Nahal Yehudia

Today I got up a couple minutes after 6:00am and prepared to go on a hike. We got on the bus shortly after 7 and drove down the Ascent of Adumim to Jericho and then up the rift valley to the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights. Nahal Yehudia is one of many valleys that drains into Galilee.

I must admit that I was rather nervous about this hike. For one thing, I kept waking up last night, afraid I had missed the bus or something. For another thing, I had heard horror stories about how hard it was and how much water we would need and all that. I am probably not the most out-of-shape person here, but I'm definitely not in as good of shape as many other people...and I didn't want to hold the group back. As it turns out, though, my fears were for naught.

Approximately 90% of the hike was downhill. The last 10% was intense, but not that long and therefore not that bad. We started at the top and walked down to the first pool and waterfall. Most of the group swam around and jumped off a 20-30ft cliff there into the water. I was in more of a hiking mood than swimming mood (and I don't like hiking wet when I don't have to), so I didn't get it. I headed off to the second pool with one of the first groups to leave. At the second pool we had to climb down a ladder next to the waterfall and then swim across the pool to reach the trail again. Because of that everything we were carrying was likely to get wet, so I didn't bring my camera. A few other people did, though, so I'll try to steal pictures at some point so y'all can see what it was like.

From there on out I ended up with a small group that included Cindy (who teaches one section of the Geography class), Brad and Shalon (a married couple, he's here for a year and she's auditing a couple classes), and Tiffany (the wife of another grad student). Since there were about 40 people on the hike, it was kind of nice to be able to just concentrate on a smaller group. It was also nice because we were all a little older that the majority of the students here. We did the whole "loop." Most people (I think) only went to a couple pools and played around in them before hiking up the side of the nahal. We went farther down the canyon, ended up having to swim through one more pool, and then climbed up the side. It was pretty amazing. Let me try to describe it a little.

The region of Galilee in general is much greener than Jerusalem, but the area on top where we started was still fairly brown. We had to walk for a few minutes before we were close enough to look down into the valley (it's pretty narrow and steep). As we looked down we could see a line where the brown changed to green, though we couldn't see any water at that point. We started hiking down into the green shortly after that.

The bottom of the nahal is a verdant jungle. (I've been wanting to use the word "verdant" all day.) It reminded me a little of Zion national park, for those who have been there. I'm generally unable to tell you the species of the flora and fauna were, though I did recognize bamboo and mint in the flora category. I even chewed on a mint leaf! At any rate, it was beautiful and lush and green (with flowers sprinkled here and there). I can't tell you how many times I longed for my camera. As far as fauna goes, I saw two small crabs, a fairly large lizard, a frog, and lots and lots of fish. The first fish I noticed were in a pool I was wading in. They were about the size of minnows, but not nearly as skittish as minnows generally are in Montana. They didn't seem to have any problem with my presence. From there on out I noticed fish of all sizes in the various pools we saw. Some were probably close to 2 feet long, which is especially impressive considering the size of the stream. Other than some large pools, there really wasn't much water flowing. The stream could almost be leaped across at most points. (I couldn't leap across, but probably someone more athletic than I could easily jump that distance.)

The last part, the hike out of the canyon, was pretty tough. It reminded me of Montana -- it even had a small basalt boulder field to climb over! It really wasn't that long, though, so I can't complain. Then we walked back on the road (slightly up hill) to where we had left the bus. All in all, an amazing day, especially after the fiasco yesterday.

To top it all off, when we got back on campus we had falafel for dinner! Yum!

In other news, I have about a trillion and three bug bites all over my body. I've had some for quite a while, but they seem to have multiplied in recent days. I think bugs sneak in my window at night to bite me.

In other other news, I have my first test tomorrow, so I probably should start studying. :)

Here's a couple pictures I found online to give you an idea of what it looked like. :)

Shabbat Shalom!

