Walking Dusty

Dead Sea Scrolls

2011-12-05T11:58:00.002+02:00

So the past two days I had the opportunity to get out of Jerusalem for a while and hang out with a great group of Christians from Iowa. A group of doctors and dentists and a few high schoolers had just flown in for a week to spend some time volunteering in Israel to help Sudanese refugees and Palestinians. As well as serving people here, the group is spending a few days touring so I got to show them around yesterday as we spent the day in and around the Dead Sea. We left from Arad and went to Masada, En Gedi, Qumran, and ended the day with a float in the Dead Sea. As I was thinking about preparing some thoughts and notes to share with the group, I was trying to come up with something that would be not only educational, but also relevant, especially for the high schoolers who were here for the first time.

When we were at Qumran and I was thinking about how to explain the Dead Sea Scrolls and the significance of these ancient copies of the books of the Bible, I was reminded of an assignment from Mr. Tuls' Bible class my freshman year of high school. I have various memories from late junior high and into high school of times when the Lord was already developing in me a passion for the Bible. At that time I think I was trying to ignore them and had set my eyes on playing professional basketball, but that did not work out and God had something else in mind! :)

I have clear visual memories of early stirrings of the Holy Spirit in my heart that ended up leading me to where I am now, my third year living in Jerusalem studying the Bible.

So one day in Mr. Tuls' freshman Bible class our assignment was to search the internet and write down ten facts about the Dead Sea Scrolls. When I got the assignment I had no idea what the Dead Sea Scrolls were. I'm not sure I even really knew that much after completing the assignment, but I remember sitting in class thinking about these ancient biblical scrolls and being slightly intrigued on the one hand, but not really caring too much on the other hand. But this memory sprang to life in my mind yesterday at Qumran as I looked these high schoolers in the eyes and tried to get them excited about the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

At the end of the day we drove up to Jerusalem and they dropped me off at my apartment as they continued on to Bethlehem where they were staying. As we drove through Jerusalem I pointed out a few things out the bus window and then showed them where my school (JUC) is. Just before I left, one of the sophomore high school girls said, "i think it would be cool to go to school in Israel, maybe someday i will live here too."

I was really blessed yesterday to get to hang out with these Christians who were on fire for the Lord and excited to be in Israel not only to serve the kingdom, but to also learn a little more about the Bible and see the land where it took place. I was also blessed to reflect back on my life, on how present God has been and how he has been working in my heart. It reminds me to trust him, because he has already brought me so far, and I know he has a lot more in store.

Philippians 1:6

He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

3 years in Jerusalem

2011-11-23T10:36:00.002+02:00

As Thanksgiving draws near, I have been reflecting on all the many things I have to be thankful for. I can hardly believe I just celebrated my third birthday in Jerusalem. And now I am coming up on Thanksgiving number three and Christmas number three. God has been so faithful in teaching me things and drawing me closer to his side.

Since it's almost Thanksgiving, I decided to post a list of things I am thankful for:

Friends and family in Jerusalem and back home
God's faithfulness to me always
A bike
Boots to keep my feet warm on cold rainy days
Tuesday night bible study
Hebrew ulpan
Motivation to finish my thesis!!! One more chapter to write...and the intro and conclusion, plus probably lots more corrections
The Wrights (Dr. Wright, my thesis adviser and Diane, who is great).
the Abu Tor apartment
my desk in the library
Veggie burgers and my sister who inspired me to try them
Narkis Church
The JUC family
My computer that is in its 6th year of life
Warmth of sunshine
Leading trips in Israel
Christmas music on grooveshark
Another year of pita and hummus for the holidays :)
God's provision throughout my three years: scholarships, donations, and random jobs (babysitting last year, catering with Sarah, playing with Jack and Violet)
Sisters
New friends
Visitors coming in less than a month (shout out to Kelly and Kelsey!!!!)

And I also wanted include a few prayer requests

That God will give me guidance as I try to plan when to come home and what to do when I get home:
That someone will want to hire me to teach!! That God will provide a job and a place to live
That I will stay diligent and work hard and finish my thesis and Hebrew classes
That God will continue to bless the relationships I have with my non-Christian friends from ulpan and that I will be a blessing and know how to show the love of Christ to them

One of my favorite Bible verses that has been important to me at various periods of my life. It comes from Psalm 37. A few days ago I received a birthday card with this verse written in it, and it was the theme verse of my college graduation in 2009.

The verse says:

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

All of Psalm 37 serves as a reminder of what is important in life. It helps me to ask myself if I am on track in my day to day tasks. Where am I finding my delight and am I trusting in God and his timing to work in my life, or am I worrying and trying to force things myself? It is a comfort to know that God is in control and has a plan for my life and all I have to do is continue to try and find delight in what he has for me. And by following him and trying to seek his will, when we give him everything that we have and everything that we are, we can trust that he is also taking delight in us. :)

Closing time...End of another summer

2011-08-29T11:45:00.003+03:00

As a kid, summer was always a time of vacation from school to hang out and relax with friends and family. However, for the majority of my summers in Israel, that has not been the case! This summer has been filled with teaching, touring, research, learning and going to class.

This summer I was blessed with the amazing opportunity of teaching a short-term group here at JUC. In January, I had the opportunity to teach my first class, a New Testament “class” which consisted of “field studies” for five days all over Israel. In June, I got to teach a two-week class, which involved a handful of classroom lectures and walking tours in Jerusalem, day trips to important Biblical sites like Bethlehem, the Mt. of Olives, Beth Shemesh, Askelon, Qumran, En-Gedi, Masada and many more. We also got to spend four days in the Galilee visiting cities Jesus lived in: Nazareth and Capernaum, as well as other sites in the region. The trip ended with a vigorous sunrise climb up Mt. Sinai, and then we toured Jordan for a few days.

The group consisted of 33 Canadians, older, when I say older I mean slightly older than my parents… so not old! J They were very enthusiastic and excited to learn about the Bible and the significance of the land in which it happened. I absolutely loved the whole group and by the end of our 3 weeks together it felt like they adopted me as their own child and I had over a dozen sets of new parents. The group was mostly Christian, a pastor, a few professors, some Bible teachers, as well as a couple of non-Christians. I was not aware of this at the beginning, but one of the non-believers in the group had recently received a Bible and was in the process of asking a lot of questions about Jesus and what it means to walk with him. One of the highlights of the trip for me was at the last stop of our Samaria day. We were standing on a high lookout tower at Tel Shiloh. This is the city where the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant stood during the period of the Judges before Solomon built the temple. Also at Shiloh, Eli served as priest and Samuel, son of Hannah, heard the voice of God. It is a very significant Biblical site.

Late that afternoon at Shiloh, it was so windy that it was difficult to look at maps and read texts without all of the papers blowing away. In Hebrew the word for wind, ru-ach is the same word for Spirit. Sometimes a powerful wind is a reminder of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit (ru-ach ha-kadosh) all around us. On top of the lookout tower, all 33 of us where huddled together studying the importance of Shiloh. In Jeremiah 7, Jeremiah, who lived just before the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians, reflected back in Israelite history to say to the people in his day, look at what God did to Shiloh hundreds of years ago, how he destroyed it. Jeremiah warned the people that what happened at Shiloh would happen in their city, Jerusalem, and sure enough, it did when the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple. Then just before the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans, Jesus, after his act of cleansing the temple, quoted a verse from Jeremiah 7, alluding to important events in Israelite history, the destruction of the First Temple in the days of Jeremiah and the destruction of Shiloh as a way of telling and showing the people what will happen to the Second Temple. Jesus was so good at using the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) to proclaim a message that was very relevant to his audience in the first century. Then at Shiloh we read a passage from Hebrews 9 that describes some features of the Tabernacle and explains how Jesus came and fulfilled once and for all the sacrifices that were offered in the tabernacle. By his sacrifice once and for all, when he offered his blood, he was the perfect sacrifice to cleanse us of our sins so we may live and serve the living God.

