Near death experience

It's been over a week since I updated own the blog. The reason being I'm recovering from a terrifying situation that I never thought in all my years here in the Holyland, would ever happen to me. I was stopped by soldiers, accused of being a terrorist and was nearly shot.

It happened at 5am when I was waiting for a group of pilgrims to come to my house to make the Way of the Cross. As they did not call or show up, I thought they had lost their way, so I decided to walk out to Damascus Gate to see if they were there. It was cold, 12 degrees. I wore a cap and over it I pulled the hood of my jacket over. Hands in pockets. As I approached Damascus Gate, 8 soldiers rushed out to block my way shouting in arabic. I thought they were stopping someone else behind me as it was obvious I'm chinese. I continued walking towards them and the 6 footer soldier went berserk, screaming in hebrew and arabic that he'll shoot me if I took another step closer. They cocked their sub-machine guns and aimed at me.

That moment I realized they were talking to me and were prepared to shoot any minute now. It was scary. I shouted back to speak in english. A female police among them said "It's a foreigner, a tourist" and the berserk soldier screamed "You're a terrorist! You're hiding a weapon!  Take it out" ... all the time aiming his sub-machine gun at me. I said I didn't have a weapon but he insisted I was hiding one. Then they dragged me to the side of the bridge, and stripped searched me. I protested and said in hebrew that I am a priest. But the berserk soldier refused to listen. Another soldier stepped on my right food to stop me from running away while the berserk 6 footer took off my jacket and t-shirt and pants, searching for a weapon. He saw my ID as well when he emptied out my pockets.

Realizing that he made a mistake, he still would not admit it. He just shouted to em to get out of there and if any police asked me to stop again, I should do so immediately otherwise I risked getting shot. "You're lucky today ... I was ready to kill you then".