Today is my 2-week anniversary for being in the country of Israel. :)

Today I had my first archaeology class with Gabby Barkai -- that was an adventure in itself. He's one of Israel's leading archaeologists and he's been teaching at JUC for a long time. Currently he's heading up the sifting project (from the dirt dumped when Muslims did illegal excavation on the temple mount). He seems like an interesting fellow...he was born in the ghetto towards the end of World War II and has been living in Israel since 1950. And he has some pretty amusing stories about Flinders Petrie, a famous archaeologist who is buried in our back yard. I won't repeat them here, though. :)

Today we had our second Ultimate Frisbee game! I love that game. It pretty much makes my week. Let me tell you, after a week of sitting and reading about history and geography and archaeology, it's really nice to go run around for a while.

Today we had our first "real" Shabbat meal together. We had a Jewish lady here to walk us through a little of the Jewish tradition. The tables were set up differently (with flowers and candles and table clothes!) and the food was served a little differently. Then we had our "vespers" service. We sang a few songs, had some scripture recited, and then the same Jewish lady shared her testimony. It was nice, especially since I didn't really get to attend church last week and I won't be able to this week either. Alas.

Tomorrow we have our "Jerusalem Approaches" field study. I think we are going to the Mt. of Olives, Bethlehem, and the Herodian. Should be fun. :)

Sunday we are going on a hike up near Galilee, I believe. I hear its pretty intense, so I'm a bit nervous, but I think it'll be fun.

And that's all I have for now. :)

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.

Jerusalem Walk Impressions

Here is my second "Impressions Report" from our second field day. We walked around various parts of Jerusalem from 7am to 6pm with an hour for lunch. It was quite a day. This report really doesn't do it justice, but if you read it, it might give you an idea of some things I've been doing.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Jerusalem Walking Tour (OT and NT times)

Today was so full it’s hard to know where to begin. I was talking to some people on the way home and at dinner, comparing what we learned and what we enjoyed most, and I had a hard time thinking of my “favorite” part. So many parts were so good.

I have to admit, to start with, that I really enjoyed exploring and climbing on some of the rocks and ruins/excavations and such. It’s not terribly spiritual, but I’m just rather curious, so exploring is fun. Plus I like climbing on rocks and getting high. It kind of reminds me of home. So I really enjoyed that part. I wish we would have had more time to explore some of those areas more. I’m starting a list of places I want to visit again.

We started the morning in the Hebrew Scriptures, looking at where the wall was at various times. We spent most of the morning in David’s city. I remember looking around that area when I was here before (the toilet was definitely familiar), but I think the excavations are much more extensive now. I may be mistaken, though; my memory is rather patchy. My favorite part there was when we went up to a platform approximately where David’s palace might have been and looked around at the hills surrounding. “As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people…” Without having seen it, its hard to picture exactly how the mountains surround Jerusalem…but they do, or at least did in the time of the psalmist. I don’t have relative elevations, but apparently the hill Jerusalem was on is the shortest in the Judean hills: surrounded and protected by higher mountains as we are surrounded and protected by a higher power (God).

In the afternoon we started out in excavations near the temple mount. The best part was the building with air conditioning.  Again, I remembered seeing some of what we looked at when I was here before, but not all of it. I think things there have expanded too. It was rather amazing to think that some of what we saw was possibly there in the time of Jesus. Two thousand years… I will have to look at my notes to remember what else I was especially interested in.

Our next main stop was the Pool of Bethesda. I was excited to go there since I didn’t get to the last time I was here. We went into St. Anne’s church first. The acoustics were beautiful. There are some many amazing places (acoustically) around here…I wish I had a traveling choir with some lovely a cappella pieces to sing with me. We did well enough, though. After that we saw the actual pool (not that it holds any water now). I was amazed at how deep it was. There are sure a lot of places around here where it would be easy to die if you fell or if the holey floor holding you up suddenly collapsed. We talked about the gospel of John and the three people Jesus interacted with in chapters 3, 4, and 5. He always knew just what to say and do.

