Lessons from the Children's Museum

For those of you who have not been to the Children's Museum here in town, you simply must go.  Of course, you probably should have a child to accompany you, or you'll be considered a total creeper.  If you don't have a child of your own, find some way to beg, borrow, or steal a child before planning your museum visit.  (Please don't actually steal a child.  That's what real creepers do.  Don't.)  Once you have your child in hand, you may proceed to the museum.

I was fortunate enough to borrow a child of a friend last night (a.k.a. I was babysitting) and we visited the museum.  I must say that I learned some very important lessons.

1. If I had some of these toys at home I would be playing with them ALL THE TIME.  I mean, honestly?  Just think of all the possibilities with this one:

So cool.  Your child will be fine with leaving the toys there.  You will want to take them home.  Resist that urge.  

2. If you are female, you may want to make sure that your shirt has a very high neckline.  Otherwise, when your small child has a handful of flax seed, he may find a happy hole to drop it down...and you will be finding flax seeds on your person for a week.  (Yes, this happened, no not to me.)

3. Puppet shows are fun for all ages!  Especially when the walls and LIGHT SWITCHES are mirrored so you can see yourself perform.

And now I absolutely want a mirrored light switch.  

4. Jenga is much easier when you use pieces of wood that are shorter and broader...and you lay them out 5x5.

And for all that I still lost to a 5-year-old.  Twice.  

So go to the Children's Museum.  Enjoy yourself!  And try not to cry when it's time to go home.  

How lovely

I just had a delightful experience.

"And what" you might ask, "was that experience?" Or you might not ask, but I will tell you anyway.

First, though, I must inform you of a couple relevant circumstances.
1. The main "caretaker" (for lack of a better term) on campus has a wife and two daughters, all of whom live on campus. The daughters are named Luna and Lamara, and are (I believe) 9 and 8 years old, respectively.
2. A small orange kitty has recently been "adopted" by some students here on campus. It was in pretty poor shape, but has been showered with some care, and is now doing better and has become at least marginally tame.

This afternoon I was outside, sitting under our grape arbor, enjoying the cool breeze and warm sunshine, listening to some Celtic music, occasionally catching a whiff of the fragrance of dying roses, and reading about the history of Israel, when these two circumstances converged in a way that was simply marvelous.

The two girls had just gotten home from school (I greeted them) and immediately commenced to search for the small orange kitty (who someone decide to name "Francis"). The found him and proceeded to hold him (very badly), pass him back and forth, ask me to guard him while they got food for him, attempted to "force" him to eat, chased him as he ran away, and the continued to search for him and try to get him back until they had to leave for a meal. This may not seems like a delightful experience to you, but really it was. It was so similar to the dramas I've seen acted out with the kitties at camp, over and over. It just made me laugh and remember that kids are the same, wherever you are in the world. And come to think of it, kitties are pretty much the same too. :)

Shevet Achim

We had our "vespers" service a day early this week (meaning it was today) and the speaker was a man from Shevet Achim. For those of you who don't speak Hebrew, that phrase is taken from Psalm 133 where it talks about the beauty of brothers dwelling in unity. Shevet Achim is a Christian ministry in Israel that brings children with various heart diseases and malformations from Iraq, Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank to Israel (Jerusalem) to have surgery. They're are a few hopitals and surgeons here who do the surgery at a greatly reduced rate. It's really pretty amazing. They obviously cross some huge boundaries. It wasn't so long ago, according to our speaker, that Iraqis who came to Israel for any "friendly" reason would basically committing a crime worth of death (against Iraq). The Israeli surgeons who do the surgeries have reason to distrust people from all of these places, and the Arabs and Kurds have reason to distrust anyone Jewish. For that matter, none of them care much for Christians. So think what a huge ministry opportunity this is. Not only are children's lives saved, but it is a chance to bring Jews and Muslims and Christians together in an environment that is condusive to reconcilliation at some level. It is a chance for the believers who work with this ministry to share their faith and the love of Christ with the doctors and nurses who help the children and also with the families as they wait for their children to (hopefully) heal. Tonight the man (Alex) specifically asked us to pray for Ali, a young boy who recently had surgery and is not recovering. He seems to be slowly slipping away. Alex also asked prayer for the boy's father, Hussein.

It was a really touching presentation. Alex invited all of us to come down some day and play with the kids, and I'd really love to do that at some point. I don't have a very good idea of what I want to do with my life after this (far too many options!) but I am pretty sure that I want to be with children/youth in some capacity. How that will pan out, I don't know, but there you have it.

In other, tangentially related, news... It's kind of funny, but all the time someone will mention some ministry or government position or just random things, and someone else will say, "Oh, yeah, there's a JUC graduate working there." So, apparently JUC graduates are everywhere (including one at Shevet Achim).

