Well guys, this is officially my last post about Israel. I have been back in the states for two weeks now, and I have been reminded why I love America so much (hint: it has nothing to do with the snow I have endured since arriving). I love my friends here! The amenities are nice as well, such as fast food, junk food, good internet, a sewage system, and other glorious things, but what I really love about America are the people who make it special. On a similar note, I find myself missing Jerusalem. I miss lots of things about Jerusalem, but what I miss the most are my friends. I'll talk about some of them in this post, but really I miss all of them. They are all special.

Can you guess where we are in this picture? This is a place where some believe Christ was buried. It is a very old tomb. Although it cannot actually be where He was buried (it was empty during the time of Christ), it was a fun visit to a place that remembers His resurrection. As you can see, my friend Caitlin here is pointing out, sort of like an angel did, that Christ is not here. He has risen!

Megan is in the tomb, and she is wondering where Jesus is. He's missing! Apparently she needs Caitlin to point to the sign at the entrance to the tomb.

I knew you'd want to see me at the entrance to the tomb, so here it is. Here is the tomb that Jesus was not buried in! Whoo hooo!

This one's for my family. There was a windmill that is a national monument in Jerusalem. I saw it every single day from the window of the library at our school. It was very exciting!

Jerusalem University School (JUC) was the college I attended. This sign was the first thing I saw back in August when I came to JUC, which became a home away from home.

This was the basketball court that I played so often on in our campus. Whenever I needed a break from anything, I pulled out a basketball and worked on my shot right here. 

In the beginning of December is Hanukkah. A few of us went to the Wailing Wall to celebrate Hanukkah, and we saw them light the first candle! Hanukkah is a "festival of lights" in which a candle is lit every day.

This begins the pictures of one of the most interesting things I did while in Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is where many believe Jesus was buried, and it is also possibly the place where He was crucified. Every day they lock the doors at 7pm, and then reopen them at 5am. A few friends and I decided it would be fun to try to get locked in, so we went to a basement area and hid. Unfortunately, we were found and were kicked out, but I started talking to a Fransiscan monk who lives at the Church, and asked if we could stay there for the night, and he let us. So we got the whole place practically to ourselves. We read the scriptures of Christ's death and resurrection, and we sang Amazing Grace there. It was a very cool experience. The above picture is the place they believe He was crucified.

This is just a cool door inside the Church.

This is the stairway that goes up to the place where He was crucified!

I love this picture. This is what the Old City of Jerusalem looked like at night. It's eerily barren, in contrast to the busy marketplace it becomes during the day. I would walk these streets often at night. This is what I will miss just as much as anything else. I loved walking here with a friend, talking about life and God and how special it is to be in Jerusalem.

Here is the picture of the group of us who were in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the night. What a great experience!

From now on, I will post blogs about my experiences, but they will not be anything like the blogs I have done while in Jerusalem. Experiences here are completely different, and I do not usually carry a camera to capture the moments. So most of the following blogs will be more about regular life and about what I've learned. Jerusalem is a very special place to me, and I think of it regularly. I expect this to continue for a long time. However, life is happening right now, all around us. Life is full of emotions, concerns, joys, and lessons that must be remembered. One way I will remember these is through this blog. I hope you will continue to read, and maybe we can all learn some things. Onto the next stage of life, the next journey, the next adventure!

Back Home

I am back home! I haven't seen all my friends yet, but I'm hoping to see most of them by the end of the week. I read a facebook note by my good friend Cameron, and thought that I'd do the same thing he did. He wrote just a little bit of his favorite memories of the semester. This will be much more entertaining for those who were there for the events and who know the people involved.

