Walking on Water & Keeping Peace in Galilee

I had a taste of Déjà vu as JD and I checked into the same hostel, Hostel Aviv, where Clint and I stayed two summers ago. After receiving our key, I realized that I would also be staying in exactly the same room. Thus, it seemed appropriate to choose the same bed. Also like the previous visit, I wanted to rent bicycles and bike around the Sea of Galilee to the Mt. of the Beatitudes. Unlike last time, we didn’t make it very far.

Jon David’s fatigue and the frequent rest stops it necessitated turned out to be for the better; one in particular was fortuitous. We stopped at a quaint little area on the shore of the Sea (which is actually a lake) and were soon hard at work taking photographs that were meant to invoke Jesus’ walk on water. There were several follies, but we eventually hit our stride.

Meanwhile, a team of UN workers had pulled up alongside us in a plain white bus simply marked ‘UN’ in huge black letters. They spent a good deal of time imitating the pictures we had just taken and then packed up to leave. Curious to know what they were doing (and if they could perhaps secure us jobs), Jon David decided to make their acquaintance. According to JD, they “freakin loved” him. By the time I strolled up, all thirty of them had their cameras out and were posed to take pictures with us. We had a nice chat and learned that they were all peacekeepers on mission in the Golan and were just traveling for the day. We politely declined the invitation to join them on their way back to the Golan, and immediately wondered if we had made the right decision. The next acquaintance we made affirmed that we had.

After the UN left, we stayed on the shore a little while longer to allow my pants time to dry. A half hour earlier during the walking on water episode, I had fallen in after an apparent loss of faith. While we were waiting and soaking in the sun, a big family that appeared to be Palestinian arrived and set up shop a few meters down the beach. Eager to speak Arabic to someone (my recent Hebrew attempts had left me feeling inept) and because I’m currently searching for an Arabic-speaking family to live with in Jerusalem, I decided to approach them.

Like Jon David’s success with the Indians, I was an instant celebrity. They were a group of ten women and several children and one leathered old lady who was obviously the grandmother. She, in true Arab form, only waited about three minutes before inquiring about my marital status and pondered aloud why I didn’t marry “that boy you were sitting with before.” At this point in the conversation, all of them turned their attention down shore to Jon David, who had captured the intrigue of the only little boy in the group. I'm not sure that my explanation was sufficient, but it assuaged their curiosity and we eventually began to talk about other things. After only 20 minutes or so, I had their address, emails and cell phone numbers, along with an invitation to visit them at their home in Cana the following day. In an effort to entice me to follow through with my promise to stop by the town, they mentioned that there was a church all Christians loved to visit. Assuring them that we'd be there, we waved goodbye and I went to tell Jon David about our change of plans for the following day.

And that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.