Day of Hope

Hi friends!

I'm writing to you from gate C8 at the Ben Gurion airport. My passport is stamped, my ticket is printed and stuffed inside, and the students of Europe Semester 2011 sit on their computers, mingle and chat about their  duty free purchases, they share nostalgic thoughts. We're really good at waiting now, we make ourselves way too much at home wherever we are! We're all trying to avoid thinking too much about how our adventure is ending, we're still together and it's just a normal travel day, right?

This sunday was the first sunday of Advent, as many of you know. I love Advent! Alex, Tiff and I went to the the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer for church this Sunday where they had the little kids light the first candle on the wreath, the candle of Hope, of expectation for better things to come.

We have learned so much about the conflict here in Israel/Palestine! We have talked to a number of Palestinians who are adamant about holding onto hope for freedom, they call the Israeli's presence in Palestine "occupation", it's a state where they have to have permission to go to Jerusalem, where the Israeli government cuts off their water in the summer for 20 days, where Gaza's resources are so monitored that each person is limited to a 1600 calorie diet. They are hurting, but they have hope for freedom.

At the same time, we talked to several Israelis who are glowing with their new country, who feel that this is finally the place where their people can settle, cultivate the land, their culture, language, and the new generation. With a past filled with persecution, they have hope for a secure future.

And me? I have hope that I get to come home! I'm so excited! It's going to be Christmas when we fly in! I'm so sad to leave my 43 family members, for us to empty our suitcases for the last time and put them in the closet and only be in contact through phones and e-mail and skype and such. That said, now we have this incredible trip to be the foundations of great friendships to come, and I can finally have time to mentally and emotionally unpack this trip.

I can't wait to see you all! I'm coming back home!

Breakfast with Bedouins

Hi all!

The last four days have been the coolest, most intense days of my life. Because we're trying to fit an entire semester's worth of class in one month we are RUNNING through Israel on crazy field days. We stayed in Palestinian Christian familys' homes for two nights in Bethlehem which was awesome, Laurel and I stayed with Hifa and Adeeb who were very kind and welcoming! They made us yummy food and we bonded over Britney Spears (everyone knows Britney Spears) and Justin Beiber, they told us how they met and how what kinds of rice you put yogurt on and how to dip pita in olive oil and then zaatar for breakfast in the morning. :)

We spent a couple hours in the Mediterranean, all 43 of us jumping with the swells and diving into the waves of clear blue-green water still perfectly warm from the summer of sunshine! It was so FUN, and afterward Pappa Ken treated us all to Magnum bars!

Every day we pile in our huge bus, driven by dedicated Omar, and trek to Tels to see ancient cities from the Bible and look at the incredible geography of "the land between"--named this because of its unique location between powerful Egypt and Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean and the desert to the east. I love it here and I learn so much everyday!! I wish I could tell you everything, hopefully I'll have time soon.

Seeing as We have dinner soon and we have to walk back from the cafe to the the hostel, I'll post some pictures and post my impression report from yesterday where we had dinner with a bedouin tribe (we had breakfast with them this morning too), served by the top sheikh of the region!

Impression Report from 11/14/11

 Magnum Bars after the Mediterranean!

 Bedouin tea from last night!

 Our sheikh serving us tea this morning after breakfast.

 Sugar, with some rosemary flavor and water...

CAMEL!

**also, i just noticed all my pictures had to do with food, and the camel is chewing, so heres another one:

Me in my "rockin" hard hat :D about to go into the cistern

Today was the best day, I loved everything about it! We started at the Tel Beersheba, where we were given hard hats just in case we hit our heads in the tunnel at the end, but the majority of people wore them for the first hour while we were sitting and talking anyways, the forest green plastic perched on their heads as though it wanted to take off and float above their heads on its own. We learned about how Abraham planted a Tamarisk tree (Gen 21) at the well, and we were able to walk up to an original iron age well outside the city and drop a rock and hear it splash with a faraway “thunk” 180 feet below. I was especially struck with the parallels in Deuteronomy 2, where God tells the Israelites to avoid taking the land and fighting the Edomites because that is the land that he has saved for them. I was so thankful that God showed care for another nation other than Israel because it shows how he cares for all people. It also applies to the current conflict because people have been saying that maybe it’s possible that God wants the palestinians to be pushed out in this way because it’s happened before in the Old Testament. This always sounded so unlike God to me, and I thought this was a good example in the Old Testament showing God’s loves for everyone.

