March 19, 2001

Just a few of the bibles on display at the Bible Society of Jordan.

This morning we met the head of the Bible Society of Jordan, snugly located in one of Amman's beautiful neighborhoods. The purpose of the Society is to support Christian communities in Amman by giving them Bible-related resources - including Bibles published in many different languages (including Arabic, English, Hebrew, Russian, Armenian, Korean, Sri Lankan, etc.).

After a wonderful lunch of Middle Eastern food, we began the long journey back to Zababdeh. We climbed into a 1974 mint condition Mercedes (complete with a manual gear shift where an automatic one normally resides) and wound our way through the hills. We had to change taxis once we got out of the hills because of the wear and tear on the brakes, so we completed our trinity of taxi drivers - Ibraheem (Abraham), Mussa (Moses), and Issa (Jesus)--all Muslims. Mussa wanted to know if Marthame was a "48" (meaning a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship).

Sprinklers at work in the Galilee.

The border crossing going the other way was much less painful, except that Marthame had left the car lights on over the weekend. After a jump from a friendly Israeli motorist, we began the drive back to Zababdeh. We noted the Israeli use of sprinklers (at 3:30 in the afternoon, in hot weather).

It’s already packed at the newly-opened Lily Internet Cafe.

We also noticed that Zababdeh's new Lily Internet Cafe has opened! The place was packed for the price of $1.25/hour. How he had managed to open the cafe in the middle of an economic freeze is a testament to his initiative.