Speaking of people, the last thing that really struck me today were the people. It started with children in the morning. We passed quite a few, probably on their way to school, and then heard chanting from a nearby yeshiva. It made me miss my students really badly to start with. As the day progressed I saw more people – more children, soldiers, shopkeepers, etc. It made me wish that I could know some of them, to have the opportunity to tell them about how God came down and walked among their ancestors and how He still desires to know them. Jesus mourned over Jerusalem with good reason. I think that He is still probably mourning. I want to see that prophecy fulfilled – at least partially, in some lives, I want them to recognize and welcome their king.

More adventures in the mundane

This morning I got up at 5:15 and went with some other people to a park to watch the sun rise over Jerusalem. I was reminded of Psalm 130:

A Song of Ascents.
Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD;
Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.
If You, LORD, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared.
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
And in His word I do hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
More than those who watch for the morning—
Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the LORD;
For with the LORD there is mercy,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
And He shall redeem Israel
From all his iniquities.

I will try to post videos/pictures on facebook soon.

On the way to the park I found my first jasmine! And actually, I saw it all over today. So I'm not sure if it just decided to bloom or if I've been looking in the wrong places or what, but I was excited to find it today.

Some of us tried to go to Messianic Jew "church" service today. We wandered around the new city for about and hour and finally found it. We didn't stay long...not sure why we left, but it was interesting. All in Hebrew so I didn't catch much, but I could understand a few words here and there.

Speaking of Hebrew, I've had two Biblical Hebrew classes so far and it's been fun. I apparently have a "bad" habit in the states of reading everything (signs, trucks, etc.) and it has carried over here. Except here it's a bit more frustrating and takes a little more time -- I'm still at the "sounding out" stage. And then I generally don't understand what I just sounded out. But hey.

This afternoon I worked on homework which mostly involved reading a lot of chapters and articles about Israel history and archaeology and such. They're very interesting...well, mostly...sort of dry at times... At any rate, though, they generally seem to have a low view of scripture, which really bothers me. They talk about how the Babylonian flood story was clearly stolen and adapted in Hebrew Scriptures (for some reason). Or they say that Matthew wrote his gospel to try to manipulate people into joining him in this new version of Judaism...apparently not thinking that Matthew wrote his gospel to record what Jesus actually said and did. It's unfortunate.

In other news, I also had my first Magnum bar (white chocolate) since being back! I'd forgotten how amazing they are.

Well, I have an 11 hour walking tour around Jerusalem tomorrow, so I should stop and get ready for bed soon...more later. :)

Food and other miscellaneous things

Every day here is sort of a series of mini-adventures. Most of my time this week has been spent in class or reading assignments for class (I've never had to read this much in my life...its a change from engineering). So today I'll have to resort to the "mundane" to post about.

FOOD
I'm pretty sure that over 50% of our meals contain rice. Especially if you don't count breakfast (we have cheese and sandwich meat for breakfast, among other things, but no rice.) I think we've also had hummus at nearly 100% of the meals other than breakfast.
The other day I ate my first guava. I didn't know what it was for quite a while. Not sure that I like guava all that well...it kind of tasted like pine. It was ok, but probably not my favorite.
I also ate my first fresh fig the other day. I liked it much better than the dried ones I've had.
I've yet to have a date. ;)
I still love pita.
I also had my first bite of falafel the other day...I need to have a whole one someday soon.

CAMPUS
I was told today that there are something like 17 cisterns here on campus. I only know where one or two are, but it's a start. There are also two tombs, one of which, I believe, is a first century tomb. Most everything is made from stone and is pretty much open to the air (we have random courtyards and such). There are 55 students living on campus (I think) and about 20 off campus. We have two classrooms. Three large bathrooms and four singles (that I know of). We can't put toilet paper in the toilets.

WEATHER
It's hot. Really, ridiculously hot. Ok, actually, its not that bad, and its only for a few hours that its really hot. It cools down quite well at night. Though for all that I have yet to sleep with a blanket. I sort of use a top sheet, occasionally. Everyone comments that its not bad because its so dry, but I'm pretty sure its more humid than Montana ever is -- my hair curls and my skin isn't dry.

PEOPLE
I have met all my professors but one, and I've heard stories about him. There are only 5 new MA students this year -- my roommate Adaobi and I, and then three guys, Peter, Ian, and Chris. We had a lunch today with Dr. Wright and most of the returning masters students, so that was fun. There are a few other graduate students here, but they are only there for a semester or two. I still don't remember a lot of names, but I'm hopefully getting better.


