June 5th (Sunday) was the second day of the Festival of Weeks (Shavuot, Pentecost). We had a chance to meet Yukako san who is studying in the Masters course at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. We were introduced to Yukako san by Kathy san who is ministering inBiblical Church of Tokyowith her husband, Pastor Oyama. When I wrote a blog post to Shevet Achim news letter (one of the tasks as a volunteer) a few days ago, Kathy san saw my name and texted me asking if I was Japanese. Kathy san told me that they also had volunteered at Shevet a couple years ago. I was excited to hear from her because I have a few friends who are related to this church in Tokyo. We met Yukako san and enjoyed the interesting conversation on the terrace ofChrist Church Jerusalemin the old city where she regulary attends the service. We then attended the Pentecost service with her there.

Christ Church Jerusalem is an Anglican church, and we followed the liturgy and received a message by a pastor with beautiful British accent. The message was on the descent of the Holy Spirit. “The Upper Room” in Acts 1:13 isone of the popular places to visit in Jerusalem,but this is an only traditionally designated place. The place mentioned in “when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place (Acts 2:1).” should not be this Upper Room, but the temple itself. I learned the same thing through a messianic Jew study. The Festival of Weeks (Shavuot, Pentecost) is one of the three pilgrimage festivals for the Jews, along with Passover and the Festival of Booth. It is not imaginable that people gather in a place other than the temple on the very day of Shavuot. It is also not easy to believe that a regular house could accommodate more than 3,000 people. This house should be the House of God. At the temple which was extravagantly renovated by Herod the Great, who was not a Jew but an Edmite proselyte and named by the Roman government as the King of Judea, i.e. the temple that was far from God’s holiness, the Holy Spirit descended when people gathered and sought for the Messiah. This is our origin! This happened at Temple Mount, right around the corner(?) from here! At the place which we have not conquered yet...

We had to leave the service in the middle to catch the first train after the Sabbath ended. On Sabbath, the public transportation entirely stops, and it does not start running until past 9:00 pm. When we arrived at Jerusalem Central Station, it was still completely deserted. By the time we reached Shevet home in Ashdod, it was past 11:00 pm. Ohhh, we have to work tomorrow!