Story time!

(Bonus picture here: this is what Jerusalem looked like one day when the wind came up and blew dust all over.)

Well actually, I had been planning to talk about the story of Ruth...but now that may have to wait for another time. Instead, I have a story about my life here at JUC, which I'm sure you all will find fascinating. Well, probably not, but I'll enjoy telling it.


First of all, today has been pretty amazing. We didn't have archaeology this morning which meant that I got to sleep in (which is good because I was up really late last night). I mean, I love Gabi, but a day off is nice too. And THEN I got to play Ultimate Frisbee. And my team (which had all the girls on it) came from behind (like 5 to 1) to win (8 to 6). It was amazing. Yup. And then we had our Shabbat meal which is always nice. Then for vespers we had sort of an international theme with people talking about ministry in Peru, Kenya, Austria, and a couple other places. That was pretty sweet. And then we had game night. With chips. And salsa. (We never get salsa here. Very exciting.)

So it had been a good day so far. Are you following me? Because here's where it really gets interesting.


Some of us ended up playing Mafia for a while, and in the middle of our last game it started pouring. Thunder, lightening, the works. And then apparently a gutter broke or something because the little interior courtyard we have really began to flood - and water seeped from it to the dinning room. And there was enough hail for me to make a pitiful little "snow" ball.


Anyway, we squeegeed out the dinning hall, and then my roommate headed upstairs to our room...to discover that both the stair and our room (and the room next to us) were also flooded. So we brought the squeegees up and William and Dr. Wright helped us get everything drained and cleaned up (my floor needed to be mopped anyway!) Note: by this time, it's well after 12:00am. What a day. Hail, squeegees, and dry mopping. My life is complete. :) (Thankfully nothing too important got wet and we had some help in cleaning up.) Basically, it reminded me of camp and home and made me smile.

(This is Kjetil, helping us squeegee our floor.)

Oh, and I just realized that today is (or was, rather) my half-birthday. Pretty good celebration, all together, I think. :)

(Do you see how reflective the floor is? That's water.)

Hinnom Flood

I interrupt the Galilee saga for a breaking news story. Tonight, in an unprecedented move, the clouds over the city of Jerusalem have proceeded to dump torrents of water upon the unsuspecting and unprepared populous. The result is water filling the streets and rushing down sidewalks. Cars plow through puddles a foot or more deep. The Hinnom Valley (aka "Hell") has a river running through it. I guess we can't say that hell froze over, but it sure flooded!

So yeah, all joking aside, it really poured tonight. I was in the library around 4 when someone told us to look out the window. We are on the edge of the Hinnom Valley, and as we looked out we could see a river running through it. Can you imagine the flash flooding taking place in the Judean wilderness?? I went down in the valley with a couple other people and took pictures in the rain of the torrents of water. It was getting dark so some of them aren't that great, but I'll try to post a couple to give you an idea. This sort of thing doesn't happen in Jerusalem all that often.