I also loved climbing the canyon, everyone’s bright shirts stadnding out against the creamy, layered rock with smooth black ribbons showing through. Cyndi was right, the hike was over before I was ready for it to end; it was so beautiful! Afterwards we drove through the desert, the winds picking up dust and making the sunset light purple in the haze that hung over the superbowl crater that we overlooked as we read Psalm 90. This was so cool. Looking out over the expanse of dust, crater, sky, and fading sunlight we talked about how we are invited to be part of an eternal story that God is writing to have a lasting effect. Our purpose is so much bigger than ourselves! When I pray, “God my life is yours” that really means that I am giving him my life as one more small narrative that makes up the grander story of what he is doing to save this world. God is so good! Also, how many class periods are there where ibex come up to the group with curious eyes?? The sunset was beautiful, the light turning orange, then purple, then gray as the wind whipped our hair into our faces and picked up so much dust there was a fine layer on my map as we labeled Nezarite (?) cities. Coolest class of my life, November 2011.

This finished our class day and we walked quickly back to our big blue bus to have shelter against the wind, we were ready to set our stuff down at the hostel in get some food! We set off for Arad as the sun set, and were still driving two hours later, having made a wrong turn back towards Be’er Sheva. Whiney moans begin to issue from hungry, grumpy, tired people, “when’s the foooood??” and Eric starts reciting his cannibal poem. Then Cyndi gets on the microphone and everyone starts relaxing, finally, we’re going to be there soon! She speaks into the mic, “We’re driving on this dirt road because we’re eating with the Bedouins tonight. Silence. “…are you joking?” someone yells from the back. “Nope” intones the microphone. Then Eric pipes in again, holding onto his last shred of hope for a comfortable meal,  “See, it’s funny because we think you are.” And then we were told that there was about a 65% chance that we weren’t going to be having camel meat. (Which was a legitamate concern, as we saw a skinned camel with it’s furry, decapitated head hanging in front of a meat shop in Bethlehem.)

Personally, I was loving this, I have heard from a family friend who knows Bedouins in Lebanon (?) about their hospitality and have been so intrigued by these people who live in shacks of scrap metal and plastic, coaxing life from their shepherding and maybe some trade! So our bus pulled up to a (respectively)  fairly large shack and as rain spitted down on us we shuffled from the dark into the harsh light of a single electricity-saver light bulb lighting up a room divided in two, one half had cushy mats for us to sit on for our dinner, the other had a sheet full of olives laying out. The sheik himself laid out our food (which his wife had cooked) on two tables: four huge bowls of rice, a creamy, oily soup to pour on the rice and chicken that was stuffed with herbs, the cucumber/tomato/parsley salad we’ve come to expect everywhere and big floppy flatbread that was thinner and bigger than a tortilla called "laban". Though Aaron and Tiff were both pretty sick, the rest of us sat on the cushons on the floor and ate our meal which felt so good! Everything was pretty much finger food, we had small plastic spoons for the rice but that was it. As I pulled ample meat off the bone, I realized that the chicken I was eating had probably been killed recently, even today. It was so good to eat something not drenched in oil! After dinner the sheikh personally handed out tea, which tasted like rosemary and mint with ample sugar and Bedouin coffee, which he poured in small ceramic cups, about the size of my play tea cups from when I was a kid. It tasted a bit like coffee and more like something strong and even with some spice, but I couldn’t describe it to you if I tried. Then we received a short introduction of the sheikh to taught us to say, “Thank you, Dad” in Arabic and then told us he had twenty children, fourteen with one wife and nine with another before her! He wore a brown emboroidered on the hem smock with a matching jacket on top and a white kifa. He had a long white mustache and happy eyes. I wish I could speak Arabic and tell him how much I loved coming and eating with them! I’m glad we will go back for breakfast tomorrow, what a treat to be with them! I pray we might show them love, tomorrow.

Now there are thirteen of us girls, Laura, Laura, Tay J, Sydney, Laurel, Anne, Hannah, Nif, Alex, Jess, Lauren and I who are sleeping all together in a big open room, it’s not the hostel we were expecting but I feel so comfortable with these girls I love, adventuring and doing things that are unexpected. Thank you Lord for this wonderful, wonderful day in the desert! I pray you may teach us more tomorrow and that we will love Cyndi and show her our appreciation for all that she’s doing for us. Lord you are so Good!