Things that I will remember from this semester:

- Man Night
- Creating the Grad Lounge
- Telling Todd we should go out every other night
- Walking in the Old City at night with Stacy
- Tichu, Chess, Settlers of Catan, Ping Pong
- Paula joking about me not liking bread every single day
- Dan's burning eyes/almost every other conceivable thing hand motion on his face
- Robyn burping when she saw me in the grad lounge
- Learning Cameron had the exact same background as I
- The Jesus Walk (so many memories there) with Lis, Stacy, Hans, and Jason
- Getting locked in at the Holy Sepulcher with Megan, Jon, Caitlin, and Hans
- The poker night with all the guys
- The last night with Cameron and Seth
- Twisting my ankle
- Going to Zollis
- Arak
- The Coffee House and the performances during it
- Walking on the beach of the Sea of Galilee every night in Galilee
- Climbing in the oldest building still standing
- Ultimate Frisbee!
- Almost puking from eating so much at Thanksgiving
- Megan's birthday and the following crazy night
- Watching White Christmas on Thanksgiving (just like we do at home)
- Writing a 32 page paper on the Mountain of God in the Bible and Ugaritic sources
- The cold showers/no sewage system
- Walking outside in shorts and sweating in December
- Caitlin's stories
- Conversation with James one of the first nights there
- Lis's contagious enthusiasm
- The City of David- "Where it all began"
- Hezekiah's Tunnel
- The almost trip to Eilat with Dan and Chris
- Rabbi Moshe
- Skype with good friends and family!
- Genis
- Eating tongue in Galilee and making jokes about it
- Making jokes about Jerash
- Running up the steps in Petra with Dan- twice
- Hangin with the undergrads at the end of the semester
- Cookie Night!
- Running through the Israel Museum with Caitlin and Carmen
- Temple Mount with Dan
- Bible Lands Museum with Caitlin and Dan McCallister
- Talking football with Ben
- Yad VaShem- the Holocaust Museum
- Tower of David Museum with Megan
- Rockefeller Museum with Stacy
- The Western Wall experience
- The Garden Tomb with Megan and Caitlin
- Sneaking onto the Ramparts Walk with Lis, Stacy, Todd, and Caitlin
- Talking while overlooking the Western Wall
- Going to a Messianic Jewish Synagogue
- Wishing I had more time with the people at JUC and with Jerusalem

There's so much more, but that's a pretty big list already. I do miss it already.

It is great to be home though, and I'm excited to make new memories here!

Thanks to all who prayed for me during my trip. It was amazing, an experience I will never forget. There will be more pictures coming up as soon as I get them on my computer as well!

Last few days in Jerusalem

Well, it's been a great ride here in Jerusalem. I've done a lot of really cool things, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to be here. This will probably be my last post while I'm in Jerusalem. I wish I could have posted more, but hey I'll have plenty of time to post again once I'm back in the States. I'm only in Jerusalem once. I hope to come back here someday, but who knows? This may be the last time I see this beautiful country.

Today is Tuesday, November 30, and I leave for the States on Saturday, December 4. It's a crazy thought that soon, I will be able to eat fast food and other American food, have consistently hot showers, have a vehicle, have a cell phone, be with family and friends, studying for my last semester as a graduate student.

Those are some of the good things. Some of the things I'm not necessarily looking forward to is the freezing cold weather, not being able to have touristy things to do all the time, not living in a city that has shaped the world, not being with my friends here in close community, learning different cultures and studying archaeology.

It's important to always remember the past, live in the present, and look to the future. Right now a season of my life is coming to close, one in which I was blessed by God to live in the place where He lived. I have been blessed to have studied under the professors here, and I have been blessed to meet the people here who have shared these experiences with me. It has been a great season in my life.

Now, I'm beginning to look toward the future. I am looking forward to the Christmas season, I am wondering what jobs will be opened up or searched out, and I am ready for it. I finished all my work here, and I have one exam to take. Since it is in a subject that I love (Rabbinical Thought and Literature), I think I'll do fine on it. Basically, I'm already getting ready to go home.

I went to a 24/7 prayer house today. As I was there, I prayed that I would be able to remember the lessons learned here in Israel and apply them. As I go back to life, I pray this again.

As for all my devoted readers, keep reading if you want. I'll be posting more of my thoughts soon! Can't wait to see you all!

Jordan

Last night we got back from an amazing 4 day trip to Jordan. We covered most of the important sites (except Pella- I was pretty disappointed we didn't get to go there). I took about 300 pictures, so I will try to just pick a few and give you some of the details.

This trip was more of a tourist trip than all of our other trips. Since we only had 4 days in Jordan as opposed to 4 months in Israel, we had to pack everything touristy to see in Jordan in this trip and see the biblical sites as well.

