Halloween, Olive Pressing and Other Stuff

Halloween:

Israelis and Palestinians don't do Halloween, so we had our own festivities at home. The BYU students not only opened their doors for the kids of the Center and the Branch to trick-or-treat, but they went all out and dressed up in costume, plus created a spook alley. The kids thought it was fantastic.

Isaac dressed up as his dad, Linda is a princess, Abby a ballerina, Mary called herself a Chinese princess (despite my repeated attempts to explain the origins of a kimono), and Joe was a skeleton. This was his first long-sleeved shirt in about eight months, and he hated it, tugging at the sleeves all evening.

Lately Linda wants to take care of Joe, trying to carry him places, feed him, and correct his mistakes.  It's sweet but a little difficult for her, since he's almost as tall as her and weighs two-thirds what she does.

Pumpkins do exist in the Holy Land, but they are really hard to find. Peppers, however, are plentiful, so we did mini-carvings this year. 

It was quite hard to light them, mostly because the bottom inside is so uneven.
But once we figured it out, they looked really cool!

Ed solved the candle problem by turning his pepper upside down to carve it.  Can you see how he made his face have a tremendous nose? He won the Most Creative again this year.

The Inn of the Good Samaritan:

Just east of Jerusalem, down the hill to Jericho are the remains of a Byzantine (6th century AD) church that was once a pilgrimage site for visitors to the Holy Land who wanted to envision the Lord's parable of the Good Samaritan. Today the church has been excavated and partially reconstructed for those who want to have any kind of worship service there, but is also a mosaic museum. The kids and I went there one morning and really enjoyed ourselves, but apparently it wore them out (ridiculous--the place was about one acre square). They perked right up at the end when they saw the Angry Birds popsicles for sale at the gift shop.

Olive Pressing:

The Center has all sorts of different plant life on the grounds, most notably being the olive trees. In the fall, the students (and Center children) pick the olives and a week later have the chance to press them in the Biblical Garden. This year was a late harvest, and the Biblical Garden was under construction, so it was muddy and chilly when it came time to press the olives.  But the kids had a great time. I was teaching Seminary when the three older ones were participating, but Abby and Joe and I made it to the festivities at a later time.

Abby with one of her favorite people, Calahan L. Actually, Cal courted Abby's attentions from the very beginning--he was completely smitten with her and she played hard to get. 

Joe mostly wanted to throw rocks. The wheel for the first stage of the olive pressing is in the background.

And here's a miscellaneous photo from a spice and candy shop in the Old City. It's a pyramid made of spices with a replica of the Dome of the Rock on top.