I later found out that on that very windy day at Tel Shiloh, one of the non-believers in the group decided to give her life to Christ. She told me that for the first time she finally understood why Jesus had to die and what that meant. A few days later, the pastor in the group baptized her in the Jordan River. It was a big answer to prayer for many of the people in the group.

A few weeks ago, I found out that I might have the opportunity to lead another group this January. I bless God for all the opportunities and amazing experiences and support that he has provided.

After the group left, I had a few weeks off to study before I started an ulpan (modern Hebrew class) at The Hebrew University. The levels of Hebrew class are aleph, beit, gimel, dalet, heh, vav and then you are fluent. I finished the aleph level and the beit level over a year ago and started gimel in August. Taking modern Hebrew in Jerusalem has been one of my favorite multi-cultural experiences. The classes always consist of people from all over the world who want to learn Hebrew. The majority of people are Jews who are “making aliyah,” which means moving to Israel from another country and becoming Israeli citizens. The government gives them money to take ulpan and get settled in to their new country. Israel encourages Jews from all over the world to “make aliyah” and move to Israel. Along with many Jews, there are also Christians in the class. Most are theology students who want to learn modern Hebrew in order to better read and understand the Hebrew Bible (like me). We also have some Arab-Israelis in the class. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, Arab-Israelis are ethnically Arab, but Israeli citizens who live within the borders of “Israel proper.” Arabic is their mother-tongue, but they want to learn Hebrew to work in Israel.

So far, I am a month into the class. We are on a week of vacation right now and then this Sunday we start up another month of class and then we will be finished. This class has probably been the hardest class I have ever taken in my life! It is truly a challenge, but also a blessing.

Please continue to keep me in your prayers that I may stay strong to do well in this class and then that I will have lots of energy and perseverance to continue to work on my thesis as I try to finish up my time here in Jerusalem.

Blessings, Emily

Happy Shavuot!

2011-06-10T12:51:00.002+03:00

Chag Sameach! Happy Shavuot/Pentecost from Jerusalem.

As you may know, Wednesday was the day of Pentecost, known as Shavuot in Hebrew, which means weeks. In the Jewish calendar, Shavuot celebrates the day that the Lord gave the Torah to Moses at Mt. Sinai. Shavuot is directly linked to Passover, it occurs 7 weeks after Passover, or 49 days later. On Passover, the Jews slaughtered a sacrificial lamb, putting the blood on the door frames of their houses so that the angel of death would pass by them and not kill their first born sons. After pharaoh's firstborn son was killed, he let the Israelites go. Then they traveled for 40 days until they reached Mt. Sinai and Moses went up the Mountain to meet with God. If you remember the story Moses came down the mountain and the people were worshiping the golden calf that Aaron had made. That day 3000 people died as a result of that sin.

The parallel in the life of Christ in the New Testament is really cool. On Passover God sacrificed his firstborn (and only) son, Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. Then Jesus was resurrected and 40 days later he ascended to heaven. Then on the day of Pentacost (Shavuot), the day the Jews gathered to celebrate the Law being given at Mt. Sinai, the Holy Spirit came down in tongues of fire. After Peter's speech (Acts 2) 3000 people were saved.

My school, JUC, the place I am currently living, is about a five minute walk from the Room of the Last Supper which may also have been the room where the disciples met during Pentecost. This year there were tons of orthodox Jews camped out near our school to celebrate Shavuot. I think I counted over 40 tents. Lots of little kids crying and running around.

I have loved loved loved getting to live in Jerusalem and visit the places where these stories happened. And now I am excitedly preparing to lead a group in just a few days. They arrive on Monday and the tour begins in Jerusalem on Tuesday. The tour will involve visits to sites all over the country ending with climbing Mt. Sinai. Please keep me in your prayers as I prepare my lessons and pray that everything goes smoothly in the coming weeks.

Shalom,

Emily

Holy Week in Jerusalem: Palm Sunday and Pesach

2011-04-19T19:54:00.002+03:00

An estimated 250,000 people are visiting Israel this week. And 100,000 of those are in Jerusalem.

Christian pilgrims are coming to celebrate Christ's death and ressurrection this week.

For Jews, Pesach (Passover) is one of the most significant holidays in the Jewish calendar. It is one of the pilgrimage feasts, one of the feasts that Lord commanded the Jews to come to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice in the temple and to remember God's deliverance of the people from Egypt. Luke 2 records the story when Jesus traveled to Jerusalem with his family to celebrate Passover.

Josephus an historian from the first century A.D. wrote, that the number of sacrifices offered on Passover was two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred. He assumed that no more than 10 feasted together which gave him the estimate of two million seven hundred thousand and two hundred people in Jerusalem for Passover!

It is often difficult to know how accurate some of Josephus' numbers are, because he was writing in a Roman context after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Scholars agree this number is an exaggeration. However, E.P. Sanders estimates that approximately 300,000 to 500,000 people were in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover in the first century.

As you can imagine, things are a little crazy in Jerusalem this week!

On Palm Sunday, I participated in a procession with many Christians from all over the world. I was going to write, "following in the footsteps of Jesus" but I guess it would be more proper to say following Jesus' donkey, we walked down the Mt. of Olives and into the Old City. The narrow alleyways were jam-packed with people waving palm branches, singing hallelujah and having a really great time. I took some pictures of the walk that I will have to post later. People were praising Jesus in many different languages, but there was one word we all had in common: Hallelujah. My Aramaic professor has said that Hallelujah is the one word that exists in the most languages. Walking down the Mt. of Olives on Palm Sunday was a very memorable experience that I will not soon forget.

Then Monday night was the start of Passover. The Blystra's, who I live with, hosted a Passover seder, which is a meal and liturgy including scripture, songs, matza, bitter herbs, and four glasses of wine. They invited some people from our church, who also happen to teach a biblical Hebrew ulpan, so they led the seder in Hebrew. I really enjoyed participating in an 'authentic' Passover seder which may have been similar to the one Jesus celebrated with his disciples.

After Passover comes the week-long holiday of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days after Passover, God commanded the Jews to eat only unleavened bread. On Monday morning before Passover, they totally cleaned out all of the chametz, products that have any leaven in them. They even burn some of the bread in their front yard on Monday morning. The eating of unleavened bread reminds the people of their sudden Exodus from Egypt, when the bread literally did not have time to rise.

For Christians, there are many services and activities in Jerusalem this week that correlate to the Passion week. Many people will be walking the Via Delarosa through the Old City this week. I plan to attend a sun-rise Easter morning service at the Garden Tomb on Sunday. I will write more about the Christian activities in the next few days.

Spring!

2011-04-07T17:07:00.002+03:00

Spring is definitely in the air here in Jerusalem. It is getting harder and harder to spend the days working on school and papers and exams in the library when the sun is out and the weather is nice. I am starting to actually enjoy my walking/biking commute to school rather than dread the really cold walk.

Latest news: I will be heading home in the end of April! I am really excited to be back in the states for the month of May, and then early June I will be heading back to Israel to do some teaching, take some Hebrew classes and finish my thesis. FYI: If anyone is thinking about coming for a visit: July is a good time, September through November are also good, but August and June will be a really busy for me...

The big goal before the end of April is to finish a historical geography seminar paper and two more comprehensive exams! Beyond that I hope to finish my thesis around December...