I love the culture of the Middle East. The only thing that I don't love is the culture of the tourist spots. Everything is Americanized. It's like the difference between meeting some nice people who are relaxing and grilling out and meeting a salesman who wants to sell you a vacuum. Tourist spots just aren't as real as the rest of the places. They are still fun though. Here are the pictures!

Ok, so this was not in Jordan. I was sick for a couple days and had some free time, so I played hearts. I've been trying to get a perfect score for a while now, and finally did it!

In Jerash, the pillars were amazing. There will be more pictures of the pillars coming up, but I loved this photo.

This is the King and Queen. The Jordanians love their royal family and pictures are up of them everywhere. They have done a lot for the poor and needy families.

Here I am at Jerash surrounded by pillars. This was like a meeting place, and there was a stone in the middle where people would give speeches.

The Cardo street. Cardo means heart, and the Cardo street means that it is the heart of the city. This is the most important street in the city of Jerash. On each side, there would be shops. This is from the Roman times.

Another picture of the cool pillars

Here we are at the Jabbok River. This is the professor of our class. He is about to tell us the story of Jacob wrestling with God. It happened here, or somewhere close to here, as he was walking to meet his brother Esau.

This was at Petra. Esther here is standing in the place where you are supposed to stand to ask the gods for forgiveness. I find it fascinating that almost every culture feels the need for forgiveness, and each one goes about it in sometimes similar, sometimes radically different ways. No need to go into comparative religions here, but the concept in Christianity is both similar and radically different than other religions as well. By the way, Esther here has that big of a smile almost 24/7. I've never met someone who smiles as much as she.

Here I am at Petra. This place was simply amazing. Oh yeah, and if you recognize it, you might be thinking of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Jealous? You should be.

This bridge was at Petra. Not very sturdy. There's Dan and his wife Paula in front of me, two really good friends of mine here.

Dan and I ran up tonnnnnnns of stairs. It was ridiculous. At the end of these endless stairs (that makes sense, right?), there was nothing. I mean, it was a good view, but we were expecting something awesome. Surely they would tell us before we walked up a thousand stairs that nothing was up there, but no. They didn't. And we were fairly disappointed.

This is again at Petra, after we ran up another huge flight of stairs. This time, though, we reached a cool monastery, which is the next picture.

This is the amazing monastery carved into the rock. Yep, this place is simply amazing.

Wow. This is the view of the Arnon canyon. It's breathtaking, fo shizzle.

This is a picture of all the girls on our trip.They are my good friends, and I am sad we won't all be taking any more long trips!

 Here is all the guys. We have had a great time!

These next couple weeks will be basically only writing papers. Most of us are really behind on our papers and need to catch up. Also thrown in there is trying to see as much as possible (and possibly taking a trip to Mt. Sinai) before we leave in less than three weeks. Wow, less than three weeks. I will really miss being here, being with my friends here. It has been a great experience in every way.  I'll save all that mushy stuff for another blog, but all that to say that it will be an insane three weeks. In fact, it's going to be an insane couple of months. And in May, I will graduate from Seminary which will be insane. I've said insane far too much, so I'll end it there.

I love you all! Can't wait to see most of you soon!

Jesus Walk

Well this is a long overdue post about my latest adventure this past weekend. I and 4 of my friends did the "Jesus Walk." The Jesus Walk is a hike from Nazareth to Capernaum. It is about 37 miles. Our goal was to traverse it over 3 days. It was my first hike ever, and I loved it! Here is what happened in the form of the pictures we took.

First, let me introduce the group. From left to right, it's Jason, me, Lis, Stacy, and Hans. We took this picture when we were in Nazareth. It was the beginning of our adventure!

Now to each person individually. This is Lis' excited look.

This is my excited look as well.

However, we soon walked about a million billion stairs getting out of Nazareth, and I decided that Stacy should give her "exhausted" look. Here it is.

(On a related note, The Bible says that some people didn't trust Jesus because He was from Nazareth, and nobody of importance comes from Nazareth. I decided that it wasn't because nobody important was in Nazareth, but it takes so much work to get out of Nazareth that nobody ever leaves.)

