2009: A Year in Review

2009 started out for me back home in Montana...where the mountains are purple, and blue, and green, and white, and sometimes pink...

I enjoyed being a Montana girl again...

...before heading back to warm(er) Jerusalem

I spent a little time becoming reacquainted with the city.

For Valentine's Day, hopeless romantic that I am, I took part in a murder mystery. I was not guilty. Nor was the feather duster used as a weapon.

One of my favorite weekly activities was Friday afternoon Ultimate Frisbee.

Yes, I can catch, thank you very much.

At one point it almost even snowed...though it was really more of a hail. Oh well, it was white.

I celebrated Purim with my Jewish Thought and Practice class by going to Synagogue that night.

Camp flashbacks one day as some of us helped with dishes.

There were not as many field studies this year, but we did get to do some hiking on some of them. This is St. George's Monastery in Wadi Qelt...on the way to Jericho. Fortunately, there were not hedge robbers.

Learned more about Synagogues and Jewish life on a field study with Rabbi Moshe.

On another field study with Rabbi Moshe, we learned (sort of) how to harvest barley and other parable-type imagery.

I spent an amazing and relaxing extended weekend in Dahab, snorkeling, reading, eating, sleeping...ah... See, we even almost look happy.

Got to know some fellow students better. Yeah, they're all crazy.

I joined a Palm Sunday Parade,

went hiking in Galilee,

watched the Samaritan Passover lamb slaughter,

and participated in a triclinium meal.

Hoppy Easter from Jerusalem!

I participated in the "miracle" of Holy Fire.

One day we took off and went the the beach.

Another field study took us to some ruins of a Synagogue/Pagan Temple in Upper Galilee.

Happy Birthday, Israel!

One day I was privileged to see and ancient Roman walking down his ancient Roman road.

I went on week-long epic trip to Jordan where we watched sunsets, stormed castles,

killed sheep,

kissed camels, and just generally had a good time.

On my way home from Jerusalem I took a little pit-stop to visit my brother.

Back home I visited my Grandmother, and my Grandfather's grave.

Hung out with some friends. :)

...And headed off to camp. Snow, yay!

I was witness to some very rapid dismounts at the Big T Rodeo,

and to some exceptionally large explosions at the incinerator.

Family Foto Fun!

Happy Birthday, America!

My Cabin-mates at camp were pretty much the best ever.

We even got to celebrate Christmas in July...with the tree our bus knocked over...

I took a quick break from camp to reconnect with some High School friends. Yeah, they're crazy too.

I visited several waterfalls,

and enjoyed a little extra time with friends and family before heading back to...

the "Holy" Land.

Fortunately, I still had my sister around to keep me in trouble.

HaShum adventures!

I celebrated Yom Kippur by lying in the middle of the street.

I went on a family vacation where we managed not to leave our car behind at Caesarea

and where we celebrated JUC on the shores of Galilee.

I visited the big Shuk for the first time.

We had friends over several times. Living off campus is lovely.

We hung out on couches on top of Helkath for Reg-Exs.

Went hiking on Gilboa...

...where I acquired my Christmas Stick.

We had a Christmas party at the end of the semester and began to say good-byes.

...More good-byes...

I hosted numerous guests, not all of whom were expected.

I spent Christmas Eve in Bethlehem,

made special Christmas food,

and spent Christmas day with special people.

It was a good year. Rather unique, I would say. So I wish you all a Happy New Year as we do our own ball drop, here in Jerusalem.

We'll see what God has in store for 2010! :)

Part 2: The Rest

The rest of my Christmas holiday was a rather odd mixture of Israeli and American.

I went to the post office, which was open on Christmas day, to get the gift my parents sent from America.

I went to the grocery store, also open, to buy ingredients to make Christmas goodies. Like eggnog.

I had friends over and we ate pizza (which is a Christmas Eve tradition in my family) and watched a Christmas movie. And made snowflakes. Which is likely to be the only snow I'll see this year - the temperatures have been quite warm recently.

For Boxing Day a bunch of us got together for the traditional Christmas Day meal and a white elephant gift exchange. It was a day late, but hey, why stand on ceremony?

It was a very different Christmas, but I was blessed to be in this land, at this time, with many friends around.

Part 1: Christmas Eve

This Christmas has been a unique one in many ways. Every year, each Christmas is a little different, but this one is definitely a statistical outlier.

Most of the reason can be wrapped up in the "who" and the "where." While I have been outside of Montana for parts of the Christmas season before, it was rare, and I've never before been outside of the states. More than that, I've never before spent Christmas away from all my family.

