NOW IT CAN BE TOLD!--Chapter 8: From Venice to Israel! 3/91 DO 2737
--Story Time with Grandpa!
1. (David: Amen, thank You, Jesus! Lord, we pray for Grandpa that You'll bless & anoint him, & thank You how You always do. Thank You for how these stories have been so interesting & a blessing, Jesus, for us to learn something about the Early Days of Grandpa & Mommy & the Family. We pray that You'll again bless & anoint Grandpa as he tells us our Story for tonight, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen. Thank You Jesus! Thank You Lord!) Amen! And bless the kids, Lord, in Jesus' name. (Techi: Amen!)
2. We're off for another adventure tonight! Let's see! Where did we land last?--In Rome, wasn't it? (Techi: Yes, you were falling down the stairs & breaking your finger last time.) Yes, & we went to dinner with that nice young couple who taught us how to eat spaghetti. Then we went to the agency that handled the ship bookings, passage on the ship to Israel, & we got our reservations & our tickets.
Train to Venice!
3. We started off in the daytime & we were a little late. We had gone running to get our things out of baggage checkout & check our big suitcase on to Venice, & to run & catch the train. That's the time I prayed & asked the Lord to please make the train stop & not pull out till we got there! And we ran like everything & got on the train, found our seats & sat down & sat & waited & waited for about 20 minutes! And I said, "How come, Lord? Why did You let us hurry like that & now we have to sit here & wait?" He said, "You didn't ask Me to tell the train to go yet!" So I said, "OK, Lord, let'r go!"--And immediately the train began to roll!
4. And as I told you last time, we wound through all the ruins of Ancient Rome, & from Rome we travelled diagonally up across the country. (Looking at the map:) We went through Florence & up through these towns here, Padova, on up to Venice--or "Venezia" as they call it in Italy. I should mark these routes on the map as I go along. And during that ride is when I dictated the Letter, "Are You a Sight-Seer?--Or a Seer-Sighter!" (See ML #7.)
5. Now Venice is a strange city because it has no streets! (Techi: Only canals.) Yes, just canals, waterways. (Techi: That is pretty strange!) So when you get off of the train at the train station, you go out the other side & it's all water!--So you don't catch a taxi, you catch a boat. So we went looking for a boat to take us to the docks where the ship was anchored, & they had sort of a "bus boat" that was taking people to the ship.
Ship Ride from Venice to Haifa!
6. Our ship was called the "Pegasus," wasn't it, Mama? (Maria: Amazing, Grandpa, what a good memory you have!) It was named after Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. Did you ever see that movie where a huge tidal wave came & turned the ship clear over upside-down? ("Poseidon Adventure!") We saw that movie later in London & I nearly got sick, because it was so much like the ship we had been on!
7. Anyhow, we managed to get on the right boat that took us to the right ship dock and we had our tickets & reservations & we climbed up the gangplank to the ship! The gangplank is the stairway that goes up alongside of the ship to the top decks. We were shown to our stateroom, which was actually a little cabin with two bunks, a bottom bunk & a top bunk. About all Mama & I ever used the top bunk for was to lay our suitcases on, because we always wanted to sleep together. And even though the bottom bunk was narrow, two people could sleep there pretty easily.
8. The boat sailed that night about 7 o'clock I think it was, & we sailed through the Adriatic Sea all night long. Thank God we had pretty good weather. (Looking at map:) Here's the Adriatic Sea, see? Sea, see! And we sailed down here between the heel of Italy & Albania through the Straits of Otranto into the Ionian Sea past these Ionian Islands. Later on in our Story I'll tell you about the time we stayed here in Catania, in Sicily, on the Ionian Sea. I think the hotel we stayed in there was called "The Pearl of Ionia" or "The Pearl of the Ionian Sea," something like that, but that comes later.
9. As I recall, we woke up in the morning on the Ionian Sea & we cut through Greece like this (points to map), through this long narrow, narrow, narrow inlet which ends in the Corinth Canal, a man-made canal that was dug through Southern Greece in order to reach Athens so that you didn't have to go clear around this big part of Southern Greece that sticks way down another 150 miles. (240 km.) Instead of going all the way around there, we just sailed right into this narrow inlet here & then through the Corinth Canal which comes out on the Aegean Sea, almost to Athens. In fact, you do come to Athens, to the Port of Piraeus. I remember that name because it reminded me of "pyorrhea," which is a gum disease.