One of my comprehensive exams is a Hebrew exam. I have to know and be able to translate, answer grammatical questions and parse verbs from the Hebrew Bible. The 10 chapters I will be studying for my comp are 1 Kings 17-22 and the 4 chapters of the book of Jonah. This test offers me a great chance to really dig into the Hebrew text and gain new insights. Although I am doing two totally different sections of the Bible, I have noticed a few connections as I begin to study.

My first 6 chapters contain a few stories about King Ahab, his encounter with Elijah, the contest with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, the seige of Samaria by the Arameans, Naboth's vineyard, and the battle with Jehosophat at Ramoth Gilead. The next four chapters are the well-known story of Jonah, as he disobeys God, sets out toward Tarshish, gets eaten by a whale and then goes to Ninevah where he sees the repentance of the city. The book ends with Jonah upset with God and God asking the question of if he should show pity to the city with 120,000 people who do not know between their right hand and their left hand, and cattle too. The last words of the book are God mentioning not only concern for the people, but for the many livestock as well. Another interesting thing, when the people of Nineveh repent, they make their livestock fast and put on sack cloth too.

One interesting connection is that when King Ahab mourns, he puts on sackcloth and fasts, which is the same thing the Ninevites do after Jonah pronounces their destruction. In the book of Jonah, the prophets entire message to the Ninevites is only 5 words in Hebrew, "Another 40 days and Ninevah destroyed." And these five words is all it takes and the city repents.

Another interesting connection between Jonah and 1 Kings 22 occurs in a minor detail when the author of Kings records that Jehosophat built ships of Tarshish which were broken at Ezion-Geber (modern day Eilat). This may have been the same type of ship Jonah sailed in when he headed to Tarshish.

I am still in the very early stages of studying for this final so I will try to keep sharing the cool Hebrew-isms from these stories. Blessings, Emily

March...must be time for an update

2011-03-12T23:24:00.003+02:00

Shalom from Jerusalem,

Wow, I can't believe it's March already and it has been SO long since I have updated this blog. This semester has been really busy. I am auditing two classes and spending most of my time in the library working on a few projects. I have a historical geography seminar class that is turning into a lot of work. For the class we have to design a three week trip of the whole country which includes planning the route, making the itinerary, studying all the archeological data relating to our sites and the arraigning the historical and biblical events in an organizable matter. It is a lot of data and half the battle is coming up with a working system of organization.

My other big project of the semester is my MA thesis. At this point the thesis has taken a back seat to the historical geography seminar. I am really excited about digging in to my thesis topic. I am researching the geographical and literary connections between Elijah and Elisha and John the Baptist and Jesus. A lot of work has been done in comparing these men, but most Bible commentaries do not know acknowledge the geographic connections that further expand on the literary connections. Here's one example: 2 Kings 4, Elisha raises the Shunamite widow's son at Shunem, a city at the foot of the Hill of Moreh, facing the Jezreel valley. In Luke 7, Jesus does a very similar miracle, raising a widow's child from the dead at a nearby city called Nain, which is located at the foot of the same mountain, the Hill of Moreh. In my thesis, I will be exploring how the ministry of Elijah and Elisha is similar to the ministry of John and Jesus based on their similar actions and message which can be seen as they act out their message by going to similar places.

I am hoping to finish the seminar and take my comprehensive exams by the end of April... and then finish the thesis will get finished sometime later...

I am still living with Keith and Laura Blystra and their daughter Maryanne. Below is a picture of Maryanne and Seth from Valentine's day, when we babysat so Keith and Laura could go out.

Last weekend we rented a car with a few friends and were able to get out of Jerusalem for a few days. The first day we went up to Galilee and spent the night in Haifa. The second day we went into the West Bank to check out the tels Samaria and Dothan. Below are a few pictures from our third day, when we did a hike at Ein Gedi, in the Wadi Arugot.

Below is a picture of the Kidron Wadi, the same valley that separates Jerusalem from the Mt. of Olives.

The imagery of this picture, the Kidron Valley flowing into the Dead Sea is the setting for Ezekiel 47, a prophesy about the glory of the renewed temple. The prophesy describes how the this barren desert region will come to life one day.

Ezekiel 47

The River From the Temple

¹ The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. ² He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was trickling from the south side.

³ As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. ⁴ He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. ⁵He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. ⁶ He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?”

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. ⁷ When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. ⁸ He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. ⁹ Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. ¹⁰ Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. ¹¹ But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. ¹² Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”

Winds of Change

2011-01-25T19:35:00.002+02:00

Shalom from Jerusalem,

A new semester is just beginning... After about 5 weeks of "break" classes are starting up again on Monday. The "break" was less like a break and more like a change of routine. The change of routine involved some travel, some schoolwork, some work on campus, and some teaching.

December was a busy month of travel. I ended the semester with a week long field study in Egypt for the class Ancient Egypt and the Biblical World. We saw some ancient temples, the pyramids and some really cool museums. For the class, each student presents. I gave my presentation on the Merneptah Stele at the Cairo Museum. The Stele contains the oldest inscription containing the name Israel on it. Depending on how you date the Exodus and which pharaoh you think is the pharaoh of the Exodus, Merneptah (the son of Ramses II) may have been the pharaoh right after the Exodus. So it is very significant that that we have a stele from this period that mentions Israel.

After a week all over Egypt, we said goodbye to most of our friends that were going home for Christmas. Fighting a bit of home-sickness, instead of hanging around Jerusalem and Bethlehem this year for Christmas, Seth and I along with two of our friends, Todd and Rachel took off on an adventure to the Sinai Peninsula. We stayed at a backpacker/tourist town called Dahab. The "camp" we staying in was about $2.50 a night per person. We ate some local Egyptian falafel for less than a dollar... perfect for the student budget. We also had a few nice meals overlooking the gulf of Aqaba and Saudi Arabia. It was a beautiful trip. I put some pictures up on facebook. The highlight of the trip was the amazing snorkeling. The coral reef was beautiful and we saw lots of interesting fish.

We stayed about 6 days in Dahab and then headed back home to Jerusalem. We spent a lot of time in January cleaning up the campus to prepare for the 100 short term students who came for the 3 week physical settings of the Bible class. I also got the opportunity to lead a group of students from Taylor University who were in Israel for 5 days. It was a whirlwind of a trip in and around Jerusalem and then to Galilee. They were great to have for my first ever group, attentive and interested adventure seekers.

I was excited and nervous to be teaching on my own for the first time. It felt really good to get to use all the information that I have been learning over the past years. On their last night they had a debriefing session where they reflected on what they've experienced and where they have grown and what has impacted them. It was really neat to hear about how God was using their time in Israel. I'm am excited about what God has been doing in my life in Jerusalem and eager to see what the future holds.

Blessings,

Emily

The End of Another Semester

2010-11-30T13:22:00.002+02:00

Things are winding down this semester as I am finishing up my last few papers and taking a few final exams. It is getting down to the wire for crunch time, but thankfully I am not too stressed. Friday will be our last day of the semester and then we will have a little Christmas party at night. Saturday morning at 6 am I leave Jerusalem for Egypt. One of my classes this semester, called Ancient Egypt and the Biblical World has a week long field study all over Egypt. We have been studying ancient Egyptian history all semester and now we get to go see it in real life.

On another note, I just moved out of the house I where I stayed for the semester with Keith and Laura Blystra and their daughter Maryanne. Now I live on campus and will be staying here through the end of February.

