Urgent prayers for persecuted christians

Just received a message from Syria : "Please pray for 22 Christian missionaries. They are waiting for the death sentence. Tomorrow afternoon, by Islamists in Afghanistan. Please send this message as soon as possible to your faithful and loyal friends so that they can spread to a wide range of people. So that may help stop the execution .. With love .. Share it ... 😡😢 "





The persecution of christians continue unabated ... and the world has closed its eyes and ears ... choosing to ease it's conscience by highlighting the plight of muslim rohingyas. Christian blood is cheap; christian lives don't matter ... until the terrorists come to your town and kill you. Too late for regrets.

This morning in the West Bank, Israeli police arrested 19 suspects for planning attacks.  http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/in-israel/local/security-forces-arrest-17-terror-suspects-in-west-bank-31936

And more ultra-orthodox jewish demonstrations that are getting more violent and disrupting public transport. This time it was the Light Rail in Jerusalem. And more rabbis are calling these demonstrations to stop, that they disturb Torah study and Torah spirit. It's obvious this small Lithuanian group of extremists are causing division in the ultra-orthodox world ... but their rebellious rabbi is very influential and gets all the attention.  https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.818637

Olive harvesting with a 1000 yr old
tree

Today I was still utterly tired and frustrated and depressed. No mood to work or study. Had an early morning meeting with those 1st year students who didn't show last week for the orientation programme and then went off to my room to write my paper. The sisters were forcing me to eat as I had no appetite since yesterday. Then it was classes in the afternoon and I had to pretend I'm ok ... it's all so tiring. I just want to give up and disappear.

Carrying bags of olives

Anyway it's the olive picking season and a selected group of volunteers was organised to pick the olives from the 8 thousand-year old trees in the garden of Gethsemane. Pilgrims passing by were asking for the broken branches to bring home. I believe the olives will be crushed for their oil which will be blessed on Holy Thursday to become Holy Chrism.