thanksgiving is distinctly American and is definitely a foreign, yet curious concept in the Middle East. During a conversation over coffee one day, we learned that the Arabic word for Turkey is habash, not be confused with the nearby country of Turkish people. We had almost forgotten about Thanksgiving until turkey came up, and we decided that it would be a great idea to host a feast at the Fauzi Azar Inn, inviting friends, family, neighbors and guests. It seemed possible to find a gobbler locally, as Israel is one of the leading consumers of turkey worldwide.

Gaby, one of the staff at the inn, contacted our local butcher and we translated the important points: a large bird, no head or feet, pluck the feathers and make sure to leave the skin. Put the inside parts in a separate bag. After multiple phone calls and a bit of interpretive help, it seemed that we had come to an understanding. We found most of the vegetables in the market, with the exception of pumpkins for a trademark pie. We think the cranberries we found were fairly close, but not exactly the same.

Thanksgiving morning and afternoon became a cooking marathon. We took over the kitchen, chopping vegetables, mashing potatoes, and trying to prepare the 11.6kg (25.5lb) turkey to fit in our small oven which only had an arbitrary temperature gauge from 1-9. The neighbor women visited periodically, curious and probably a bit skeptical about how our cooking endeavor would play out.

As the evening approached an international and local mixture of around 25 guests arrived, representing Norway, Taiwan, Holland, Jordan, the United States, and Israel, Arabs and Jews included and welcomed. Excitement (and probably hunger) grew among the guests as we stretched out four tables across the hall, piling them full with so much food that we almost ran out of table space.

Our feast consisted of turkey, two types of stuffing, sour cream and garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, candied sweet potatoes, green beans, garden salad, red beets, tabbouleh, cucumber and tomato salad, stuffed grape leaves, chocolate cake and cranberry salad. Charles, a pastor living in Jordan who was visiting Israel with his family, blessed the meal and shared about the Thanksgiving story with our curious guests.

The first Thanksgiving was a time when the early colonies in America were struggling to find enough to eat and the Native Americans offered hospitality. It happened during a messy and often violent history as the colonialist mentality was taking root in Americas. The first meal was a multicultural celebration of sustenance and survival, a coming to the table together with gratitude despite the acknowledgment of a difficult narrative. It connected with personal experiences in the context of a region with a similar story. Even though we share a history that involves suffering, we also have the choice to come together and celebrate one that includes joy.

The meal was a huge success and conversation continued late into the evening. Our satisfied appetites were topped off with coffee, tea and chocolate cake, winding us down into a mutual state of satisfaction and rest. Our leftovers became two huge pots of turkey vegetable soup that we have been eating since.

View Photos

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photos: turkey: st paul trail