My New Blog

Just in case anyone still visits this one, and if you like what you read, even a little, please come on over to...

http://celloshredder.blogspot.com/

This is my new blog, as I am now older and a little more mature, it is, well, different but similar.  Be warned, though, that I say what is on my mind and sometimes it's weird or not the same as what's on yours.

This will be my last entry on "A Tale About A Man" unless something really strange happens in the future.  Hope to see you around!

Sincerly,

Barry Gee

Olive wood...

This is me at the Sea of Galilee. That day we saw Nazareth, Galilee, Capernaum, the Dead Sea (didn't go near or in it though), and drove by Jericho, although there was no wall to make it stand out obviously.

So, yeah, it's been a while hasn't it. We're leaving tonight, from Israel that is, and I'd say it's been an interesting, and productive time, but lot's full of hard times. Being in a prayer room hearing the same people play the same songs on the same guitar for six hours a day for a month will do a bit of damage to your nerves, but it was worth it. When I get home, I think entering into times of prayer and fasting will be exponentially easier than they were before. I didn't even really feel the need to spend lots of time in prayer or fasting before I came on this DTS. We'll see what happens in this last month, but I think I've grown a lot in this time. The problem is, in growing so much, now so many new problems have come to my attention, and old problems are constantly knocking on the door, cept it's been so long now that it's more like the old problems are trying to break down the door.

By the way, I'm sorry it's been so long, for those of you, if any, who faithfully check every morning to see if "Barry wrote something!" I just find it hard to express things I'm going through at the moment, and as for telling stories and about Jerusalem, I don't have many, but I'll try. And the photo's speak for themselves as to where I was and what things look like.

Well, here's a story. Beggars here are very forward, like, one man was going door to door asking for money, and could speak very little English, but tried me anyways. It took so long for me to figure out what he was saying, that when I realized he wanted money, I felt bad for taking up his time and gave him some change. But the real story is at the Western/Wailing wall, the only remaining piece of the foundation of the former Temple of God.

It was my first time there, and I was the only guy in the group, so I was alone in the mens section, and I walked up to the wall, put my hand on it, and prayed. Now all of those things I did very slowly and carefully, with my eyes darting about as to make sure I was not doing anything illegal, or wrong, or offending anyone. Anyways, I felt like I was doing ok, although I obviously stand out being a slightly blonde 6'4" foreigner with no tassels, cape, or beard. So while I am there praying, I could swear I saw a man look at me down the wall a ways, and start towards me while looking at me. I tried to pretend I couldn't see him until he started talking to me.

He asked me where I was from, quietly of course, and a bunch of other questions, while I was wondering why he was talking at all since it was against the rules to just converse by the wall (especially since he looked like one of the hard core people). Then he offered to pray for me, to which I was pleasantly surprised, and agreed. He put his shawl, or cape, or flag or whatever over my head, and started chanting in Hebrew, and the whole time he did that, I prayed in my head for him to soften his heart to Jesus and for God to unveil his eyes and all that good stuff. Now the amusing part of the story is afterwards. He pulled out a hundred shekels (twenty five American) and kept saying, "Change". Since he did have limited English, he could not continue to explain what he meant, but I kept trying anyways. "Do you want change? I don't have that much change. What do you mean 'Change'?" Then, finally, I realized that he was asking for me to pay him for the prayer. I started laughing, and actually gave him what he wanted, and then he walked off. But man alive! I mean, I practically lived that John 2:14 story. This guy, pretty much as close as you can get to being in the Temple of God, was trying to make money the whole time. I wanted to start flipping tables (there were tables), and preach the good news, but it wasn't going to happen, and it was only my first visit.
Anyways, it just proves how crazy this county has become since Jesus. But they'll have to invite Him before He comes back.


Just some palm trees in the sun at Capernaum.

Holy Land...

