Mid-Autumn Festival

Over the Old City

Tensions are rising as Turkey sends warships to confront Israeli navy blockading Gaza. Not a nice piece of news.   http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=237670

Mid-autumn festival has passed. Here we don't celebrate it of course. Usually it coincides with the Jewish feast of Sukkot (Tents/Tabernacles/Booths) but due to an additional month added to the calendar, this year Sukkot falls a month later. Anyway here are two photos of the full moon in our Land.

Over the City walls

School begins at the Salesian Seminary. Yesterday I brought Hidrimariam over to start 1st year Theology. It's very exciting for him. And thanks to your donations, he can continue his priestly studies. However it's still not sufficient to cover his food and lodging at the Seminary. More generous donors are welcome.  Another student also moved into the school ... a Maronite from the village of Jish. That's the arab name of ancient Gischala where it is believed St. Paul's parents came from.

Managed to clean my room. Took 3 days. Well I'm not as energetic as before, and get tired easily. Asthma had been quite bad these few nights. The night before, after an attack, I took a walk on our terrace. Then up in the starry sky I saw a shooting star ... ok it was more probably a satellite. But it was amazing to watch this dot of light moving across the sky ... from below Orion to towards the north. The Disney song "When you wish upon a star" (Pinocchio) came to mind. Lots of nostalgia.