 Hans said that something was annoying, and so I told him to give me his annoyed look. He didn't understand what I said, but he looks annoyed that I'm talking to him anyway.

There was a sheep sitting in the back of a truck, and Jason pointed it out, so I told him to give me his "I just saw a sheep" look. He did a fabulous job, I thought.

Here is possibly my favorite photo of the trip. It is a mosque in Nazareth. The clouds were great for pictures that day/night.

 

We went to Cana the first night, and stopped to sleep in an olive grove, much like this one. This was actually the second night we were there, but it looked basically the same.

 

While in Cana, we picked up a small bottle of wine and some bread. This was our Sabbath Communion meal. It was a great experience! It was in rememberance, of course, of Jesus turning water into wine. Sabbath meals always consist of lighting candles and thanking God for giving us the sustenance for the day.

 

 This was in the ancient synagogue of Arbel. Lis and Hans climbed the pillars.

  

This was a picture we took before the cliffs of Arbel.  We are about to sorta climb up the cliff and then go down a different way. It was a lot of work, and we wanted a good picture before we did it!

 

Unfortunately, we didn't have any food for the entire day. It was Sabbath and everything was closed. So we got up to the cliffs and found a Visitors Center open selling snack foods. So the only food several of us had on that day of hiking was cookies and ice cream. At least we had water!

These are the cliffs of Arbel. We climbed down these on nearly empty stomachs, with pain all over our bodies, and ready to enjoy the Sea of Galilee!

 

Unfortunately, most of us never made it there. Lis had to go and sprain her ankle on the cliff. We had to help her back up, and then Stacy and I went to the hospital and back to Jerusalem with her while Hans and Jason continued onto Capernaum.

 We had a good group, and we had a lot of fun.

One of the games we played was picking movies or tv shows and deciding which of us would be which character. We did the Lion King, and decided that Hans was the Father lion and I was little Simba. So we re-enacted the scene where he lifts Simba over the cliff.

 That's it for the pictures. It's been a few days and Lis' ankle is very swollen, and the rest of us are also slowly recovering. The highlight was probably Communion with the Cana wine and bread. Every Friday here at school we do Shabbat (Sabbath) meal on Friday night, so it was special to be able to celebrate it even though we weren't going to be there with the rest of our classmates.

As for the rest of life, we have several papers due in the next three weeks, and all of us are behind on them, so the rest of my time here will be very busy. I may not get much time to blog, but I will try. I come back to the States in about a month. It is a sad but good feeling. Jerusalem has become somewhat of a home to me and my friends like family. I thank God for this opportunity.

Last minute blogging

Life is crazy! It seems that these days blogs have taken a second or third seat to homework and doing fun stuff in Israel. I am enjoying life tremendously. Let me share a little of my weekend through the pictures that were captured.

Here I am in front of the Sea of Galilee. Here Jesus did most of his ministry. How exciting!

Some fishermen fishing at the Sea of Galilee... Is that Peter and Andrew?

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I love this picture mainly because I can't stop looking at the light. It was a really cool little passageway leading to the Sea of Galilee.

This is the view standing from Mount Carmel, where YHWH defeated the gods of Baal through Elijah. Elijah told a bunch of prophets of Baal to build altars and he set up an altar as well. He said that whichever god sent down fire from heaven to burn up the altar was the true God. YHWH did. 

This is at the cliffs of Arbel, looking over the Sea of Galilee. As with all my other pictures, this is likely where Jesus stood at some point in his life.

This is a 1st century mosaic. It is intricate, and is kinda a big deal. It is sorta the Mona Lisa of Israel.

This is the tree that Judas hung himself on in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar. And this is an awesome picture.

This is a toilet. You just sat down there and let it out. Dan here is havin a good time.

I hope next time to share more about my trip. If you want to see the collection of pictures, they're on facebook.

Suffice to say that the weekend was great. Every night I got to hang out at the Sea of Galilee! Jesus probably did this often as well. It was surreal, and very exciting! I will share more at another time. Right now, I have work to do. Can't wait to see all my family and friends back home someday soon!