So, here I am in Jerusalem. I just woke up at ten after ten… at night! Cause we’re getting up at 10pm and going to bed at 2pm every day so that we can do the “night watch” at the prayer room. Customs was fun… not. Anyways, they held us for many hours, and I got interrogated first, which means the guy asked me all the questions, and then just kind of asked some of them to everyone else, but they were giving the same answers (cause we were all telling the truth), so he didn’t have to ask them as much. Anyways, they are suspicious of us of course for being in Lebanon, and he has my email, so, yeah. Carefulness is my new word.

Anyways, that was the longest hardest day of the DTS so far, and I’m still tired. My room is nothing to look forward to for sleeping either. I have a sleeping bag that doesn’t open all the way as a blanket, and my bed sheet as my blanket sheet thing, and I have no pillow, and I’m on a top bunk, and all my stuff is stacked and piled on these chairs cause there is no dresser or anything in our tiny, tiny room. And there’s no door, so I won’t be getting much sleep. The real problem is that the other girls get these huge rooms with fully furnished beds and huge dresser things. I have 75 dollars left for the month, so I’m worried a bit about that.

So I slept fourteen hours the other night (day), then the next night (day), I only slept two, cause I was so energized from the last sleep, but it has really messed me up during the time I am supposed to be awake. I’m proud though. 14 is a new record. I think I woke up a total of three times, but they were all instant back to sleepers.

I also have now seen the Western Wall, the Tower of David, and the Church of the Holy Seplechre, although not the inside yet.

Other than that, this prayer room at night thing is starting to grow on me now. It will get old if I don’t learn some new songs soon though, cause I only have like thirty or something, but I will be playing like 6 hours a week or something. It’s great though. I gotta get back to work now though, so I’ll see you guys later.

Burning Tires...

Well, Apocolypto was gross, gruesome, and grieving, and I wish I didn't watch it now. I thought for most of the film that it would redeem itself with an amazing ending to the somewhat 'bleh' plot, but I was wrong. Mel Gibson should do a few more Lethal Weapons before he directs/produces/writes, or whatever it is he did for this one, any more movies.

So, ever since I visited Lefkara in Cyprus, a four hundred year old town with just as old buildings squished a few feet apart of each other, I have been looking for another place to try some extreme running. While we were there, I was burdened with the desire, but we were in a hurry, and no one else was very interested in jumping up and over walls and across rooftops. Now, in Lebanon, there are many half-constructed buildings, but they are hardly a few feet away from each other, and I'm sure many people here would be confused and/or upset over my running, jumping, and falling all up ons myself.

Today, however, a friend of mine and I, attempted to try some moves in some of the under construction buildings-here, three out of four buildings is under construction, and no one is constructing them any further-but we found that neither of us were very good, and ended up just looking around town, since we never really had a chance to walk around other than this one. I ended up jumping across some gap, and down through a hole, but I have yet to attempt the "Tuck and Roll" move that the professionals use when they jump off of tall to taller structure, as to not break their knees, ankles, or any other necessary body part upon impact. Someday I will be back in Lefkara, Cyprus, and I will be bouncing off those walls with no shirt on and my cheese-grater sweaty abs shining in all their glory. But until then, I'll just float along.

By the way, if anyone wants to sponsor me a thousand or two Canadian, I would love to get a laptop, so that I can keep many photos, and send emails with ease. I'm beginning to see that if traveling is going to be a part of life, especially my life, then I will probably like to have this tool, which is, although not necessary, very convenient, if that is indeed how one spells convenient.

Powdered milk...

