Ripping up the Road (Again)

Not that you would care, but New York's city workers are ripping up our road again. If you remember they were ripping up the same road back in August-September. I guess they had too much fun not to try it again. This picture is taken from our living room window. The big tall building in the distance is the hospital, below that is the subway line. One bit of good news, they are building a Walgreens right across the street from us (you see the new sign at the bottom next to the big Digger ripping up the road). Too bad we leave in May.

Philip Berg's Legacy

Today, in the German Colony of Jerusalem, a saint was laid to rest. Philip Berg wasn't perfect and he for sure wasn’t proud, instead he walked honestly and humbly before his God. He recognized his weaknesses and tried to make a difference in this world.

(Philip is pictured in the middle wearing a red jacket. In January 2004, Philip and I accompanied Jonathan Miles on a trip into Iraq for Shevet Achim www.shevet.org.)

The first time I met Philip was at my wife Sharon's 20th birthday party nearly 9 years ago, March 11th. He had married Martha Berg a year earlier in the States and they were returning to continue working at Jerusalem University College as property caretaker. Over the following years, Martha and Philip produced five children--Asher, Adam, Nathaniel, Sara, and (just 5 months ago) Anna Marie as they worked at JUC and then the last 3 and a half years with Shevet Achim. My first memory of Philip was not much. In fact, it was hard to remember him being in the room.

Philip was never much of a talker. He kind of kept to himself. He stayed undercover, so to speak. I never really got to know him until the last two years. That was when Philip started opening up to our community in an astounding and radical way. I was in the States with Sharon when Philip gave his first sermon at Narkis Street Congregation on January 3rd, 2004. This first sermon was a classic known as the "Testiphony". In it, he threw off all the masks and opened his life in a very vulnerable way.

The "Testiphony" was when he had liberally recreated his salvation testimony to make it sound "cool", first for his wife and then, eventually, for her whole family. Finally, he was asked to share his testimony with his father-in-law's church. At that point, he came clean confessing that he had made it all up. Sharon and I returned to Israel, the week after this sermon and there was quite a buzz about it in the community. Philip's sermon intrigued me and provoked me. I, too, had been contemplating the hidden areas of my life. Philip had punched a hole through the front lines of our socially accepted silence with his public confession.

That same month, Philip and I went to Iraq with Jonathan Miles searching out babies who needed heart help. As I write this now, two ironies come to me. One, Philip traveled to Iraq to give his condolences to the family of the little Kurdish baby, Bayan, who had passed away in December 2003. She was the first Iraqi baby to ever come to Israel for a heart operation. For more information see http://shevet.org/BabyBayan.htm. Philip had gone to console the family of the dead child.

And two, Philip was in this work of helping babies with heart problems while he himself lived with precarious heart issues. He had had a major heart attack a decade earlier. He always said if he had another heart attack he knew it would be his last.

While on our adventure to Iraq, Philip and I wrote home a number of times by email to our wives. They would collect our writings and then have fun comparing our notes and different takes on what had happened on the various days. In Iraq few people spoke English, and Philip and I knew very little Arabic. Jonathan was busy speaking Arabic most of the time while Philip and I stood behind like the American bodyguards we were. So with our lack of Arabic skills, Philip and I had quite a few conversations over the many hours of visits with families and Iraqi officials.

I asked about his life and how he had grown up in Japan the son of an airline manager. Then he was drafted to fight in Vietnam. After that he traveled the world visiting countless countries. There was a time that he thought he was going to die in India when he got some food sickness. He was in Iran in 1979 right before the American Embassy takeover. He flew out just in time. And then the years he spent in Israel. I kept asking him questions; he would answer.

On our way back from Iraq, we brought Thafir, the 2nd Iraqi child to ever enter Israel. Along with Thafir’s parents, we entered Amman, Jordan and waited for a few days to get an entrance visa into Israel. During that time, Philip and I helped entertain the family in the cold apartment. We went shopping and made food. We tried to communicate as best we could. Eventually, we made it into Israel. I was sick as a dog when we got back after our ten day trip.