The Deep Foundations

Hello all :)

INCREDIBLE day. LONG day. We're gonna do it all again tomorrow. But--today we got breakfast at 6:30, was out the door by 7:15 and learning about Jerusalem's geography with our new guide and instructor from Jerusalem University College (JUC), Cyndi. To get you all introduced, Cyndi is in her 30's, is as tall as me with curly brown hair. She went to seminary, came to take a 3 week course at JUC and decided to stay for a year, which turned into 5 when she was offered a job here and now she is starting her doctorate, working on creation motifs in Deuteronomy. She's going to be a great leader!

Today we traipsed up and down steps (there are lots of steps in this city-on-a-hill) looking at old archeological digs and findings (they're everywhere in this city with so much history!), geographical features that influence the lives of people in the Bible and those who live there today, and through other adventures! Each day we have to write a page of "impressions" about what we learned, and I thought I would share that with you. It's not edited or organized, just my thoughts. Before I copy-paste, I thought I'd give you and update on me: I'm totally wiped from our big day from today but loving Israel! I'm loving the kids we're meeting who are studying at JUC--there are about 70 of them, which means that our 46 practically doubles their school! It's basically our home base, and we're considered students for this month. Ok, here's what I got for you: (it's long... read what you want and stop when you want) :)

Today was our first day out in Jerusalem. As my feet carried me up and down the many stairs connecting the different levels of the city, over cream-colored Roman stones and through ten inches of water deep underground, the feel of the city (as every city has a “feel”) was gradual. It has deep and meaningful secrets, willing to slowly reveal them to those who dig into its complicated history.

I learned that the land is an entity in itself throughout the history of the people living here. When we first talked about this in class it was just a fact that I recorded obediently on my page of notes; now I am beginning to realize what it means. This city is set apart from the others we have traveled to. The people are like the buildings, rooted in the bedrock of the hill, loyal and proud of the place they have in this city that connects so many others. Hearing from both Ayman and Moshe opened the meaning of this up for me, the way Ayman’s family has lived in that same building for 387 years—a common thread connecting the family in a way I could never understand or experience, and how, to Moshe, this city is the city of his Father and his chosen ones. Even for those who come for a short time, the city lets you enter as a traveler and exit as one who was changed, leaving part of yourself behind. The more I walk on these stones the more I feel the city soak into my heart and mind like water seeps into a towel whose corner was dipped into the pool. I think the best word for the “feel” of this city is wisdom, subtle, strong, and lasting.

What also stood out to me from our tour today was standing on the lookout from the City of David and reading Psalm 125:1-2, “Those who trust in the LORD are as Mount Zion which cannot be moved but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem so the LORD surrounds his people from this time forth and forever.” After reading this—yes! The mountains nestle close to the city as though it is an egg in a well-built nest. It is a foreign concept for me, to identify both so strongly with a place and God and his love as being together.

 Our chilly morning view of the hills surrounding Jerusalem. I'm not sure which one this is, I'll let you know! I think it's Mount Zion in the front, Western Hill in the back. All the hills look like this, with square houses covering them!

We also sloshed through Hezekiah’s tunnel, a tunnel deep underground, cut into the bedrock of the city during the time of the righteous king Hezekiah (2 Chronicals 32:1-5, 2 Kings 20:20). Basically, Hezekiah had a tunnel built to bring water from the Gihon spring outside the city into the Pool of Saloam inside the city. I’m a little claustrophobic, I don’t like the feeling of being trapped, of being somewhere where I know I can’t get out of. This tunnel pretty much defines that but gosh darnnit it this is one of the coolest things I’ll get the chance to do in my life so I’m going to do it and God and I are going to get over this fear in me. So I prayed that he would keep me calm, that anxiety would not cloud the epicness of the moment, the chance to fully understand and appreciate what I was doing. So, I walked down the slippery stairs in my thin, white Vans socks, pulled up my skirt and walked into two and a half feet of water and a tunnel that I would have to duck most of the way through. The water level dropped to about six to ten inches for the rest of the trip, my jacketed arms would slide between the narrow rough rock walls that still bears chisel marks from those who cut it so many years ago. Everyone was squealing at the cool water, the Indiana-Jones-type of adventure we were having in the darkness and the glow of flashlight beams. And God was there, the whole time, and we were IN the foundations of the city: on biblegateway.com I found 75 entries for “foundation”, this was my favorite:

“For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’s; on them he has set the world.” (2 Sam 2:8b)

Yeah he has. It continues:

“He will guard the feet of his faithful servants, but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.” (v.9)

Walking through that tunnel, we experienced both his care (that there was NOT an earthquake or something) and what it is like to be in such a “place of darkness” as we kept walking between the cut in the bedrock. Cool, huh?