Volunteers

While over here we have the chance to volunteer for half a day a week and one of a few different Christian ministries in and around Jerusalem. Today Diane planned for a few of us to meet with the principle of Jerusalem School in east Jerusalem to see how we could help them out. At 10:00 I left the school with Melissa (the wife of one of the semester undergrad students), Isaiah (another undergrad student) and Bryan (a grad student who's wife works at the school.) We walked through the old city to just outside of Damascus gate where we caught an Arab bus. The bus took us nearly to the check point between Israel and the West Bank. There was no check to get in, so we walked past the check point and then turned up the road that Bryan said was the boundary line between Jerusalem and the West Bank. We could see the wall they're building...

The school is on that boundary road, just barely on the Jerusalem side. It is a Christian school that uses, I think, mostly one of the home school curricula...maybe Apologia? The student body itself (K-12, I think) is well over half Muslim. Because of that, some of them struggle with English (and everything is taught in English). The principle's first thought was to have us help some of them with English. He also mentioned that some might need help in math. Then we went to observe the classrooms of some of the teachers we might help. The few students I met seemed to be pretty similar to all the other children that age I've met. Most of them were pretty friendly, some rather rambunctious and rebellious. Also, it's the month of Ramadan which means that most of them are fasting, so I'm sure they're a little crazier/grumpier/more tired than "normal." It was fun. I'm not sure exactly where I'll be when I go back next week since I will be there on a different day (Tuesday) and at different times (probably about 8-11:30), but I'm sure I'll find something to do.

The school building itself was built by the Coptic church to use as a college, but for some reason they never finished it. It had been empty for something like 12 years before this school moved in this year. It's a pretty nice building. I didn't bring my camera this time, but I'll have to get some pictures next time and put them up.

After that we caught a bus back to Damascus Gate and walked back to school, just in time to grab a sandwich before class. :)

As a side note, I must admit that I'm terribly tired of hearing about the conquests of the various Pharaohs who invaded Canaan. I think I've read or heard about 3 accounts of that and I've seen the same ancient texts on that subject about 5 times now...*sigh* :) As interesting as these first couple weeks have been, they have also been really repetitive in a lot of areas. Pretty much all of the lectures I've attended and articles I've read have overlapped at some point. But hey, maybe I'll learn it really well this way. Let's hope. :) And it is good to see the connections between different subjects.

Tears

There are lots of things that can occasionally make me cry, mostly depending on the day, how much sleep I had the previous night, and other circumstances like that. However, there are very few things that I can think of that almost always cause me to tear up, and I think that most of those things fit into two categories:

1. Heaven/Eternity
I don't think that I've had any one really close to me die, so at the funerals I've gone to, I find that I am only partly weeping because of how that person will be missed. More, though, at least at the funerals of Christians, I weep for the joy of the hope of seeing them again, for the joy they have right now in the presence of the Lord, and for the example their lives have been. It may seem backwards, but I think the reason that I am weeping in light of all that joy is that there is still sorrow mixed in. There is good to come, but this is not the way its supposed to be right now. Then, when I think of how all will be made right, the sorrow and joy just overflow into tears.
Here are some other things in this vein that generally make me cry:
-The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis. Again, ironically, the battle doesn't really make me cry. It's what's beyond the door of the stable that gets me.
-Some songs about heaven.
-Various missionary stories or stories of martyrs such as Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot. Yeah, even thinking about the title of that one makes my eyes mist a little.

Which brings me to the second category of things that make me cry (they overlap a bit).

2. Missions (especially if children are involved)
Every year my church has a missions conference, and every year during that time we have the flag ceremony where various people carry the flags of the countries they represent. It's hard to explain why its so moving, but it is. I think it's partly the thought of the completion of all things (see reason #1) -- the thought of every tribe, tongue, and nation singing together to the glory of God. Add to that thought the visual representation of all these people of different nationalities carrying their flags and the sound of the whole church singing and praising God. It's like a little taste of heaven. Which is perhaps why it makes me cry.
Again, other related things that bring tears to my eyes:
-It's corny, but the Operation Christmas Child videos make me cry.
-Missions songs, especially when accompanied by pictures, especially when the pictures are of children.

Perhaps the emotion here is more poignant because the tears shed for these reasons are less selfish than those shed when I'm upset for myself?

I suppose in reality these two groups could be put into one. For both I feel a sorrow that the world is not as it should be, but for both I also feel a hope that this is not the way things will always be. It's like a minor chord which is achingly beautiful (and makes you glad because of it's beauty), but equally sorrowful. Somehow it reminds you that the curse is still in effect but it will not always be so.

This last Sunday night we had a concert with a bunch of songs about heaven, and that's what started me on this topic. I think I am expressing myself badly, but I wanted to at least write it out and perhaps someday I'll be able to explain my thoughts in this area better.