Over the next year and a half, Philip would give two more sermons at Narkis Street, each dealing with issues about maturing and walking in the Lord. Philip's transparency about himself was refreshing, almost prophetic. Usually, people stereotype prophets as these loudmouth evangelists telling us the end is near. Though if we look back at the Bible, the basic aim of prophecy was simply "repent--get right with God". Philip never used those words and I never heard him raise his voice, but that idea of "getting right with God" always infused his honest and revealing words about his life.

Philip's humanity made us want to be more human, someone truly made in the image of God. Because of his weaknesses, because of our weaknesses, we recognize how much sweeter is victory through God's grace. The little joys of tucking children to sleep and feeding them breakfast goes much further in the making of a saint than all the sermons we could preach, missions we could seek, or countries we could save. To truly follow the Lord is dying to one’s self and living through Him. That is how we change this world. This is what I learned from Philip Berg.

Philip Leslie Berg
April 4, 1950 ~ January 16, 2006
See www.narkis.org for more on Philip Berg's life and words

A Blog is a Terrible Thing to Keep Waiting

Its been over two months since my last blog and the guilt builds everyday. Time flies and life consumes (and this is without children). And the blog wants more. It lingers and waits for my soul...

So I am going to try and reconstruct our last two months. I say "our" because Sharon's blog http://garyandsharonalley.com/sharon/ seems to be Missing-In-Action. I will go back and fill in the missing dates through November and December.

To summarize where we are now:

Sharon is in the kitchen making lentils. I made a spinach salad for lunch. We arrived back in the Big Apple on Monday afternoon January 9th with a big New York welcome catching the J line in Jamaica from JFK. We had quite a bit of luggage and when we got on the sub after a few stops my stuff fell onto the floor. All of my fellow citizens from the hood just kind of looked at me like I was the latest beggar to come on board. Ah, that sweet familial feeling of the metropolis where one thousand nations and languages collide and the only thing you have is your tribe or clan to watch your back. Since Sharon was my only tribesman onboard she donned some pity.

Anyway, we started our second semester at Nyack on Thursday. Sharon is teaching 3 classes: Old Testament, Preexilic Minor Prophets, and Hebrew. I am teaching New Testament, Revelation, and Intertestamental Literature. We'll explain more later.

By the way, we've had wonderful warm weather (for New York) the last few days. Its been in the 50's. We're loving it. We're also looking for a hamster cage that we can go run in (i.e. a workout gym). We've finally decided that our neighborhood is not the awe-inspiring tree-lined country side we've always been looking for to run in. Well I'll keep it brief for now and go fill in the last two months.

Sunshine Smiles from Florida

Growing up in Brandon, Florida, I never appreciated why so many Yankees and Canadians would come down and invade our community during the winter months. This Christmas I became the New York Yankee looking for a reprieve for my frostbitten toes that had been trudging the dingy arctic streets of Brooklyn.

Sharon and I spent 3 weeks in Florida wearing shorts and enjoying Florida's warm winter sun. It was a great time to relax with family and friends especially the week of Christmas. I also got to see my former youth minister from First Baptist Brandon, Don Minton and family who were down the week after. Sharon and I drove up to Tallahassee to see my brother Jimmy's new place and burgeoning family. On the way back from Tallhassee, we swung through Spring Hill and saw one of Sharon's old class mates from Africa, Jon Miller as he is helping build his parents' new retirement home from the mission field.

Top Ten List
for our Christmas Vacation at my parents' house
in Florida after coming from Brooklyn:

10. You don't have to walk down the street to do laundry.

9. There is grass to walk barefoot in.

8. (You can walk barefoot with a clean conscience.)

7. Pounds of frozen berries in the freezer instead frozen footsies on the floor.

6. Trees.

5. You can walk around and not bump into people (even in the Christmas rush).

4. People talk slower so you can understand.

3. Fresh oranges on the tree to squeeze.

2. We played Settlers of Catan many victorious times.

1. Sunshine.