Showing posts with label German Colony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label German Colony. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

From Genesis to Revelation: Artist Unveils Mural of the Bible in Jerusalem - CBN News Chris Mitchell


From Genesis to Revelation: Artist Unveils Mural of the Bible in Jerusalem

05-20-2016
CBN News Chris Mitchell

GERMAN COLONY, Israel -- In Jerusalem, artist Patricia Solveson recently completed a daunting task: Over the course of several years, she painted the entire Bible.
Called the Jerusalem Wall of Life, the biblical mural is longer than a football field and portrays scenes from Genesis to Revelation, including Moses parting the Red Sea.

It took six years for Solveson to finish what she calls her life's work.
"I'm probably more changed by painting this mural than anything else," Solveson told CBN News.
"I was very relieved, very relieved. But I felt His heart. I felt the Lord's heart of joy because He knows this is His place and His message can come forth," she shared.
"In a place where the Good News has been quenched, very seriously quenched, here are the walls shouting out His name," she said.

Creating the mural wasn't easy.  
"Such a vast job. It was just overwhelming -- many, many times," she said. "But then someone would come in. They'd be so touched and then I'd be revived again to keep going."
Solveson completed the mural under the auspices of the Alliance Church in the Holy Land, which held a dedication service for the work.    
"I think the mural is just a beautiful representation of our faith, of our hope, of the story," said Marshall Mullinax, field director of the Christian Alliance Center.
The mural wraps around the walls of the Alliance Church cemetery in Jerusalem's German Colony. Some may think it strange for this art to surround a cemetery.  

"Perhaps one of the least expected evangelistic platforms in the world, a cemetery," Mullinax noted. "But we're one of the few groups of people that actually don't find cemeteries disturbing because our hope, our lives, our story doesn't end with the grave."
"We're a people who can walk without fear because we know that death's been conquered. We know that this is a stop in the story but it's not the end of the story," he said.    
The cemetery, now an official Ministry of Tourism site, enjoys a rich heritage and history.  
Rev. Jack Sara is vice president of Bethlehem Bible College and pastor with the Alliance Church.
"It's great to have this place dedicated and especially putting this mural on the wall where they talk about the story of God through all the history and especially the story of salvation for all humanity," he said.
Justina Steiner was in awe of the painting.
"The mural itself is just gorgeous and the colors and vibrant... and just the story depictions are really, really thought provoking," Steiner observed. "Especially the end with the coming back of Jesus and the Lion and the Lamb… Yea, it's really awesome."
Solveson calls the artistic style 'impressionistic realism.' Her favorite scene? The Resurrection. 


"Because Miriam, she thought this was the gardener and she said, 'Where did you put His body? And He spoke her name and she had this love relationship with him. That's the kind of relationship I have with him," she told CBN News.

"But I also love the scene with the Lamb because it's not a traditional Calvary scene, -- it's a scene, it's a scene with the Passover Lamb, like when John the Baptist said, 'Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,'" she said.
Solveson found inspiration from her own transformed life.  
"Inspiration is a four letter word, L-O-V-E," she explained. "Really because of the Lord who did for me what I could not do for myself--He took me out of this pit. He put a song in my mouth, a paintbrush in my hand and he said, 'You're going to live.'"
"It's really a love story for all people, from all over the world," she concluded.


Watch interview: Jerusalem Wall of Life

Monday, August 31, 2015

Israel's History - a Picture a Day - Why Was a Nazi Flag Flying from a Jerusalem Hotel in the 1930s?

Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)


Posted: 30 Aug 2015 

We recently published pictures from the British Library's Endangered Archives Programincluding this incredible picture of Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City which we have dated to the mid-1890s. Only in 1898 was the wall near Jaffa Gate breached so that carriages could drive into the city.

Jaffa Gate and A(braham) Fast's restaurant.  (Debbas Collection, British Library)































We wanted to know more about the store on the left with the sign "A Fast. Restauranteur."  Was this a tourist establishment of Abraham Fast, who in 1907 took over a large hotel several hundred meters to the west of the building pictured above and renamed it "Hotel Fast?"

German troops marching in Jerusalem on Good Friday, 
April 6, 1917. The building on the left is 
the Fast Hotel. (Imperial War Museum, UK)

It was a leading hotel with 100 rooms, built around a court yard with Ionic, Corinthian and Doric columns.

Hotel Fast and its kosher restaurant was a well-known establishment in Jerusalem for decades, and was probably considered by many to be a Jewish-owned establishment because of its Jewish clientele.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Fasts were German Templers.

