Nine lessons and Carols

**  (Can I just remind readers that I went to the Holy Land six years ago, and I'm using some of my photos from then, if I don't have an applicable one from the recent visit).

We had this traditional service of nine lessons today in church, and as we sang, it brought back recent memories and images of us singing 'While shepherds watched their flocks ...'  at the shepherds' field just on the edge of Bethlehem.  

  

There are churches everywhere we went, most if not all with wall paintings, mosaics and icons.   I had a dreadful cold throughout the whole trip and could barely hear what our guide, Fahdi, was telling us, so the fresco's and other decorations gave me something to ponder on whilst the others in our group were listening to commentaries

I liked this one, with the young shepherd boy dancing for joy ...

Unfortunately we didn't have time to see the excavations which were going on but saw one of the caves which shepherds often used for shelter ... and which is now used for services for visitors.   

(Can I at this point just say that the number of tourists going to these places has increased ENORMOUSLY, especially visitors from the far east .... Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong, etc. etc.)  

For me, this pilgrimage proved to be for a different purpose to the one I made six years ago.   I think being so bunged up with a cold and unable to hear much, meant that I had instead, to look and think much more, and recall all the Bible stories of the places we were visiting, and reflect on what these places meant to others in our group, and indeed, to the thousands of other tourists ... 

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We next went on a tour of the developing Bethlehem University, the first university in the West Bank, founded 1973.   Most of the students (about 80%) are girls, studying hotel management and tourism, accountancy,  arts, nursing and education.

The catering students had cooked and served us with an enormous and delicious lunch, which we ate, seven to a table, with a Bethlehem student joining us.   It was really interesting to be able to talk freely to students; on my table was Sarah, who at 22, was completing an accountancy degree.    (Lucky girl, she hadn't heard of Brexit !!)

Three of the students who entertained us.   One came from Hebron, one from Nablus and the third from Ramalla ... all places we have heard about on the news, in reports of terrorist incidents .... but do they look like terrorists ?!  Think of the terrorist incidents which have happened in London, Paris, Strasbourg; far worse than anything happening in the West Bank and Palestinian territories.  They told us of the regime under which they are forced to live, with permits and passes needed to move around within the West Bank which has been divided into three areas, each of which has different regulations on movement ...