Third day of cleaning complete…

The last several days have been very busy! Planning and carrying out a wedding as well as three full days of trash pickup have caught up with most… everyone is exhausted, but happy. Tomorrow will be a half day working in the moshav, then Pesach prep and the Seder. Shabbat, and rest, will be welcome!

This morning began with another hearty breakfast smorgasbord. The bride’s plate was a bit lean… I told her she didn’t need a date, she already had one…. lol.

We chose to go to Jaffa Gate area today. One particularly dirty area, behind licked gates was a major topic of discussion. We chose to have about half the team vault the fence and see how much we could get cleaned before the police got there…

As you can see from the before and after photos, we finished… only barely. While picking a small spot at the top, in a precarious position, a Municipal Worker showed up an at least initially was not happy. I think his biggest concern was our safety, followed closely by potential bad press. After a short conversation with Marie, our Hebrew speaking ‘secret weapon’, he took pictures and called for a trash truck to come get the piles of garbage we had hauled out.

Later, as some of us cleaned the Terraces, he came by and shot me a big grin and thumbs up along with a, ‘Todah rabah.’ It was a very positive turn as we saw him a couple more times keeping watch over us and insuring full trash bags were hustled away.

We had lunch on Yaffo Street before riding the light rail to Mt. Herzl, then driving back to base. Another joyful day of service with many conversations and interactions as a bonus to the many, many bags of trash collected.

Join us this Fall for our 16 day Sukkot trip. $965. Includes two meals/day, lodging, some tour days, four work days and lots of worship and fun fellowship.

Shalom.