The German consulate in the Fast Hotel, 1933. 
(Wikimedia, Tamar Hayardeni)







They lived in Jerusalem's German Colony and were exiled by the British after World War I and during World War II because of their support for Germany.


We recently uncovered pictures of German troops marching in Jerusalem streets on Good Friday 1917. Readers were able to identify the building on the left as the Fast Hotel.

Our biggest surprise was finding this picture of the German consulate in the Hotel Fast with the German Swastika flag flying from the building.









During World War II, the hotel was taken over by the British army command and turned into the Australian army club.


The Hotel Fast housed Australian soldiers in World War II.  Here they are greeting the Australian 
Prime Minister Robert Menzies and the commander of the Australian troops in Australia, 
Lt. Gen. Thomas Blamey in February 1941. The Matson Photo Service, shown on the ground 
floor, was run by Eric Matson, originally from the American Colony Photographic Department. 
 Matson left Palestine in 1946 for the United States.  His collection of photos were 
bequeathed to the Library of Congress where many of the pictures in this 
website were found.  (Library of Congress


The Hotel Fast building was abandoned in 1967 and torn down in 1976 to make way for the Dan Pearl Hotel.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

A Great Tour with Christian Friends of Israel - 2005

Ben Gurion Airport - Tel Aviv

Barry & Batya Segal - Vision For Israel

Avraham & Dahlia Saiden, Steve Martin - Shabbat meal

CFI-USA Director - Hannele Pardain & Jeanette Alongi

Bill Koening - "Eye To Eye" author

Jack Alongi - An American tourist in Israel

David's Citadel - Old City Jerusalem

Gravesite of Derek Prince in the German Colony, Jerusalem

Getting there and back from JFK in NYC.

Elvis Pressley - a king in Israel

Mount of Beatitudes



YMCA in Jerusalem

Nazareth Village

Capernaum synagogue remains from 1st Century

Yeshua (Jesus) is the Light of the World


All but one of these photos were taken by Steve Martin.
(Can you guess which one wasn't?)

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Derek & Ruth Prince - graveyard in Jerusalem

Derek & Ruth Prince graveyard in Jerusalem 

(German Colony district)


Derek & Ruth Prince, residents of Jerusalem for over 20 years, are buried in this German Colony district of Jerusalem.

Lydia Prince is also buried here. She was Derek's first wife, who died about five years before Derek married Ruth. Lydia and Derek had adopted nine Jewish/Arabic/African kids. Lydia had adopted and raised raised eight of them as a single woman. Her incredible book, "Appointment In Jerusalem", tells the story.

I am most appreciative of having had the opportunity to work on staff at their ministry - first from 1987-1990 in Fort Lauderdale, Fl., and then again at the Charlotte, NC location, from 2001-2005. The ministry had already relocated to Charlotte, in 1994.


Derek Prince Ministries staff in Charlotte, NC 2004



The 2006 Vision for Israel staff, where I served as USA Director, is also in the photo above. These two framed photos, of both ministries, are on the top shelf of my current office in uptown Charlotte, NC.

As the Director of Operations and Finance at Derek Prince Ministries, I served with David Selby (Intl. Executive Director), Jack Alongi (Director of Donor Relations), Peter Wyns (USA Outreach Director) and Derek Wesley Selby, (Director of Communications.) Another 22 staff members assisted us in these departments.


For more information on Derek Prince Ministries, please click on the name below.



My son Ben Martin (who also worked at DPM for many years) and I are now part of Love For His People, Inc., founded by my wife Laurie and myself in 2010.



Also in 2010, Ben and I initiated this new ministry's annual Ahava Adventures service trip to Israel, when I was able to take the above photo of Derek's burial location through the front gate. (It is a gated cemetery, and wasn't open on that Saturday morning. Shabbat in Jerusalem is highly respected.)


As a side note, I had been inside the gated cemetery where Derek is buried on two previous occasions. Once with Mahesh Chavda Ministries, when I was the Administrator for 14 years, from 1987-2000, and again on tour with Christian Friends of Israel (CFI), as a board member, on several "Meet and Greet" trips.






Come join us on our next Ahava Adventure! 

(Use the search box for "Ahava Adventure" 
on this blog site for current information.)


In addition to this Blog website, Love For His People has another site, with info on our complete work in support of Israel and our friends who live there.



Shalom,

Steve Martin
Founder/President
Love For His People