Children are the same the whole world over - what a joy and blessing!

They are mischievous and love to play.

These are two images that capture some of our interaction with young people.

The picture of the playground is at the orphanage we visited in Bethany. There are nearly 90 residents at the orphanage and this is one of the places they can play outside, the other is a hard court that is great for football. Behind the tree were a couple of old swings. I can tell you how much they're used because the ground underneath had been scooped out by endless feet dragging across it over the years... Many young children in the UK have this in their own back gardens or much more, like a trampoline... a moment to pause for thought.

The second image is in Jerusalem and happened as we were walking towards David's City and the Gihon Springs. It was a school day but these three or four youngsters were playing truant... or maybe they never went, who knows. Their English was sufficient for their needs - just! They stood in the opening, just visible and demanded a shekel for a photo and lowered an old black plastic bag and a scraggy piece of rope.

Eventually Fr Derek and others relented and Daniel (also in the photo) went to put our contributions in the bag. They didn't understand we'd 'coughed up the cash' so their language became slightly more 'aggressive' though not as bad as one might expect "we are very angry now" was about as bad as it got. When they did get the message that we'd made a donation they attempted to pull up the bag and the rope gave way! They need to do better than that if they're to become entrepreneurs!