10. So you come out right there at Piraeus, the port city adjacent to Athens, & our boat docked there & a lot of people went ashore to see the sights of Athens & Ancient Greece!--"The grandeur that was Greece & the glory that was Rome!"--That's a famous quote. Anyway, as I recall, we were docked there all day to give people a chance to go ashore & see the sights in Athens. But we didn't go ashore because you had to go through Customs & Immigration & everything else, just to go ashore to go sightseeing. And besides, it cost money & we were short of money. So we just stayed on the boat & rested & talked to the kids who were on the boat, lots of hippies.--A lot of Israeli hippies at that time.
11. We left Athens that night & sailed down past the beautiful island of Rhodes. I believe Rhodes had been a Turkish island for a long time, then British, but was turned back to Greece after World War 2. So this was an all-night journey from Athens, past Rhodes, & then on to Cyprus. I believe we came around this way & stopped at the port of Limassol which is right there on the very bottom of Cyprus, & there again a lot of tourists went ashore to see the sights. But we stayed on board, & the ship set sail again that same afternoon or evening, & finally arrived in Haifa, Israel! The boat took on passengers at all these places, because the Cypriots & the Israelis both travel a lot back & forth through here. (Note: You can read more about this Mediterranean cruise in the Letter "Boat Trip--Hannah," ML #5. See paragraphs 36-46 for "Boat Trip Log"!)
12. We got to Haifa before dark, & I was so gung-ho for Israel & the Jews in those days that when I got off the boat I think maybe I even got down on my knees & kissed "the Holy Land"! Boy! (Techi: I don't think you'd do that today!--Ha!) Don't worry, the time soon came when I got out of that un-Holy Land as fast as I could! We were thankful to get out without being stopped!
Life in Israel!
13. All right! So we got off the ship at Haifa, the major port of Israel. (Looking at map:) See, here's Israel, this skinny little land that goes clear up to here. (Techi: Yes, the dagger.) Like a dagger in the heart of the Arabs!
14. Once in Haifa we started looking around for a hotel, & our Europe on $5 a Day book also listed Israel. We went to the first of the cheapest hotels listed, & it was a little hotel run by two little old maid sisters. We went in & looked at the rooms & they were almost like ship cabins, they were so small! I think some of them even had bunks. So we chose the cheapest room & it was only $5 a night. But then when we went to register, the little long-nosed, crabby-faced old maids apparently had had enough hippies who weren't married so that they were suspicious of everybody, so they said, "Are you two married?" We said, "Well, no, not legally." They said, "Well, we're sorry, you can't stay at our hotel." So our reception in Israel was very unwelcome at first.
15. So then we went to the next hotel that the book recommended. I can't even remember the name of it now, but I remember it began with an "A." It was up the street from there & it was a much better hotel, very nice. It had a dining room, & a lot of service clubs met there like Rotary & Lions, so it was quite a nice hotel.--Nothing very fancy, especially not when we asked for what was their most reasonable room. "Well," they said, "you could go next door in the annex & we can rent you a room there for $8 a night."--For the two of us, which of course, is dirt cheap considering the cost of rooms nowadays!
16. So he led us over to it & showed us the room, this huge room with a high ceiling. It had two single beds side by side, about the size of bunks, & one washbowl, with a toilet & bath down the hall.--And no heat! When we first rented it, we didn't realise it didn't have any heat. (Techi: Is that where the pictures were taken of you & Mama?) Yes, the pictures of us all bundled up & in bed together trying to keep warm, where we used to run hot water in the wash bowl every night to try to warm up the room! (Techi: And your little hot plate.) We didn't get the hot plate until later.
17. After the first two or three days in that room I said, "I'm tired of this! We've got to have some heat, Honey!" First of all we went out & bought a hot plate to cook our dinners on. You can get almost any kind of canned food in Israel--meat dinners, like canned roast beef dinner with chunks of roast beef & potatoes & gravy--& we'd heat that up on our little hot plate right in the middle of the floor.
18. I once made the mistake, however, of running to tend to some food on the hot plate in my bare feet. I jumped out of bed & went over & accidentally touched the stove, which wasn't properly grounded, & got a shock! It was quite a mild shock, but I was more careful after that! And that's how our three months of life in Israel began!