The most exciting thing about the end of the semester is not just the fact that we have a six week break from classes. While it will be great to have some time off from going to class, I actually have a lot of work ahead of me for the six week break. First of all, I am starting my thesis, for which I have a lot of preliminary research to do. My topic is tracing the geographical movements and actions of Elijah and Elisha in contrast to the geographical movements of John the Baptist and Jesus. I will be comparing the stories of Elijah and Elisha to look for similarities, specifically in the geography to see what kind of conclusions I come up with. I am still in the very early stages of the thesis process and hoping to narrow things down considerably as I get going.

The second and even more exciting thing that will keep me busy during my six weeks "off" is that I am leading my first real group for JUC. This means its my first ever real JOB teaching and showing people around Israel. There are a group of students coming from Taylor University who will be in Israel for about a week. They are doing a New Testament study and before they come to Israel they will be in Jordan for two weeks. So I will be their teacher on behalf of JUC while they are in Israel. We'll be doing a few days around Jerusalem and a couple days in Galilee. The group has a professor from the states traveling with him so I will probably get to do some tag-team teaching, but I was told that I need to prepare as if I will be doing all of the teaching. So that is my big excitement of what is happening in my life in the coming months.

Looking back on this semester, it has been a great semester but it has really flown by. One highlight of the semester was having my dad and Sheri visit for about 2 weeks. Seth and I took them all over the country and did a lot of hiking and touring. Seth and I had fun teaching them all of the cool stuff we have been learning! It was really great having my dad here to celebrate both of our birthdays together, a birthday in Jerusalem we will not soon forget.

Well I think that is it for the update at present. I should probably stop procrastinating and get back to the studying.

Blessings,

Emily

15 months in Jerusalem

2010-11-01T13:41:00.003+02:00

Things are finally starting to cool off in Jerusalem and I'm not dripping with sweat everyday when I make my way to school journeying across the Hinnom Valley. The walk for me each day is literally straight down and straight back up again in valley known in Hebrew as Gai Ben Hinnom, valley of the Son of Hinnom. In the New Testament this valley GaHenna in Greek, is referred to by Jesus and often translated as Hell in our English Bibles. As I hike up and down to school everyday through this steep, steep valley, I try not to think about how sweaty I am from the blazing hot sun, but how thankful I am to be living in Jerusalem. I feel so blessed that God has given me this opportunity.

I have now been in Jerusalem for over 15 months. Originally the plan was to try to finish the degree by December. Of course that is not happening! I am on track to possibly be done in May, but I am considering and praying about the possibility of staying another year. Because of my babysitting job, I could probably afford to stay. In my third year I would continue to write my thesis and take additional Hebrew classes. I have also gotten my feet wet with some teaching this semester and would look for additional opportunities to teach or help give tours. If you know of anyone wanting to come let me know!

Teaching this semester has been so much fun for me. I was able to lead two walks through Jerusalem and then I got to teach one site each day of the trips. The sites I taught were: Bethlehem, Gezer, Shiloh, Beit Shemesh, Arad, Qumran, Mt. Carmel, Beth Shan, and Dan. The best thing about teaching was that I learned so much myself. I learned the importance of articulating clearly what I am saying and need to understand fully what I am teaching so that I could explain things in a way that makes sense. Having gone to Israel with Ray Vander Laan and now having done the JUC approach to Israel trips I hope to draw on these different perspectives as I continue to develop new interpretations and teaching methodologies.

In my first 15 months in Jerusalem, these two passages from the book of Psalms are a couple of my favorites. For me they have come to life while I have been living in Jerusalem:

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?

My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

Standing in Jerusalem you can see how the ancient core of the city, known as the city of David, is lower than all the mountains that surround it. Standing there you look up at the tall powerful surrounding mountains and feel what the Psalmist felt: vulnerable to attack from all sides and helpless? No, he knew that even though Jerusalem was not militarily or strategically located in a strong place, the people in Jerusalem relied on the LORD, maker of heaven and earth for help. This is such a powerful image that comes to life when you are standing in Jerusalem.

Psalm 125

Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the LORD surrounds his people
both now and forevermore.

Here is another image of the high strong mountains that surround Jerusalem, but this time they represent God's enduring love and protection of his people who put their trust in him. Ideally capital cities were built on a high plateau where they could control the whole area. Jerusalem is nestled in the hills and you get the sense that God is the one controlling the whole area in the mountains around Jerusalem.

Blessings,

Emily

New Adventures of a New Semester

2010-09-11T19:50:00.004+03:00

Wow what a whirlwind the last month has been!

So many new things going on I hardly know where to begin the update!

Summer is over and we are into the school year full swing. I feel as though summer flew by and I can hardly call it a period of rest and relaxation. It was busy, and to be honest, that is the way I prefer it. A highlight of the summer was having my family out to visit for almost two weeks in the end of August. My cousins Courtney and Micah and Micah's girl friend Katie came all the way from Chicago to see me, or I guess I should say to see me and Israel... Seth and I had so much fun taking them around Jerusalem. We also enjoyed a few days in the desert and a few days in Galilee where we got to swim in the Sea of Galilee, and then slept on the roof of our hostel where we could look out and see the Mediterranean. We followed in Jesus footsteps all over the Galilee, going to Nazareth, Capernaum, Caesarea Philippi and many other spots. Seth and I loved making the cousins wake up at around 5 am to do sunrise hikes. Some of our favorite sunrise hikes were Mt. Arbel, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, Mt. Carmel where Elijah had the confrontation with Baal and Masada, Herod's palace fortress in the desert. It was so great to have some of my family here to hang out with and see what my life is like over here.

The cousins left on Friday, August 27, the same day that the new semester started at JUC when a whole new batch of students arrived on campus. It was an amazing and busy week showing around my cousins and then as they left we went right into the new students arriving.

A few other updates of the summer, I started a new job in August. I got a new job babysitting which is lots of fun and pays the bills!

This week I just finished my modern Hebrew ulpan class that I was taking over the summer. I was doing less and less homework as things were busy with my cousins here and then the semester starting at JUC. We had our final exam on Tuesday and I think I passed, but it might be close! However, I am having a lot of fun trying to use my modern Hebrew on the streets and when I go grocery shopping in the market.

Another change that came with the end of summer: I moved off campus at JUC and now I am living just across the Hinnom valley (gahenna, or hell in the New Testament). I live with Keith and Laura Blystra and their two year old daughter Maryanne. Keith is a fellow MA student at JUC. They are house sitting a large house for some friends of theirs who are in the states so they invited me to move in to help split the rent. I have my own floor (two rooms) in the house which is really nice. Everyday I have to walk through hell (the hinnom valley) to get to school. It's quite a hike as the valley is pretty steep. If you'd like to come see it I would love to host you! We have a guest room all set for visitors!

And now last but not least, my most exciting update of the new semester: I get the chance to do some teaching on the field studies for the physical settings class. The class that JUC is famous for, Physical Settings of the Bible, is a class that involves field studies to all regions of the country almost every weekend of the semester. I have been really forward to our president, Dr. Wright, with the fact that I want to teach and that I hope to lead groups in Israel someday. Dr. Wright is allowing me to go on all the field studies and teach at one site per day. There are around 50 students in the class so we fill a large tour bus.

The first two weeks of class we did not travel, we just had walks around Jerusalem. Because we would be winding are way around narrow crowded streets in Jerusalem, Dr. Wright decided to split the group in half so that I would lead half of the group and he would lead the other half. So two weeks ago I led my first ever real tour which was a 5 hour walk around the Old City of Jerusalem. I basically walked them all over and explained a lot of the history and geography and some of the main features of the city. Last week was my first all day walk. From 7am-noon we did New Testament Jerusalem focusing on Jesus and the gospels and Herod the Great and from 1-6pm we did Old Testament Jerusalem focusing on the city of David and Hezekiah.