Though I know God is with me wherever I am, there is no denying that something about this city is special, God has spoken the name of this city, he chose this as the place for his people to come and for his son to be offered as the ultimate sacrifice. Even in Revelation, when it describes the place where everything is made right it is called the “new Jerusalem”—not the “new Centennial, Colorado”, that’s for sure.

Another thought I have is Christianity is real here, it’s full, coming here changes my entire faith but I can’t put it into words. Coming here you see the physical stuff that’s only been painted in your mind from Bible stories. Sometimes it’s easier to picture David’s palace than to actually see the stones that it was founded upon, your brain won’t let yourself believe it and you want to go back to that nice felt-board image you have left over from Sunday school. But here I am, and I have to come here ready to drop all my felt pieces and replace them with the real stones. It makes me feel very small, very much like I am grafted onto a deep root that I am very, very thankful to be getting nutrients from. It has opened my eyes to how real this thing I say I believe actually is, how it has grown from thousands and thousands of years and I am just a tiny, tiny bud off the newest branch of the huge, thick-trunked tree. With this hindsight, my individualistic, touchy—feely, Californianized faith seems very…silly. God is big. God is real. He is bedrock that I am founded upon with millions of others now and before me. Now I realize how we are all part of a much bigger story we only know the barest outlines of! With new humility comes new thankfulness, that we are part of this tree, this outline, this family, and we will be there to see it to completion! It all ties together, don’t you see? New creation doesn’t start when Jesus comes again, whenever that will be, it started when he came the first time and ever since then in every one of us. Shoot.

 The Western/Wailing wall--men and women divided (WEIRD) with army in the center. The army kids standing their were between 18 and 20.

Can't Believe It

Hi!

I'll tell you about Italy later, it FLEW BY, I spent a lot of money, ate good food, and did a ton of homework, but now all those classes are done!

Then we went to Athens and visited the Acropolis; the Europe portion of our trip was tied up nicely, starting with seeing the sculpures from the Parthenon in the British Museum and then visiting the actual parthenon and seeing where they used to look out over the old city of Athens. We also sat on Mars Hill and read Acts 17:16--, the speech he gave on that very hill!

(What do you dress up as for halloween when you're in Greece and nobody else celebrates it?? Yeah. The hotel people were taken aback when we all showed up like this for dinner but they got over it and started snapping pictures.)

And now?

Guys. I'm in Jerusalem.


Last night we got on a plane from Athens to Tel Aviv, arrived at 12:30 AM, arrived to the wall around 2:15, all us girls dragged our suitcases up a huge hill, through a gap in the wall made by Kaiser Wilhelm so he could see his invasion (known as Jaffa Gate because it faces west towards Jaffa) and through the silent streets to our hotel.

Walking up the hill, by the wall with our bags at 2 in the morning!

We're here! This morning, when Alex and I turned on the TV in our hotel we found Emma with Arabic subtitles, and then it stopped and some guy started singing middle-eastern style and it said on the screen "Time for Prayer" in with a green and blue computer graphics background with arabic cursive swirling into view; this happened for about five minutes and then the movie started up again.

I can't believe we're here, 28 days left in the trip, we're in Israel.

Land of the...

Ken posted this on our Europe semester blog, a little love for home:

Procrastination. Now homework, love you all!

The Annunciation Lillies

Bonne Serra!

Today I am in Firenze! Or Florence, for us english speakers. It smells like wet cobblestones, leather, and cyprus trees! Well, maybe not the cyprus trees in the city, but I thought it sounded good so I added it anyway. Today we put off homework and went to the Uffizi and the Galleria dell 'Accademia. On our way to buy tickets we got caught in a rainstorm and it was thundering and pouring but so much fun! (Now, when I'm dry and warm at least :) ) I baught a three euro umbrella and a five euro scarf and they're probably the best things I've bought on the trip this far! I'm beginning to love annunciation paintings, or, for those who don't know, scenes depicting when the angel Gabriel came to Mary. I absolutely love this one by Botticelli, completed in 1490. The triangular composition characteristic of the Renaissance is clear, the three points made by Mary's halo, Gabriel's bent knee and Mary's cloaked feet. I love the colors, the gold detail in Mary's crown and dress is incredible! I don't know why Gabriel is kneeling, it almost looks like he just landed in the room, his hand raised to calm Mary from his unexpected entrance. Sometimes I think Mary can look a little vague, and while her expression is demure in this scene, her face is sweet and she looks like a real girl. I love it, I hope you do too!