So, the YWAM leader here just got wireless broadband, so now, provided no one is already using this laptop, which is like never, I can have somewhat fast internet whenever I want! S'right! Anyways, I still don't really know what to say. Lately I've been kind of moody, so most of my stories and interesting things will be negative, but I can still try.
We went to an orphanage (?) and hunged out with a bunch of kids for three days in a row, and now we all wish we were still there. One of them reminded me a lot of my best friend growing up, Lawrence. He was so cool this one. He had bad legs, and limped around, but he played football (soccer) anyways, and was always well behaved and listened during the sharing times. He even understood a little english and was always trying to help the others and translate what he could for us Westerners. I have a photo of him now, and I will be praying for him for a long time. Hopefully the rest of my life, and then I'll meet him again some day in heaven. There's so much hope in existence when you're a Christian. It's refreshing. I highly recommend it if you aren't one already.
I played a few worship songs for a college age group in Beirut, but of course it was after a really good guitarist played a bunch of really good Arab songs, so, I felt pretty dumb going up there with my cracking post-sickness voice and my three chorded songs. It was still fun though.
I'm getting pretty good at guitar and worship now though, and all I need to do is figure out how to use one of those pick things, and to sing spontaneously is another goal I am starting to set. It would be great to just open up to a psalm and sing it out with some nice chord progression, or even just to sing out words and phrases. I think my very last phase of guitar learning will be the actual writing of songs. I've tried a few times already, but I'm such a perfectionist during the process, that I can't tell if it's any good or not, because I automatically think it's a horrible song. And then, since I think it's horrible, I have no courage to play it for someone else and ask them what they think. It's a vicious cycle.
I say I've been moody lately because I'm having a lot of problems with all these girls and their moods and senses of humor and such. Three of them are practically best friends, and all know the same people from back home, so they are all talking about "Jane" and "Greg" and the rest of us have to just sit there and pretend that we care. I had a talk with the fourth girl though, and she actually has been feeling the same way I have in all of this relationship stuff, so we encouraged each other a lot in that talk, and promised that we would work hard at encouraging the group to get more unity and less exclusive such and such etcetera etcetera.
I'm getting really excited to come back home and move back to Alberta, but I'm promising myself that I will focus on being excited for this outreach more, and to really get out of my comfort zone for the next month, which I haven't really been doing.
The next place we are off to is "Disney Land", and we will be doing the midnight to 6am worship and intercession shift at the House of Prayer there, so I'm uber excited, and really, well, excited. The idea of doing worship all night in the middle of the place that the Bible is basically written around just pumps me up like a good warm up song before a playoff basketball game, no, thee final of a playoff tournament.
Anyways, I will have to wait for something more to happen so I can tell you all all about it. Till then!

Backgammon...

Ok, so, I'm an expert at the game that I never thought I would ever understand, and I am feeling slightly home sick, as much as that can be with a guy like me. I'm mostly just tired of the same six people for month after month after month. The o-reach, as I'm told, is going just fine, though. Lots of kids and small groups and physical labour to tide me over for a few weeks. I highly recommend Lebanon for tourism. Cheap, if you look hard. The problem is if you want a piece of bread that isn't Lebanese (Pita), or if you plan to drive anywhere yourself. Especially with the lack of bridges since the summer.
I would like to cut this entry short by saying, I don't have time to write more, and I recently cut of the head of a live chicken. Bye bye!

Bread, Tim Tams, and cement...

So, here I am in Lebanon, where there is not a loaf of North American style bread for hundreds of miles for less than five dollars a loaf ($), most bridges have been destroyed and are replaced with temporary ones, and every second building is in a state of paused construction. The great thing is that they import things from Australia some how, so I can have as many Tim Tams as I want.

So far we have done a little door-to-door gift delivering for Christmas, and I have played with a lot of kids. There are a tonne of kids. Everyone speaks Arabic, most others speak French (slightly lucky me), and most speak a little English. We have lots of people taking us around who speak Arabic though, so it hasn't been a problem yet. The internet is of course extremely slow, but that's ok I guess. As long as I can do this every once in a while.

We are going to paint the inside of a house in a few days for a family, which is kind of exciting, although I'm worried we will screw it up since we don't really know how to paint. And it's raining now, and has been since yesterday, and probably will for another day at least.

I am still at the place where I can't believe I'm actually in Lebanon, but it's slowly becoming a reality.

I will update with photos as soon as I can if I can, cause it will be a miracle if it doesn't take eight hours to load one photo. Other than that, I'm safe and sound, and hopefully I will have some amazing stories to tell soon. Bye bye