Today was our first field study on the road. It was called Jerusalem Approaches. I got to teach on site in Bethlehem, which was our last stop of the day. I taught about Ruth, which takes place in Bethlehem, some of the David stories in Bethlehem, Jesus' birth and then the history the tradition of the "cave" where Jesus was born and the later church built over top. Next week will be our Benjamin field study.

I absolutely love love love teaching. Sometimes I get really nervous before I start but usually once I get going my jitters go away and I do ok. One thing I am learning that the preparation and planning that goes into teaching is really time consuming, but so worth the effort.

This teaching position is really an answer to prayer from God and a confirmation to me that my time here and the effort I put into studying will amount to something. As I teach I learn that I really need to rely on God to give me words and insights as I try to stay faithful to God in teaching the text and the land to my best ability. Teaching makes me realize just how little I actually know and how I still have so much to learn, but at the same time it is really great to see how much I have learned in one year. Throughout my whole experience in Israel I am amazed at what God is doing in my life and so excited to see what else he has in store for my future.

Please keep me in your prayers as I am trying to juggle a full class load with a little bit of teaching and a part time job on the side. Pray that my strength will be renewed when I feel tired and that I will continue to learn to rely on God for all things and stay close to him always.

Grace and Peace,

Emily

Ani Medaberit Ivrit

2010-07-24T17:27:00.002+03:00

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem,

It's another hot Saturday afternoon in Jerusalem. But the winds blowing in off the Mediterranean that some how find their way all the way to us in the Judean hill country feel amazing. Almost built in air-conditioning, but not quite.

This summer I find myself consumed with Hebrew! All the time thinking Hebrew and trying to study my words and immerse myself in the language. I've been able to make some new friends in my class which has been a real high light of the summer. I'll share a few stories of some of my experiences outside of class.

Ireenie, who is visiting Jerusalem from Egypt, is a Coptic Nun living in a monastery adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, comes to class every day dressed in black from head to toe with only her face and hands exposed. One day after class we got to talking (all in Hebrew) about her family and her life in Egypt and what she does in Jerusalem. I ended up walking with her to the monastery where she lives and she guided me through the Church of the Holy Seplecure telling me specifically about the Coptic areas of the church where she spends a sifnificant amount of time praying. In case you are not familiar with the Church of the Holy Seplecure, it is a Crusader period church built over the remains of a Church built by Constantine in the 4th century AD, over the spot where Jesus is remembered to have been crucified and ressurrected. Today the church is divded between 6 Christian denominations which all have chapels there. Ireenie showed me the "exact spot where Jesus laid his head" which is in the Coptic chapel.

Atara is another friend of mine, Jewish, probably in her mid to late 20's who made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) and lives in Jerusalem. She is one of only a few fellow Americans in my class, originally from New York. Her Hebrew is very good because she speaks a lot of Hebrew everyday at her job, working at a soup kitchen in Jerusalem. She is currently taking classes online through an American university and recently had to interview someone of a different religion. She really only knows Jews, so when she found out I was a Christian, she asked to interview me. I got to share with her the basics of what Christians believe. She asked me questions like what are our holidays, what are our holy sites, and how my Christianity has impacted my life. It was so great to be able to share with her about Christianity and give her some of my testimony and I am praying that God will open up the door for us to have more of these types of conversations. She is also supposed to go in a church for this assignment so I am hoping to take her to a church sometime this week, even though she for her she is not allowed to be in a church because she is Jewish.

I have also made friends with Silwa and Raaida, two Mulim women who are learning Hebrew. They definitely have an advantage because Hebrew is a lot more similar to Arabic than to English. A couple weeks ago, I went with them and another friend from class, Janet, who is from Holland (that would be the real Holland, not Holland MI). They had a friend who was in their ulpan class last semester who was leaving the country the next day, so we went shopping with her to the Arab seuk (market) to pick up some last minute things. It was fun to watch them shop for dried dates and figs and spices and clothes. The Arab culture is a very in-your-face culture, especially when it comes to shopping. I don't understand very much Arabic at all, but to me, the way it sounds is like they are always yelling at eachother. Especially the men. But it is definitely better to go around with locals because then you don't get ripped off with the tourist prices. After shopping we went to their favorite Arabic restaurant. First they brought out about 8 plates with different kinds of salads. Their were different vegetables, different sauces, some things spicey, some things sweet, some things I have never seen in my life... And they brought out fresh pita which we quickly filled up on. Then we had filafel (fried chick peas) sandwitches stuffed with all kinds of salads and sauces and even some french fries in there too. So yummy!

Another highlight was last week Saturday I got invited to Shabbat lunch with my friend Natalie and a bunch of her friends. Natalie is in her late 20's, Jewish, and from Australia. She invited one other friend from class to come along too, Katrina, in her mid 20's, from Germany and not religious. Katrina and I were the only non-Jews at the meal. I blew our cover quickly because I didn't know that after you wash your hands before the meal you are supposed to talk until after the hallah bread is blessed and everyone eats a piece. So we all wash our hands and sit down around the table and I say, "Hi, I'm Emily," and I start asking people their names and where they are from. They all just look at me and then Natalie makes a motion at me not to talk. After we all eat hallah they explain to me that they weren't trying to be rude and they totally understand that I didn't know. I was very open with the fact that I am not Jewish and I asked a lot of questions about the meal and what they do and what it means to them. They think it is pretty cool that I am a Christian who wants to know Hebrew and study Torah. I pray that God will continue to give me oppurtunities to share the gospel and that my life will be an example of who Jesus is.

Please continue to pray for me that I will be strong in Christ and use my time in Israel the best that I can. I have gone through more culture shock after my visit home. Homesickness comes and goes for me sometimes. Things are very quiet around campus as the office is closed and the staff gets some vacation time.

I will try to do a better job of updating my blog more faithfully!

Blessings,
Emily

Life in Jerusalem

2010-06-24T16:04:00.002+03:00

I've been back in Jerusalem 9 days and counting and I am finally starting to feel like I am getting settled in. I am a creature of habit in that I crave a normal routine. I'm not going to lie, it has been difficult readjusting to life in Israel after a month away, but I am starting ease back into the way of life over here. Shway, shway in Arabic, or Lay-at lay-at in Hebrew. Slowly Slowly.

Speaking of Hebrew, I am well into the second week of class, which means I have heard just about enough Hebrew that certain Hebrew phrases are now swirling around in my head 24/7. Most of the time I don't know the meaning of the phrases, but I always find myself talking to no one in Hebrew. And usually the conversations running through my head are accompanied by some form of hand motions. It's sort of like I live in a whole nother world by myself. This morning I woke up and was walking to the kitchen to grab some breakfast when Tim, another student worker who just graduated walked down the stairs from his apartment and shouted to me, "Hey Emily." I was busy in my world of Hebrew and jumped and caught my breath when I heard him. It's like everything I say and do has an explanation in Hebrew circling in the back of my mind. It's fun; I kinda like it.

One of my favorite things about Hebrew is the class dynamic. Our class consists of people from different religions and from all over the world. We have three nuns in our class, Mary Elaina, from Italy who is dressed in all white everyday. Ginee, a nun from India who is dressed in gray everyday, and Irenee, from Egypt who is dressed in black everyday. She not only has the traditional nun hair covering, but also a veil and collar that comes up to her neck and around her face. The nuns in their different color robes often sit together. I am still making my way around the classroom to get a chance to talk to them more.

We also have three Arabs in our class who can often be found chatting in Arabic. Much to the dislike of the teacher, they explain grammatical points and the meanings of words to eachother in Arabic. There are about a handful of Americans, an Australian, two Germans, another woman from Italy, two people from Holland, and a man from South Korea.

