I’m sitting in the balcony at King of Kings watching the worship team get ready for the service and thinking about the overwhelming amount of grunt-work to be done in the next few months. Franklin leaves the Embassy at the end of the year, and theoretically I leave after the Feast (depending on whether or not my replacement has arrived). We’ll have some time to go through all our worldly possessions (of which we have too many) and prepare for 6-8 months in the States.

Our August visit with US family and friends went very well. We love spending time with our various family members, and wish that we had more time to spend with them. Our quick jaunt up to Michigan was awesome - we’re now officially VERY EXCITED about living in Big Rapids for 6 months. Don’t believe the Michigan nay-sayers - they’ve just never seen the prettier, friendlier face of the oven-mitt state. Click here to read Franklin’s (guitar-centric) account of our trip north. We still don’t know exactly where we’ll be living (in a van - down by the river?), or what exactly I’m going to be doing with my time while Franklin studies (eating a steady diet of government cheese?), but we’re confident that everything will be fine, and that Franklin’s lutherie education will be top-notch. The rest is details.

Our plan now is to leave Israel mid-Februaryish, and move into our tent/van/apartment/cave in Big Rapids on March 1st. The course goes until mid-August. We’ll spend a few weeks in the Carolinas with family and friends and then go about setting up a business here in Jerusalem. Franklin just finished a 70s era Tele that might be the most perfect guitar ever in the whole universe (I’m not biased, I swear) and he’s back in high demand for guitar repairs - it’s like we never left.

See pictures from our US trip here.

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She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s losing her ovaries this week.

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We have big news here at the Linker household. We have officially decided to chase our long-time dream of doing full time guitar building and repair right here in Jerusalem. We’ve long wanted to be ‘tent-makers’ here, and Franklin has had more and more opportunities to be involved with local guitar players and musicians.

So at the end of the year we will officially step down from our positions at the ICEJ and take a six month sabbatical in Michigan where Franklin will study to receive his Master Luthier certification from one of the most respected guitar builders in America. Please, please someone take the time to dig up a positive comment or two about the state of Michigan - we’re hearing horror stories! Anyway, we feel very strongly that this is the next step for us. Now is certainly the time in our lives to step out of the boat and have a go at making a career out of something we love. If we don’t do it now we never will.

This is all a bit scary for us and we’re very sad to leave our friends and family at the Embassy - but we’re also excited to see what the future holds.

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In a supreme act of thoughtless remote linking, I recently crashed the linkernews site (and the server it lives on - sorry Keith!). It was down for a bit, and some people are reporting that they still can’t access the site. I figured that this was as good a time as any to break my blog silence.

We have a friend who is actively involved with the Israeli folk music scene, and Franklin recently finished a major repair on one of her guitars. She told us that the luthier who had done almost all the repair work for local folk musicians had recently died, and that the musicians were desperate for another capable luthier. She asked permission to give Franklin’s name out.

So it happened that last week we had a visit from a fellow who needed a repair on his mandolin. In a fit of nostalgia, Mr. Mandolin called the other luthier’s widow to see how she was doing. She informed him that she was doing well, was moving, and planned to throw out all of her husband’s old equipment. He put the widow in touch with Franklin, and she generously donated all of the equipment to us. Franklin went to pick it up yesterday and is over the moon about the guitar forms, tools and general guitar stuff that he found.

We had a lovely Passover season. We had our seder with our good friends the Salways, and spent the rest of the week at work (boo!). Things are busy at the Embassy - this week we have our annual director’s meeting - but other than that, mostly unchanged. Franklin is now officially the Embassy’s CFO, and finds the position very stressful. I’m still doing the web thing, and I’m happy to announce that our Front Page Jerusalem site is now live, and the new Grafted site is coming soon. Work, work, work!

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There’s been a bit of excitement in Jerusalem over the past few days. Local meteorologists predicted between 8 and 11 inches of snow first for Tuesday night, then for Wednesday night. They got it wrong - there was very little accumulation, but the icy wet slush that we did get proved to be enough to shut down the city for 2 days. Not enough for a good snowball fight or for gorgeous photos of the city in white, but enough for an awful lot of hooky-playing.

We spent our days huddled with friends in our living room. It’s COLD in our house. The chilly temperature makes it really hard to get out of bed in the morning, but to tell you the truth we’re having fun with it. We’re running our three tiny blow heaters 24/7, wearing a million layers of clothing, and we robbed the beds in the guest room for extra comforters for our bed. I also carry a hot water bottle with me everywhere for my feet. But, like I said, we’ve been spending a lot of time socializing and playing games in the living room (if we bring 2 or 3 of the little heaters in there it warms up pretty well - especially if we’re playing the Wii).

We’ve also been spending our time putting the finishing touches on LinkerGuitars.com. Go on over and check it out. It’s still a work in progress, but we’d sure appreciate your comments and feedback, and it would be grand if you’d send your guitar playing friends our way.

For the sake of accountability I’d like to report that I made my word-count goal for the month of January, writing an average of 869.5 words per day for a total of 26,956 words. Only 11 more months to go.

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