I'm trying to remember if there are any other random tidbits to share. I suppose if I recall some I'll just have to post them later. For now, you have a little bit better idea of what my life is like day-to-day.

First Field Day!

Today was our first "class." We took a five hour walking tour of the old city. My group contains all the grad students, a few of the undergrads, and is lead by Paul Wright. We started on Mount Zion, went to the traditional site of the "Upper Room," looked at maps of the city through the ages, and examined how history is still affecting life today. As he quoted Faulkner, "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." We saw where they are rebuilding a large synagog, we visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (or the Church of the Resurrection), and examined the topography of the land.

Favorite quotes of the day (both by Dr. Wright):
"Come to Jerusalem and get high!" (vertically, that is)
"The writers of the old testament had their feet in this dirt. In a sense, they had their minds in the dirt."

Here's my first impression "paper" on the day's walk.

Sunday, August 31, 2008
Old City Walking Tour

Today was a day that I have looked forward to for months – my first day of “class” here at JUC. There is just so much I want to learn -- I’m always anxious for school to start. This school started with a five hour walk in the Old City of Jerusalem. I had been to Jerusalem before and had heard and seen much of what we heard and saw today, but there were still new things to learn and think about. For that matter, there are old things from last time I was here that I haven’t finished thinking about.

One thing that struck me (or re-struck me) today was all the different belief systems represented on this tiny plot of land. There are, of course, the three main divisions: Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and each of them claims this land as a holy place. But then there are the divisions within each of those religions, some of them nearly as dramatic as the divisions between the main groups. Most of the “holy” sites we visited today are claimed to some extent by all three main groups. It’s odd…all three claim to have basically the same roots, and yet they are so different and there is so much strife between them. Even sadder are the riots that occur yearly during Easter in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher caused by conflicts between the six churches represented there. The Bible says that Christians will be known by their love for each other. I know many who would question whether or not most people in these orthodox churches are really saved; however, giving them the benefit of the doubt for the moment, they certainly don’t seem to act like Christians towards each other. How do they act towards Jews and Muslims? Are they displaying the fruits of the Spirit in other areas of their lives? One hopes so.

The Temple Mount is one area that is claimed as a holy site by all three main religions here. I was reading a book this summer that even conjectured that that area might have been a Jebusite religious site before the city was conquered by David. For that matter, some say that even before that, it was the Mount Moriah where Abraham sacrificed Isaac. Who knows exactly how long ago that area first started to be considered “holy.” I certainly don’t. Is this a normal human habit, to build a new holy site on top of an old, perhaps in hopes of absorbing the power of the previous god, or at least gaining his followers? Or, possibly, is there something about that sight that is inherently holy? I have had at least two people comment today about how they just “felt different” when they visited the Western Wall. Is that due to the holiness of the site? Or perhaps a site with so much history makes us feel more connected to others, including the founders of our faith? I can think of numerous possible explanations…perhaps it’s a combination of all of them.

One thing that has been in the back of my mind for quite sometime is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Since I am now in the land that is the source (or one of the sources) of that conflict that issue has been poking itself into my consciousness a bit more often. I don’t really know enough about either side to make any sort of informed comment on it. I think I tend to be a bit of a “problem solver” though, so I keep thinking about how to find a solution. Of course I know the situation is too complex for any simple human solution. I really believe that the only way that the Israelis and Palestinians will ever live in peace is for them both to have peace with God through His Son, Jesus. For now, at least we can share the gospel and work on reconciling believers with different backgrounds.

I’ll finish with a thought from the end of Psalm 122. We looked at the first part of this Psalm in class today, and I’m sure we’ll get to this part, but I’m going to skip a head a bit.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls,
Prosperity within your palaces.”
For the sake of my brethren and companions,
I will now say, “Peace be within you.”
Because of the house of the LORD our God
I will seek your good.

Lord, bring peace to Jerusalem. Amen.