Wow, so yet again, I have to apologize for being a completely delinquent blogger. My only excuse (and I think it's a decently good one) is that I've been busy living life. So many good things have been going on since I last wrote. Let's see how much I can put words to and describe.
I guess for starters, I can't believe that I've already been in Israel for nearly 2 months! Where did the time go?! But on the other hand, JUC has definitely come to feel like home, and I've fallen in love with Jerusalem and my life here and all the awesome people that I get to know and hang out with. Along those lines, I'm so thankful for some of the friendships that I've made here, particularly a couple students that I hang out with all the time. They have so richly blessed my life in the past few weeks. God has been so good and so faithful to bless me with fellowship, a listening ear, and good counsel. I've been particularly blessed this past week by Emily and B.B., a fellow Gordon student and a guy from Wheaton. Ironically, Emily was the only one from Gordon I had never met before. Over the last few weeks she has become a dear friend, and has been so good to just walk through life with me and challenge me at the moments where I've really needed it. I feel as if I've heard God's voice through her. There is something so special about having those people who you can just completely let down with and be real and honest and at the same time just being able to goof off and laugh together. I'm so blessed.
The past couple weeks have been crazy busy, but really good. Hunter came to visit, which was both very good and rather challenging. Admitttedly in the beginning it was interesting trying to figure out how my two worlds worked together. But at the same time, I am so glad that he got to come and spend time with me here and see my life and my world and meet all the people that I care about so much here. I find myself missing him at the oddest moments now that he's gone, but I know it's probably good for my studies that he was only here for a limited amount of time.
This was also midterms time, so I've taken two midterms and written a ten-page take home midterm in the last couple weeks. That certainly added to the normal busyness of classes and going places and just hanging out with people. I am very glad to now be safely through the nastiness of midterms.
Of much more fun note, I went away for last weekend. Steph (another fellow Gordon friend), Hunter and I all left Friday afternoon and went down to the Dead Sea. We spent the afternoon swimming in the Dead Sea and exploring. Then we pitched our tent on the beach. Unfortunately, when we left for dinner, someone decided it would be a good idea to steal Hunter's sleeping bag. All the same, we survived. Planning on an early night and an early morning, we went to bed about 9:30, only to discover that all the rest of the people camping out had other plans. Loud music continued for quite some time. Somewhere around 11 someone decided to add a drum to the mix of music being played by stereo. At that point all we could do was laugh, and give up on sleep for the next hour or so. We eventually did get to sleep, although certainly much later than originally planned.
The next morning we got up and hiked through the Wadi Arugot. It was absolutely beautiful. The views are breathtaking, and the hike was grueling. It is about 2, 000 ft. from the Dead Sea to the top of the wadi cliffs, and the last hour or so of the ascent is intense hiking, which more often than not might be better termed rock climbing. We reached the top by lunch, which we were more than ready for at that point. Thanks to my dad and his Lebanese skin, I was the only one of us not sunburned by that point.
After lunch, hiked back down to the lower part, and spent an hour or so swimming in the waterfalls. It was amazing after being so hot and sweaty and tired from the hike. Then we hiked back out of the wadi along the bottom, walking through ankle to knee height water most of the way. It was really, really nice.
We arrived back at the Dead Sea about 4, but since it was Shabbat, the buses didn't start running to 7, so we knew we would be killing time for a bit. We grabbed some coffee at the little stand there and then just chilled out on the shore of the Dead Sea, snacked on the remainder of our crackers from lunch and waited for the bus. It was an awesome trip!
This week life continues to go on a rather weird rhythm. Ten-page midterm due Monday, Arabic midterm Tuesday, no class at all today (it was an all day field study for a class I'm not in), and then I'll be off on a 4-day field study to the Galilee starting tomorrow at 7am. I'm so excited about this one as I've heard amazing stuff about the Galilee, and I can't wait to see it!
I guess that's enough for now, although there is so much more that I could say. Although for the sake of everyone wondering and worrying, I guess I should add that I and everyone here at JUC are safe and sound. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, there was a bus bomb on the major Israeli line this afternoon. While this hasn't happened here in Jerusalem in a few years, it is a somewhat "normal" occurence, which means that Dr. Wright knows pretty well what the normally targetted spots are. He has put back into effect JUC's policy for what to do in times of hightened tensions. Don't worry, we won't be using any of the transportation or going to any of the spots that might put us at risk.
I hope you all are doing well, and I'll post impressions from Galilee when I get back.
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