It's time for group dinner! Fingers crossed for raviolli, it's always too expensive for me to buy on my own!!

I love you!

Glass, Gondolas, & Generals?

Hello all!

Guess what?? I’m in a Venice hotel right now. Eek!

To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to Italy. I mean, compared to these other, non-cliché European countries to go to, Italy wasn’t high on my list. Plus it means that our European portion is OVER and I so, so, so don’t want it to be over!! The passage of time is so weird, you guys. Every day feels like a week, and all these weeks add up to about ten minutes. There’s weird things that show time passing, like all the guys are needing haircuts now, the warm summer light of August has turned into the more intense, direct light of fall. The little yellow cards that have our itineraries on them have checkmarks from England to Austria, and now we’re flipping the card over to the back side!

I’m not homesick, per se, but I’m missing a lot of things about home. I miss family and friends, I miss playing guitar, I miss baking and coming down to breakfast and pouring coffee out of our random coffee pot that sits next to the stove under the cereal cupboard. I miss fall decorations, and baked pumpkin things, I miss seeing the mountains in the distance, and having a laundry machine readily available!

But, at the same time,

I love the people of our group: Colby makes friends with everyone, waitresses, gas-station cashiers, palace guards, our old-lady tour guides…, Shanon takes pictures of people sleeping on the bus, Joanna’s laugh can always be heard from anywhere and she’s always available for deep conversations, Alex likes windowsills, Jenny likes fat jokes, Gabe, Nif, and the Kihlstroms are the best and laugh so loud at dinner! We just had a night of cabaret, which shows how well we know each other, each of our groups did a skit making fun of something about our trip, like our leaders loading homework on us, grumpy museum people, people being impersonated… it was great, Gabe says that he would wake up giggling during the night, and it’s we did too! I’m sure our performances will make facebook, at some point, you should watch them. J

Also, we hear that there’s crazy high security at Westmont now?? It seems like a world away and now we have to worry about rooming and classes and what?? And who knows what’s going on with the DC. We have rumors circling our group but no one really knows what’s going on. And we’re kind of okay with it.

Anyway.

Now we’re in Venice!! Guys, we had to take a WATER TAXI to get to our hotel, and we were giggly, squeely, picture-taking tourist girls and didn’t care. Even the guys, because after you’ve been cooped up in a castle library loaded down with homework, cooped up in a bus for six hours, and then put on a water taxi and on canals between mossy-footed stone buildings, you going to freak out at just about anything remotely exciting, not to mention water taxis squeezing between gondoliers in small canals between beautiful old stone buildings! So we arrived at our hotel and went out to explore and find food. Venice is a dizzying maze of small alleyways lined with glittering windows of glass vases and leather shoes which open to small bridges crossing the canals into another small alleyway. We’re only a five minutes walk from St. Marcos Square, so we made a quick visit and picked an alley to explore and found about 20 US military guys hanging out at a bar, so we talked with them for a little bit. There plane broke down on the way to Afghanistan so they’re staying at the Aviano (eh, family??!) base and enjoying Venice…or at least it’s bars… They were great though and loved talking to us college kids, plus it turned out they were high up officers in the 102 Airborne division, which had a big roll in WWII and we learned all about them and visited the town they jumped in on DDAY and went to the museum and all that! They’re the only jumping airborne division left, apparently. So we talked with them for a while, and then we went and got--

ITALIAN FOOD. Guys, I forgot that garlic existed. Seriously. With all our food pounded into shnitzel, drowned in vinegar, or rolled into sausage I forgot that tomatoes and basil and garlic and flatbread pizza existed in this good world and it was absolutely amazing. Appreciate your garlic, people.

Today we have class and free time, free time I will fill with homework and probably museums, knowing us J

I’m feeling better, pink eye is still hanging on a little but I think I quit the medicine too soon, and after our lovely break in Mittersill (I miss the mountians!) I’m feeling much refreshed.

I love you!