This year I spent Christmas in Israel. Ironically, Israel, the place where the first Christmas took place, is rather apathetic at best, hostile at worst, towards Christmas today. In spite of the lack of perceivable Christmas cheer in the air, I was blessed to have several good friends in the area to keep me company over the holidays.

On Christmas Eve (morning) several of us set out from Jerusalem, intent on walking to Bethlehem. Sometimes, in reading the Bible, it is easy to get a distorted view of distances in Israel. Bethlehem is roughly 5 miles south of Jerusalem, and most of that is fairly level, along the "Patriarchal Ridge Route." Walking was in itself quite an experience. We had to go through the check point, and then we walked along the wall for a considerable ways. I've spent very little time in Bethlehem and thus have had little chance to observe the wall. It is a poignant reminder of the distinct lack of peace in this land where the Prince of Peace was born.

We left the wall behind as we ventured deeper into the modern city of Bethlehem. In contrast to most of the rest of the West Bank, the area around Bethlehem still has a large Christian population. Christmas decorations were found in abundance, as well as shops blaring Christmas music in various languages. It was not really what I had expected. One would think, in an area so important in religion, that one would find religious expressions of celebration. It was in fact, rather western and secular. The blaring songs, while recognizably Christmasy in flavor, rarely mentioned Christ. The decorations, while again, festive, focused on Santa (or occasionally Dora the Explorer). And, to top it off, the Christmas cards we got from the Palestinian police had swords and the Dome of the Rock on them (wishing us a Merry Christmas 2010).

We watched several scout troops parading, most of the with flags, bagpipes, and drums. They reminded me that we were not in America, which was good.

When the parade had finished we went up to Manger Square. We sat outside the Church of the Nativity for a while and ate lunch. We went inside for a brief time. The line to see the groto area was excessively long (and most of us had already seen it) so we skipped that part.

After exiting the church, we set out to find Shepherd's Field, in Beit Sahour. I had never been there before, but apparently there are two locations and churches that commemorate the site where the angels appeared to the shepherds. We wound up at the Greek Orthodox site. The Shepherds, if this was indeed their field, unfortunately left no trace of their shepherding. There were some fun Byzantine ruins and caves to explore, along with a nice little chapel. It was quiet and park-like and did overlook some fields, so it had a nice feel to it, removed from the chaos of modern Bethlehem. I got to read the story in Luke 2 to the rest of the group as we looked out over the fields.

From there we made the trek home. We were all fairly tired at this point, and the way to Bethlehem was all up hill, so we caught a bus which took us most of the way back to Manger Square. From there we walked to the check point where most of us caught a bus back to Jerusalem.

By the time I got home it was nearly dark, but the day wasn't over. I had agreed to go with Emily to the house of a family she knew for Christmas Eve dinner. It was good to meet more Americans in the land, and I had a chance to play with their children. I suppose it made up a little for not being able to have any of my little cousins around for the holiday.

When I got home for that I worked on preparing some food for Christmas morning...and then I went to church.

The service at St. Andrew's Scottish Presbyterian Church started at 11:15. I found some people there that I knew and sat by them. It was a nice service. The Christmas carols were interesting. Most of them I knew the words...or the tune...or both...but not necessarily together. We ended up singing "O Come, all Ye Faithful" to the tune of "Angels we have heard on high," which is not as easy as it might sound. The church seems to often sing songs to different tunes, so I'm not quite sure if it's a Scottish thing, or if it's specific to the church, or if it's occasionally organist error. Then we sang "Silent Night," except the translation was quite unlike what I've always heard in America. That in itself was quite interesting. Then there were lots of people, most of the whispering to each other in Hebrew throughout the service. I'm fairly certain some of them were there either out of curiosity or as part of a school assignment.

Jewish Teacher: B'seder, students, your assignment this weekend is to visit one of those crazy Christian churches for one of their Christmas services.

Student: Are you sure we'll be safe? They're crazy!

Teacher: Yes, crazy, but mostly harmless. They'll just sing Christmas Carols and talk about peace, joy, and love.

Student: Christmas Carols? What are those?

Teacher: Oh, they're songs that they sing once a year that no one knows the second verse to. But they'll pretend!

Student: Why do they do this?

Teacher: Beats me! Christians are just strange like that. But make sure you pay special attention and take notes. I want you to write down your impression and turn them in first thing Sunday morning.

Student: How long do they have to be?

Teacher: I DON'T CARE.*

*Note: This last statement is a verbatim quote from an actual Jewish professor of mine when asked a similar question.

When the service ended it was Christmas Day...which will have to wait for the next post.