Shopping Trips to Mt. Carmel!
19. We thought maybe the hot plate might help warm up the room enough, but even that didn't do it, so then we went out & went clear to the top of Mount Carmel on this fancy kind of a cable car train that went up at a 45-degree angle to the top of Mount Carmel in about 20 minutes or half an hour. The train went up on a track like this, so the train carriage was really slanted; but when you got in, of course the seats & floor were level. It was built by the French & was considered a very modern type of cable car. Most people called it "the French Lift." It was quite a thrill to go up about 2,000 feet from the floor of the Haifa harbour to the top of Mount Carmel!
20. And at the top of Mount Carmel there was a whole city!--An upper-class area where the rich Jews lived & shopped. Haifa was actually more of an Arab city, it had lots of good eating places & that sort of thing, but if you wanted modern electrical appliances, you had to go up to the top of rich Mount Carmel. It was a suburb which had a main street lined with shops & one or two little movie theatres. They had some appliance stores & we found a cheap little round electric heater. We figured if we were going to carry it with us on our travels we were going to have to buy something small. Our little hot plate was small too. So we got a little electric heater, the kind with one of those little coils in the middle & a reflector, & we bought a little food. We went up there several times to go shopping & see a movie.
21. {\ul I think that's where we saw the movie "Ché}," the story of Ché Guevara's life, in a little movie theatre there. (Techi: Who's Ché Guevara?) Ché Guevara was a close friend of Castro, the leader of the Communist Party of Cuba, who left soon after Castro took over.--Castro wasn't Communist enough for Ché Guevara, who was a real radical. He moved on to South America & tried to carry his Communist revolution on to other countries there. He finally got cornered in the mountains of Bolivia & was shot. But anyhow, we saw his life story in this movie theatre on Mount Carmel.
22. Whenever we wanted certain scarce items we couldn't find down in Haifa, we'd go up there where they had more luxury-type items, like little tiny hot plates & little tiny heaters & certain groceries we couldn't get in Haifa. (Techi: So the city is on top of a mountain?) Yes, Carmel is on top of Mount Carmel. (Techi: Is it like a flat mountain?) No, it wasn't exactly flat, but there was kind of a little valley up there, sort of a groove where there was this one main street where all these shops & theatres were. It had become kind of a resort for the rich Jews up there who liked cooler weather & less Arabs.
23. Do you remember anything else about Mount Carmel in the Bible? (Techi: Isn't that where Elijah killed all the prophets of Baal?) Yes, exactly! (See 1Kings 18.) They built rival altars, one to their god & he to his God. And to make it even more of a miracle, Elijah put the sacrifice on the altar & poured water all over it! The false prophets, the prophets of Baal, had prayed & cut themselves with knives & wailed & howled, & nothing happened to their sacrifice. (Techi: Elijah said, "Your god must be sleeping!") Yes! Elijah taunted them about their god.
24. And then he prayed to his God, & God sent down fire from Heaven! In other words, like a lightning strike that licked up all the water & caught the sacrifice on fire! (David: I think the Bible said the fire even took the rocks away, too!) He even burned up the rocks. (Techi: That is hot!) That was hot! And then Elijah & some of his followers, I presume, slaughtered all the 450 false prophets of Baal! (Techi: Goodness!) So that was quite a conquest for Elijah!
25. Almost every time we got up to the top of Mount Carmel it was covered in dense clouds, so it was just like a big thick fog. And it was cold up there, colder than it was down in Haifa. If you went up there in the early afternoon it was fine, nice & sunny, with a beautiful view of the ocean & Haifa. But it was just like the weather of Carmel, California!--Which was probably named after Mount Carmel. I remember in Carmel, California, every afternoon about four o'clock you could see this huge wall of clouds gradually coming in from the sea, & you could just watch it until it enveloped everything. And finally it covered you & you could only see a few feet into the fog. And that's the way Mount Carmel is up at the top there, 2,000 feet high.