The best friends I have made so far are with a conservative Jewish girl from New York, a teacher from Australia, a student from Germany, and a girl from Holland.

In my free afternoons, I like to sit in the park on the bench and watch people while I study. Independence Park is a large grassy park in the middle of town with a fountain and a small channel of running water that has some shade trees and benches and rocks to sit on. It's one of the only places with thick, lush, green grass. I love it.

I also love walking through the Old City and attaching myself on to tourist groups. I prefer to walk around with a group of Israeli school kids because then I can sometimes pick up what they are saying in Hebrew. Or I just listen in with an English speaking group. The weather has been hot hot hot, but there are still lots of tourists here on summer holiday.

Feel free to come visit me!

Around the world and back again...

2010-06-19T07:14:00.002+03:00

Exciting times in the life of Emily!

I had a wonderful visit home to the States in which I got to hang out with many of my friends and family. After a year away from home, it was so good to return. It was great to be back in America and enjoy some of the conveniences that I have been missing in the Middle East, like driving in cars, shopping at Target, eating pizza, understanding what people are saying on the street, and being able to read all the street signs.

I also had the amazing oppurtunity to go on a mission trip to Guatemala while I was home. I called up my Young Life leader from college to try to find a time when we could hang out and he told me that some people dropped out and he was looking for a few extra leaders for the trip. I hadn't bought my return flight to Israel and the timing fit perfectly so that I could fly out of Guatemala on the 13th, fly to Israel on the 14th, arrive on the 15th and start my Hebrew class on the 16th of June. It was a whirlwind of travel, and I am still adjusting to the jet-lag, but it was well worth it. My time in Guatemala included hanging out with high schoolers from Hinsdale and leading a Bible study as well as a lot of manual labor. My job for most of the week was mixing cement and pouring concrete floors for people who lived in one room shacks with dirt floors. I also helped build a house and spent one day working at a compost sight and shoveling garbage.

Just a couple of my impressions from the trip: 1. It was my second time returning to work in the same neighborhood and this year I was even more blown away by the poverty. It seemed all the more real to me. Just to see the same people and the same kids a year older but in the same situation blew me away.
2. The way the little kids in the neighborhood looked after oneanother also blew me away. Most of the dads are not present in their lives because they work in the garbage dump picking thru the trash and spend most of their time being high from sniffing alcohol and paint thinner. The moms are the ones who run the show and make everything happen. The kids have to look out for eachother. One image that I have that I am confident will stick with me for a very long time is that of a little girl, probably 1 year old, curly black hair and dark brown eyes, snot running down her face standing in a deserted alley just balling her eyes out. The girls older brother, who was probably about three and another little girl, maybe two years old came to the balling little one year old and tried to pick her up. The boy grabbed her right arm and right leg and the little girl tried to grab her left arm and left leg. But they couldn't lift her in a way that they would be able to carry her. The little girl wasn't strong enough to carry her side of the crying one year old. All the while this was going on, the one year old was still crying, but had stopped wailing as loudly as she had been before. The three year old boy, seeing that he would have to do something alone, managed to scoop up the crying one year old and managed to carry her in his arms, wobbling along the deserted alley way.
I, having just spent time with cousins who are one and three years old, was amazed at the way these Guatemalan kids took care of eachother all week. Often we would see toddlers taking care of their infant siblings. It was unreal to me.
3. The third impression I had was something of the cycle of despair many of these kids will probably enter. That is, they will follow in the footsteps of their parents and older siblings whose only work is the less than humane work sorting thru trash, scalvaging for valuables at the city dump and getting high all the time. I can't tell you how many adults and young teens I saw staggering around the alleys of the neighborhood sniffing their rag and clutching their bottle of paint thinner. One of the work days, we were mixing concrete a few houses down from the paint thinner shop and we saw so many people stagger past our cement pile searching for something that could only temporarily satisfy them. It really broke me to know that many of the young kids we played with all week will grow up and have this lifestyle.
4. I think it was really good and eye opening for a lot of the high schoolers who came along and had not really seen anything like this before. We were able to hear testimonies of some of the people involved with Young Life in Guatemala who live in these neighborhoods and have accepted Christ and are sharing him with others in Guatemala. And it was great to be able to work alongside them and do something to help, even if it didn't feel very significant.

All in all it was a really great trip and I am so thankful I was able to go. I know God is able to use hard and difficult experiences to shock us, wake us up, and show us little glimpses of his grace and kingdom come. My prayer is that God will keep shocking me and waking me up and calling my name to seek his kingdom and bring/show/live in the realaity of the shalom that only He can offer.

Blessings,
Emily

2010-05-25T06:52:00.002+03:00

My semester at JUC ended with a week long trip to Jordan. The trip was a part of a class called Cultural Backgrounds of the Bible. The class involved learning about ancient Israelite culture, such as food, clothes, law, politics, hospitality as it can be seen in the Bible and in other Ancient Near Eastern records. On our trip to Jordan, we got to take a step into Beduin culture to help us gain better insight of what life is like in the desert. This was a step away from some of the comforts we take for granted as westerners with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of what Biblical culture was like.

One part of the trip was a 4 hour camel ride through the desert in the blazing hot sun. There were no roads, buildings or traces of settlement except for scattered beduin tents.
This is a picture of us sitting in the Beduin tent eating Mansef. We sat in a circle around the trays of Mansef. It includes rice with chicken and lots of spices with yogurt poured over top. Then you eat it by ripping off a piece of chicken and grabbing some rice in your hand and rolling it into a small ball. Then you litterally "pop" it into your mouth. It was really yummy. I preferred the chicken Mansef to the goat Mansef we had later in the week. Mabye because they took a live goat and slaughtered it in front of us and then skinned it and showed us how they use all parts of the goat. Then they cooked it on coals burried under the sand for 4 hours. I have some video of the slaughter that I could post if anyone is interested.

A Beduin tent in the desert of Jordan.

One of the nights when we weren't roughing it we stayed in these tents that look like TP's. This place actually had showers (cold) but clean. When we stayed in the Beduin tent, they provided mattresses that we could take anywhere we wanted and just sleep out under the stars. At this campsite they recommended we stay in the tent and zip it up tightly to keep out the scorpions. At this point in the trip we still were not far enough into the desert to the point where living creatures are still able to survive there.

This is a shot from about of Wadi Dona, which is the large valley down below. We actually hiked through that whole valley. It took us about 8 hours and I'm pretty sure it was close to 100 degrees that day. Or at least it felt like it in the desert.

I had a really great time on the trip. We learned that the pace of life in the desert is way slower than our crazy pace in the west. Life is a lot simpler in the desert. It was great to get away and see how people live in a way that is so different than what I am used to. While there were some similarities that could be drawn between the modern beduin lifestyle and the lifestyle of Biblical nomads like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it was hard to know what things were the same and what things were different. Some beduin customs have been kept for centuries, while other aspects of life have become more modernized. All in all, it was an amazing trip and I gained a richer and deeper first hand appreciation for what life during the Biblical period may have been like.

Galilee during the time of the 2nd Temple

2010-04-27T21:44:00.003+03:00

On Saturday and Sunday we had our second to last field study of the semester, a trip to the Galilee looking at some of the significant sites pertaining to Judaism of the Second Temple Period. Some of the sites we visited were the Decapolis city Hippos located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, Bethsaida, the home of some of the disciples. We also went to Bar'am the site of an ancient synagogue from the second temple period. Bar'am also has an interesting modern story. It was a Christian Arab village until the Israeli war for Independence in 1947 when all the Arabs were kicked out of there homes. Every year the Christians appeal to the Israeli high court requesting to move back and worship in their church there, but the Israelis are not willing to let them because they think it is too dangerous. We also went to Kedesh a site in upper Galilee where we saw ruins from a Roman temple to the Roman god of the heavens dating to the second temple period.

