Friday, March 29
Today is preparation day since the sabbath starts at sundown Friday. No work today or tomorrow, Saturday. Sunday is the beginning of the work week. We left at 9:30 to visit Al Qosh, the legendary tomb of the prophet Nahum, located about 20 km from Duhok. There is a Jewish synagogue here abandoned when the Jews returned to Israel in the early 50's which is being restored. But there are two ancient churches here and a new sanctuary a few minutes walk from the synagogue. We stopped at the first church, St. George Chaldean Apostolic Church. We sang several songs including Lamb of God, Palestrina's Holy, Holy, Holy, and a couple other songs, enjoying the natural acoustics there. We then walked across the courtyard to the new sanctuary, where we found about 25 late teens to early 20's meeting in fellowship led by a nun (see photo). We asked if we could sing for them and received approval, so we sang I Will Lift Mine Eyes (Psalm 121) and Majesty and Glory (Psalm8). We then walked to another ancient church where Nahum is supposedly buried. No one was there so we sang Lamb of God. Then we drove to St. Hormitz's Monastery, located in a beautiful mountain top. The cars can only drive up some distance, and we have to walk several hundred stone steps in the drizzling rain to get to the now semi-abandoned monastery. Only Glenn, Johnny, Christine, Amy, Lily, Brandon, Sharon, and Kenny made the trek, returning and saying it was quite an adventure (see photo taken from monastery showing the road uphill). We then drove to Duhok for a scrumptious late lunch, paying about twice what our normal dinners cost (but we are eating leftovers for dinner after the church service) so it averages out.
After returning to our hotel and resting for a half hour, we headed to an Arabic church in Zuhok for their Friday service. Tonight is the inaugural service in their new sanctuary, which seats about 50 people, and the place was packed with an overflow crowd of ladies in the adjoining room. The service is very homey, the worship leaders trying to d3cide what to sing just as the service started. Nevertheless, the singing was enthusiastic and we could sense the presence of the Spirit. We sang In This Very Room, Lamb of God, and In His Time (see photo). Then a visiting pastor from Germany preached about Peter walking on water followed by Kenny sharing his testimony and explaining that we came to love the Yazidis. The pastor then asked us to sing a Chinese song but we sang the Kurmanji John 14:6 song instead. Then another brother shared a long testimony. The 2-1/2 hour service finally ended, we stayed for some picture taking (see photo of church leaders and guests) and chatted, and returned to our hotel just before 10, tired but grateful for a nice day. We met a lady who had just become a believer during the previous group's visit last week. Mei talked to a lady from Turkey who accepted Christ 2 years ago and learned to forgive, a very foreign concept in the Muslim culture. We found out that there were a few Yazidi believers in the congregation. One man recorded Kenny's sharing and wanted Kenny to repeat the first part because he missed recording it. We also learned there were a few Christians in Berseve so Willy wants to track them down. We plan to sleep in tomorrow on the sabbath so we stayed up late and made porridge from the lunch left over rice and a few of us ate porridge and/or ramen noodles
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