26. You can imagine that wall of fog is quite high, just like a big cloud rolling along the sea to envelop the whole mountain! But strangely enough, it must have been sort of a cloud because it didn't affect the lower regions or Haifa; it just enveloped the top of Mount Carmel. So if you didn't get up there fairly early, before four o'clock, you almost had to grope your way around! Once or twice we got delayed & we were really having a hard time even finding the incline car station. So it was very interesting. It was very cool; in fact, to us it was cold up there. So we didn't spend too much time there, except that several times we went shopping & to movies.
Meals in Israel!
27. So we came down with our shopping & began to improve our room with a little more heat. I didn't know if the wiring in our room could stand these two little heaters or not, but I was determined to try. It had already stood the hot plate on which we were cooking our evening meal once in awhile. (Techi: Is that where Mommy wanted the felafels?) Oh, yes, I'm going to tell you about our meals now.
28. At first we started off eating our regular cereal breakfast that we had eaten in nearly all of our hotels & places where we had stopped over. (Techi: Was it boxed cereal?) No. (David: Oatmeal?) No. (Techi: Leftover pita bread?) Well, usually it was broken up bread, & nuts, which we carried in a box or a can, & odds & ends of other things, & a couple of raw eggs which I broke into my cereal bowl. I had a big bowl of cereal about eight inches across. (Techi: And did you cook it?) No, we just ate it cold, as cold cereal. But I think we got so cold that finally I started heating it up on our little hot plate. Mama didn't care too much for that kind of breakfast, but God bless her, she managed to survive.
29. I think finally we even got a little tiny skillet & I would cook some bacon & then scramble the eggs & make some hot coffee & toast. (Techi: That sounds better!) Yes, we got a little fold-up toaster, a campfire toaster, & we'd use it over our little hot plate & make toast! So finally we got to cooking hot breakfasts, which was a lot better.
30. We usually woke up a little late & tried to wait until the place warmed up a bit before we got out of bed, it was so cold! And imagine, we'd look through our windows & the Arabs who lived next door had all of their windows & doors flung wide open! It wasn't cold to them! But we had everything shut up! (Techi: It was probably warm to them.) Well, most of the days were sunny then. (Techi: They probably said, "We're just airing out the place!"--Ha!) Yes, that's really what they do.
31. They bring out their rugs & blankets & hang'm over the railings of their upstairs balconies & beat'm with those old-fashioned rug beaters. Did you ever see one? (David: Yes!) It looks a little bit like a tennis racket. It's shaped kind of oval, like a squash racket with all these wires, & they get out there & beat the dust out of the rug. (Techi: I wonder what they have nowadays?) Well, I presume they still have the same thing. The poor Arabs, I doubt if they have anything better, they couldn't afford it.
32. So that was our usual breakfast or brunch, & then we would usually go all day on that till dinner. By the time we got up & got through cooking breakfast & washing dishes & everything else, it would be about noon. Then we'd work on writing Letters for several hours, & after that be ready for our walk. So then we'd go out for our walk to see the land, & up & down the streets of Haifa to see what there was, & find a place to eat an early supper or dinner at one of the little Arab places, which were the cheapest places to eat because the Arabs are poor.
33. On one of these trips we found a little felafel stand on one of the little market streets. We'd never had anything like that before so we didn't know what it was, but we watched them making it right there. They were stuffing a big pita bread--which is like a large hollow bun of unleavened bread--with little pieces of roasted lamb & these little round hummus balls made of ground chickpeas, along with parsley & lettuce & tomato. The book Europe on $5 a Day called them the "Israeli hamburger."--But it wasn't hamburger at all, it was nice tender grilled lamb!
34. I'd better not talk too much about food with you guys or you're going to get hungry! But anyway, it was delicious! They were about this big around, bigger than a great big double hamburger! The pita bread is flat, you know, but they cut a little strip about an inch off the top & squeeze the edges & the whole thing opens up & is hollow inside. So this great big bread stuffed full of all of this good food is a whole meal in itself! We'd eat that for supper sometimes, unless we were tired of it, & then we'd go down to Moshe's little caf, or coffee house. "Moshe" is the Arabic version of Moses.
35. Moshe's was just a little place, maybe just a little bigger than this room. They had a counter where some people just stood & had coffee, & they had a few little tables where Mama & I would sit by the wall. They were very very hospitable & very enthusiastic with their welcoming, because they really appreciated Americans & tourists coming to their little tiny restaurant.--Not only for the business, but also so the tourists could hear their side of the story of how things really were & how they were mistreated by the Israelis. (Techi: So they were Arabs in that little place?) Oh yes, they were Arabs.--Palestinians, in fact. The cheapest places to eat were run by the Arabs. The Arabs ran the little felafel stand too. Anything cheap in Israel is run by the Arabs.--All the cheap little shops & cheap cafs & felafel stands.
