Goin tae Poland themorra

Me and Graeme are taking oor da - Eric - to Poland for a wheen o days. The new direct flights from Belfast International to Katowice make it handy, so we're stayin in a hotel in the middle o Katowice town itsel. We'll arrive there aroon midnight on Thurs night / Fri mornin.

The reason for goin is to take my da to see Auschwitz.

So it'll no be a happy trip, and I'm sure I'll hae thochts an comments tae blog aboot yince I get back hame again, but I'm looking forward to it. My da's had a fascination with, and deep sympathy for, the Jewish people all his life, so this is probably the trip of a lifetime for him. I've noticed throughout my 35 years that many Ulster evanglical believers have a real sense of spiritual connection with God's chosen people, and a deep sympathy for their plight and persecutions. It comes from being reared on generous helpings of the Oul Testament in between the tay an soda breid.

If it goes weel he's thinkin aboot takin ither folk on a repeat visit next year.

We'll be back in Belfast aboot 7.45 on Saturday night, and we're hopin to get doon the road to the monthly Saturday night Gospel Rally in Carrowdore Mission Hall, to tell everybody aboot the trip.

----------

For those of you with a love of literature, here's an interesting book which draws parallels between the similar outlooks and worldviews of the Ulster-Scots folk, the Israeli / Jewish people, and the Afrikaaners in South Africa. (And before someone points out the obvious to me, yes I know that not all Jews are Israelis/Zionists and vice versa. And no, I'm not a "British-Israelite".)

From the endpapers: "...what developments in Northern Ireland and South Africa since the seventeenth century – and in Israel during the twentieth – have in common is that… the dominant peoples of these three nations have based a cultural identity on a belief in a direct covenant or contract with an all-powerful, all-knowing God…”