Nativity Church

December 7, 2001

Even More Cancellations, Little Christmas Store, Internet Worm

11:00pm The Advent service at the Christmas Lutheran Church was canceled this evening. I think not many people knew about the service and perhaps the people from Jerusalem were not able to make it into Bethlehem. I went by the church but it was closed.

So I wandered down the narrow street and found a new store. Well, perhaps it is an old store with a new Christmas lineup. This little place was totally devoted to all things Christmas. I saw little Santas, winter snow scenes, candles, table covers, miniature villages, twinkling Christmas lights and other gifts. Most of the stores in town were closed because of Juma (Friday), the Islamic holy day, but this guy was happily selling to several families inside. It reminded me a bit of something from another generation, sort of looked warm and inviting -- like a Norman Rockwell painting. I got a touch of the Christmas spirit and bought some candles.

I grabbed a nontraditional chili-con-carne at El Mariachi and stopped at the Peace Center, but it was closed too. There will be no Palestinian poetry reading tonight. Canceled.

Ended up having a bit more free time on my hands than I expected, so I headed home to answer some email, since I am waaaaaaay behind. (I apologize to anyone waiting for a reply.) On the way my good neighbor grabbed me for a consultation. His computer was infected with that recent email worm. (I think I received at least four copies of it in the past two days.) We cleaned his machine and he got back to work. There's a lot of down time around here in dealing with problem viruses. I've seen a lot of NGOs spending a lot of time (but few resources) trying to get machines and networks operational. If you hear about an Internet virus spreading, I can guarantee you that we have it here in Palestine. I wonder if the creator of these irritating viruses thinks about how much time is lost trying to remedy the headache they create. That is time that could be spent serving and sharing with people. Instead it is wasted running virus detection software.