36. Anyway, we made real good friends at Moshe's place. But I think we'd better stop here for tonight & I'll tell you more about that later, because we've run overtime already. So, praise the Lord! (Techi: Amen!) Is it your turn to pray, Techi? (Techi: Yes! Amen! Thank You Jesus! Thank You Lord for this interesting Story with Grandpa! We really pray, Lord, that You will please help us to learn from it. Please bless Grandpa for teaching us, in Jesus' name.) Amen!
Picture captions & fact boxes:
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(Postcard written on the Venice Express--from Rome, 10/25/70:)
Dear Ho & All--Greetings in Jesus' name! We have just left the "City of Eternal Light"--which dwells in Eternal darkness--& how great is that darkness!--And we are bound for the city of canals to board ship for Haifa--at last! PTL!
Europe has been an education & an inspiration to meet the immense need, but Israel is our goal--due to arrive there Friday, D.V.--our address c/o American Express, Haifa, Israel. Please write. We received good reports from everyone but you. I know you're busy, but dictate it. News of you is thrilling!--PTL!--Be sure to hear all tapes, 1, 2 & 3--first two sent first to L.A., 3rd to Texas. No. 2 has important news for you re: Miami. Maybe you should move mobile Kentucky Farm team there for the Winter?--D.V.
Teams must be ready for Europe no later than Spring--then Africa next Winter, D.V. We already have invitations to [EDITED: " ____ "] & Zambia--both rich & speak English!--Like most of Africa! Get moving! We cannot stand still! The need is great! God will provide! Everywhere we go the response is the same: "This is what we need! This is what we're looking for! Please come over & help us!"
We are now following Paul's actual missionary routes through Rome, the Adriatic, across the Aegean & Mediterranean to Athens, Crete, Ephesus, Cyprus, Israel! PTL! It was cheaper than flying & far more interesting!--Balkans closed because of cholera. PTL! So next stop the Promised Land!
--Please write.--Love, Dad.
VENICE (pop. 332,775) is one of the World's most famous & unusual cities. Venice lies on about 120 islands in the Adriatic Sea & has canals instead of streets. More than 150 canals take the place of streets on all the islands of Venice, & boats provide transportation. Black, flat-bottomed boats called gondolas once served as the chief means of transportation on the islands. Today, motorboats have replaced most of the gondolas.
The city's location on the Adriatic made it an important trading center as early as the A.D. 800's. Venice became a strong sea power & gradually built a colonial empire that extended throughout much of the eastern Mediterranean area. At the height of its power, Venice was known as the "Queen of the Adriatic." Today, floods & polluted air & water threaten to slowly destroy the city.
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(Postcard written from Venice:)
Dear Faith & All--Saturday, 10/25--Venice.--Bound for the Promised Land!--You'd love this one: A 5-1/2 day Mediterranean Cruise from Venice to Haifa, all expenses paid!--And cheaper than flying!--Following Paul's missionary routes from Rome to Athens, Ephesus, Crete, Cyprus & Israel! Hallelujah!--A dream come true! Planned to fly, but God said look for ship!--And found this one cheaper than air!--Meals & stateroom included & bigger than Bahamas ship!--A real ocean voyage! PTL! Next Address c/o American Express, Haifa, Israel! D.V. Pray God's Will be done! Gotta run to catch boat!--God bless you!--Love, Dad
The dotted lines & arrows show our route from Italy to Israel & back--a fascinatingly interesting & beautiful voyage through the same areas of Paul's missionary journeys!--Wish you could have been with us!--Dad.
The Pegasus
This was our ship, a little old but lovely.
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This is what the trip through the Corinthian Canal was like to Athens!--These walls are almost straight up!--2 miles long, 200 feet deep!--Dad.
The Acropolis, Athens. Beautifully lit at night!
Aboard ship. Imagine the best of California & Florida climate, & you have Mediterranean weather!
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Heating water in a can on an electric hotplate.
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family