Yet another insanely busy and awesome week. I know I’ve said each week was busy but this week has been extreme in comparison to all prior weeks. We had two midterms, one quiz, a forum address, three different fieldtrips (aka two whole days basically taken up and half of fun), an evening taken up for Arab Culture night, and a good number of meetings and classes in addition to any and all pre- and post-fieldtrip quizzes.
Sunday was our trip to Eilat. In case you don’t know what that is, it’s an offshoot of the Dead Sea with slightly less salt. We got to go snorkeling and there were beautiful fish, lavender jellyfish, and delicious ice cream. It was a four-hour drive through parts of the West Bank but all of it is covered in our tuition fees, which was a bonus. I went in snorkeling twice and it was during the second time that I got to touch some jellyfish. Eilat was beyond beautiful, and I thought the waters at Tel Aviv were special. So clear and so blue.
Our field trip on Monday was, thankfully, only half day. It was to Jericho! We got to see a monastery that is literally built into the side of a cliff and walked on a Roman road that we can almost guarantee Christ walked on, all before actually making it to Jericho. Jericho isn’t much, too be honest, and we thought it was hot. Something really cool though was something archaeologists had uncovered which is the remains of a Neolithic tower—as in pre pottery, 10,000 years old. Definitely the oldest thing we’ll see this entire summer. In Jericho there is a natural spring, the one which Elisha healed with salt in the Old Testament. This spring still serves modern Jericho today, pumping out 100 gallons of water a minute. Just like in high school, there are certain facts that just get pounded into your head that you will never forget, and one of them for us here is that water is the most important commodity in the desert, and in settling anywhere. The healing of these waters was important to the people then, and the continued existence is important to the Palestinians who live there today.
Tuesday wasn’t much special aside from our forum address, which was from a Palestinian woman who has worked for the UN and currently works for a Lutheran hospital here in Jerusalem that specifically caters to the people who reside in Gaza. The reason I didn’t say “people living” in Gaza is because they don’t have much of a life and haven’t for the past 11 years. Food supply is insanely limited, and power only recently became available 16 hours of the day. Life is barely life there, and children in dire need of medical help are allowed across the border/checkpoint but their parents often aren’t. Bara, the speaker, told us of a little girl (maybe 3 years old) who recently was being treated for a brain tumor but before the Israeli government approved her parent’s, or at least one of them, to come join her, if they ever were, she died. Afterwards I spoke to her and asked what we can do to help. She said the best thing to do is to share real factual information about what’s happening. Horrible inhuman injustices are being committed, and from what I’ve learned so far most of them and most recently they are directed towards the Palestinians. It’s heart breaking.
Wednesday our Old Testament midterm was released to us to take and I was the first person to take it in my class. I’m happy with my grade, and very grateful for my professor as his test was significantly easier than the other OT professor’s. Wednesday was also our Arab culture night, which I don’t have any pictures for. They prepared traditional Ramadan fast-breaking food for dinner, and live music was provided and we were taught an Arabian line dance. I took the midterm after that.
Thursday was the worst field trip ever. Not really, it just got up to 110 degrees and we still had to be hiking and outside, and it was around then that we ran out of water. That was pretty miserable. It was very cool though to be able to be in places mentioned so frequently in the book of Judges and both Kings. We had a fake dummy Goliath made out of tape and were given sling shots and—you guessed it—got to try slinging stones at Goliath. What made that even cooler was the fact that we know we were within 100 yards of where David would have fought the original Goliath. We also got to see some AMAZING caves and sing in some called the Bell Caves.
Friday was nice because my midterm was done already, so once class was over I mostly got to relax. We had a service project where we put together school kits for kids. It was hot and fast but so good. I watched the Mummy with some people, which was fun. Since we’ve been studying Egypt in our Near Eastern class, it was hilarious critiquing what was not historically accurate since we now actually know. We had schuwarma for lunch too.
Today was a good Sabbath. I almost didn’t get up in time for breakfast or choir practice but I made it. As soon as church was over I started my laundry—we leave tomorrow for Greece but it’s a 9-day trip and almost all of us have barely enough or not enough clothing to last the entire time. I studied Come Follow Me while waiting in the laundry room and ended up having a really good conversation with a friend who I’m also assigned to as one of her ministering sisters. She’s funny and complex and brilliant and is just plain cool. I won’t have access to WiFi for the next 9 days so don’t expect to see anything from me for a over a week.
Comments