We also went to Gamla where we saw remains of a first century synagogue, Jotopata, the site of Josephus' final battle before he surrendered to Vespasion. From there we hiked to Cana where Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding.

This is a picture of a waterfall at Gamla. It is the largest waterfall in all of Israel. We had a lot of fun playing in it.

Remains of the temple at Gamla which stood during the life time of Jesus. There is a good chance he may have been here.

Gamla: Josephus describes it as a camel's hump. The Romans laid seige to the city here and the people committed suicide jumping off the top of this cliff.

Megalithic dolmens dating to the Early Bronze Age 2300 BCE. These stone structures were probably used for ancient burrial. They are found all over the Golan heights. These dolmens would have been seen as ancient structures even to Abraham when he passed through.

A few more pictures of our adventures

2010-04-26T11:41:00.003+03:00

Here are a few more pictures from our adventure south. Below is a picture of the model of the Tabernacle at Timnah Park. It is a life size model and in front you can see the altar and the bronze basin. This is a really cool rock formation known as the Sphinx.

This is an ancient Egyptian temple to the goddess Hathor from the Iron Age.

The rock formations in the South are so beautiful!

Cliffs of the Judean Wilderness near the Dead Sea

From Hermon to Eilat

2010-04-25T21:04:00.004+03:00

Last weekend I had an incredible oppurtunity to travel the entire length of Israel in just a few days. We started by renting a car in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. Because Saturday is Shabbat in Israel and everything is closed, we were not able to rent the car in Jerusalem. So we went to the air port and had a little bit of an adventure in getting a car that would do the job. We ended up renting for a company other than the one we thought we would rent from... and they had a limit on how many kilometers we could take the car without paying an extra fee. So we ended up taking the car for 3 days so we could have unlimited kilometers.

At 6 am on Sunday morning Nat and Shirley, the volunteer cooks from JUC who are super awesome and my friend Seth and myself left Jerusalem heading north almost all the way to the northern most boundary of Israel. When we got to Mt. Hermon we took a cable car that resembled a ski lift up to the top.

On top we did some hiking and even played in the snow. This is the only snow I have seen during my year in Israel. I've heard it snows once in a while in the winter, but we did not have any snow this year. SNOW ANGELS!

So right in front of us going up the ski lift was a huge gruop of Muslim women. They were all completely covered with their long, thick coats and head coverings. They got to the top and booked up even higher to a further peak. From there we could not see where they went so naturally we followed a bit later. But we were not able to find them. Nat jokingly said they snuck into Syria because we were so close to the border. It's possible, but they may have just looped around and we probably just missed them. But it was an interesting day as we were not the only ones on top of Hermon that day. It was us, the Muslim woman and a lot of Israeli soldiers, monitering the border. Our next stop was Nimrod, a very impressive palace built during the Islamic period and also used by the Crusaders. The architectural style of the fortress was incredible.

The next day we set out from Jerusalem to head South. We had an incredible time just driving in the car with the windows down enjoying the warm weather in the desert and the epic views of the cliffs along the Dead Sea.

Our first stop was about 4 hours South of Jerusalem at Timnah Park. We spent about 6 hours there looking at some very impressive sites and doing a lot of hiking. It was very hot and very dry. A few highlights of Timnah Park are an ancient Egyptian inscriptions dating from the Iron age, a temple of the Egyptian goddess Hathor, a copper mine used in the Chalcolithic period and again by the Egyptians during the Iron age, as well as a life size replica of the Tabernacle. They also have a man made lake at Timnah, but because it was Israeli remembrance day (like our Veteran's day or memorial day) we were not allowed to take the paddle boats out. They also have some amazing hiking trails with very cool rock formations and incredible views.

After Timnah we continued south to the Red Sea. We enjoyed a dinner of leftover lasagna on the beach in Eilat and did some more driving around the city. We found our way all the way to the border of Egypt and then to the border of Jordan. Then we hung out in Eilat for a few hours. Because of the national holiday, they had fireworks over the water so that was fun to watch.

Then we drove to the Maktesh Rimon, which is the largest erosion crater in the whole world. It's very impressive. On our way back to Jerusalem, we took a different route north, closer to the Mediterranean. We stopped in the shephelah, the lower foothills to the west of the Judean mountains where Jerusalem is located. Using a Hebrew road map, we drove around and around on dirt roads searching for tells (ancient archeological sites). Our best find was what we think is tel el-Hesi, which is a very significant site in the history of archeology. (Let's just say something about the study of typology and a guy named William Matthew Henry Flinders Petrie...)

The final stop of our little excursion was Tel Aviv. We walked along the Mediterranean as the sun was setting, dipped our toes in the chilly water, and made our way to the ancient port city of Joppa, where Jonah fled in order to sail to Tarshish, and where Peter visited. We had some delicious pizza for dinner (kosher of course, so no meat is served). We opted for Greek pizza with olives and fancy cheese and pizza with sweat potatoes and onions. It was an incredible evening until we got back to the car and realized that Seth's backpack was stolen out of the trunk including his passport, driver's license, debit card and money that we were going to use to pay for the car. What a major bummer! He is still trying to get things sorted out with the embassy on getting a new passport and then he will have to figure out his visa and he is out a lot of money and a camera... I know he would appreciate your prayers that some of those issues could be sorted out soon.

Other prayer requests:

We are just starting our last week of regular classes so we have a lot of papers to write and finals to begin studying for. Finals week is in two weeks and then we have a week long trip to Jordan for our Cultural Backgrounds class. After that I plan to come home for a few weeks.

I am also in the process of figuring out things for this summer and next semester. Since my three roommates will be graduating in May, I am looking into the possibility of living off campus with a married couple and there 2 year old daughter. They are a wonderful family and I would be so blessed to stay with them (plus I would save a lot of money). I am also planning to return to the states for a few weeks this summer and then come back to Israel to continue taking modern Hebrew this summer. Please keep me in your prayers as I seek to follow where God is leading me and sort through some of the details of logistics and finances of living, studying and traveling. Thanks for your continued prayers. I am truly blessed by you and I bless God for you.

Grace and Peace,

Emily

Holy Week

2010-04-05T12:01:00.003+03:00

What a whirlwind this past week has been!

Passover season is probably the busiest time in Jerusalem. Because Passover is one of the three holidays that the Bible commands Jews to come to Jerusalem, the population of the city greatly increases over this week. Passover is the most widely celebrated Jewish holiday which remembers the angel of death who passed over the houses of the Israelites before the Exodus from Egypt. Obviously this is a very sacred week for Christians as well, so the streets are filled with tour buses and sidewalks are lined with all the tourists in their matching hats filing through the Old City.

Today is the last day of Passover, which is similar to a Shabbat day, meaning no one works, every store is closed, and no Jews drive on the streets. This morning I went out for a run. (We are going to do a 17 mile run that Elijah did after the contest on Mt. Carmel when he ran ahead of Ahab's chariot to Jezreel. I am training to do this run in about a month.)

So I was running on the streets of Jerusalem and admiring the overall quietness of the city which is otherwise very loud and busy. There were hardly any cars out, but lots of Jews in their prayer shawls walking to synagogues. Starting tonight after Sun down, Passover will be over and life will begin to return to normal in Jerusalem. And tomorrow I will start up classes again after a nice little break.

Last week Sunday was Palm Sunday which included a multitude of Christians marching down the Mt. of Olives waving Palm Branches reinacting the Triumphal Entry.

Passover began last week Monday night at sun down. I went with my friend Ada to a Messianic Passover seder with some friends she knew. This was an amazing experience because we got to see all the traditional Jewish customs still kept by the Jews of the congregation, but reinterpretated to be understood in light of Yeshua (Jesus in Hebrew). The service was done in English and translated to Hebrew and Russian. A Passover seder is full of symbolism, including a long liturgy of scripture reading telling the story of the Exodus, many blessings, 4 cups of wine, and no bread with leven. In his last supper, Jesus took the symbols of Passover, the bread and the wine and related them to himself, saying this is his body and his blood that would be broken and poured out.

On Passover the Jews eat Matza bread which is similar to a big, flat saltine cracker. Jews prepare for Passover by removing all the leven products from their houses and symbolically burning them in the streets. As I walked to school on Monday morning I smelled a strange camp fire smell saw many of my Jewish neighbors burning bread in front of their houses. Being some of the only Gentiles in our apartment building, we had a kind Jewish neighbor who stopped over and gave us some Matzah to eat.

Because we did not have class Tuesday through today (Monday) a few friends and I decided to head up to Galilee and hike the Jesus trail for a few days from Nazareth to Capernaum. I had done the 3 day hike last August. The Jesus trail is a marked trail beginning in Nazareth, Jesus hometown, traveling up and down hills, through forests, and farmland and through modern Arab villages. I went with 4 other friends from JUC and we had an amazing time hiking and camping out under the stars. It was great to get out of the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem and spend some time dwelling on the life and ministry of Jesus by literally walking where he walked.

Friday evening we split up into two groups to hitch hike home. My friend Seth and I caught a ride with a group of Hebrew speaking religious Jews (kippas, ear curls and tassels) in a mini-van.

Saturday in the Church of the Holy Seplucure was the Ceremony of Holy Fire. Every year on the Saturday before Easter, a preist in the Holy Seplecure goes into the tomb of Christ and recieves the Holy Fire that appears at 2:00 pm. I did not attend, but one of my roommates did and told me all about it. On Easter, the Church of the Holy Seplucure is crazy busy packed with people celebrating Jesus' ressurection. As a protestant, it is not easy for me to go there and feel comfortable remembering Christ's death and ressurection. The strong smells of incense and the little old ladies pushing and shoving to get close to the tomb. The church is filled with people using incense oil to annoint holy places and kissing relics. Even though this is not the way I usually choose to worship Jesus, I like going to the Church of the Holy Seplucure to widen my view of what it means for something to be sacred and how it is ok to worship God in more than one way. Even though I do not agree with all of the traditions at the Church, I like to go their to be reminded of the roots of my Christianity and to be connected with many different people who are worshipping Jesus as the ressurected Messiah.

I pray this Easter season will be a time when you will be reconciled to Jesus through his sacrificial death on the cross and be filled, refreshed and renewed living as a new creation in the fullness of the reality of the ressurection.

Grace and Peace,

Emily

A Trip to the Galilee

2010-03-27T15:17:00.003+03:00

Things are busy in Jerusalem this week. With Passover and Easter just around the corner many people are flooding in to Jerusalem to celebrate. I am hoping to attend a few different services including a Passover service with Messianic Jewish congregation and an Easter service at the Garden Tomb as well as a visit to the Church of the Holy Seplecure. It is very special to be in Jerusalem to remember and reflect on Jesus' last week in Jerusalem and his death and ressurection.

Last week we had a four day field study to Galilee. We started out our day in Caesarea Maritima on the Coast of the Mediterranean. Below is picture of me in the remains of Herod the Great's fresh water swimming pool on the Mediterranean.

This is a picture of Justin Genzink and I on top of Mt. Carmel. He is a fellow Holland Christian grad and we both happened to be wearing Holland Christian T-shirts on that day. For those of you who are familiar with Ray Vander Laan's trips to Israel, he does a big hike on Mt. Carmel and tells the Elijah story. Justin and I did some reminiscing on our experiences at HC and thought it would be fitting to do an HC pic on top of Mt. Carmel.

This is a picture looking out from Mt. Gilboah in the Jezreel valley. We had some extremely clear nights and were able to get some really beautiful views of the Galilee. This is a picture looking out from the Nazareth Ridge, very near the ancient town of Nazareth where Jesus grew up. The closest hill across the Jezreel Valley is the Hill of Moreh. Located on that hill is the town of Shunem, where Elijah raised the widow's son to life, and the town of Nain, where Jesus did a very similar miracle. The next hill in the distance is Mt. Gilboah, which is the mountain from which the previous picture was taken. This is where the city of Jezreel is located, so think Ahab and Jezebel, Naboth's vineyard, King Jehu, and the death of King Saul. So many Bible stories happened in the Jezreel valley, right near Jesus' hometown.

We had an amazing trip to Galilee. I have posted a lot more pictures on facebook so if you want to see more I would encourage you to check out my facebook.

As it sometimes feels like the semester is flying by, I have been thinking about options for this summer and what next semester holds. I am thinking about doing some more modern Hebrew and considering the option of beginning my master's thesis paper. Please keep me in your prayers as I pray God will continue to open some doors and reveal his will to me. I have some decisions to make regarding housing situations and am hoping that I will be able to do some work on campus this summer while I take Hebrew. Also, I hoping/planning to come home for a few weeks in the end of May, early June. I will have been gone for almost a year and am looking forward to seeing my family and friends. Please keep me in your prayers as I continue to seek after God and discern his will as I am in Israel.

Blessings,

Emily

My first ever Half Marathon

2010-03-19T11:38:00.003+02:00

Yesterday morning I ran my first ever half marathon! I had such a blast running it, but I am pretty sore today. Stairs take about twice as long as they usually do and my knees and leg muscles are quite achey.

I'm still trying to work out what compelled me to wake up and decide to run the marathon, but I'm really glad I did it. There was a group of about 15 people from JUC who have been planning to run it for a few months now and have been training, some more than others.

I don't tend to think of myself as a runner, but as a basketball player. I go running once in a while, usually not for over 30 minutes. And I play basketball with some people here in Jerusalem and I play ultimate frisbee which also involves a good deal of running. So I consider myself in decent shape....

So I woke up yesterday morning and decided I might as well give it a try and see if I can do it. 13 miles... how far can it be? So I showed up at the stadium in Givat Ram and found the group from JUC. I was talking to Cyndi who is a teacher at JUC about pre-race jitters. Cyndi is a hard core runner type... She tells me about how nervous she is and how she has been nervous all week. Her strategy: Just try to think of it as a regular long weekend run.

At this point I am thinking hmm, well I definitely haven't been nervous all week because I only decided to run today/yesterday and I guess the strategy of thinking of it as a regular long run only works if you actually take regular long runs... Problematic in my case. Although one time last May I ran almost 8 miles with my friend Paige who was training for a half marathon. So that gave me some confidence.

At the starting line I met up with my friend Corrinne and we ran together for the first 15 kilometers (out of 21). After that I had to stop to try and adjust my shoe because of a blister and then I lost her. From that point on my running buddies were some random Israeli men in very short shorts and tight tops.

This one man was really encouraging and talkative. I am quite certain he had already finished the race and was coming back to run some more. I was trying to get a time under 2 hours, and he was helping push me for a little, but at the end I just didn't quite have enough push left in me. My final time was 2 hours 3 minutes and 16 seconds.

It was a fun run. We got some great views of Jerusalem. The hills were pretty killer. But then downhill was nice. We ran past the Israel Museum, the shrine of the book where some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept, and the Jerusalem Forest which had great scenery.

All in all it was a great experience and I am really glad I did it. Never before this would I have evered considered paying money to run a long distiance... But now I am definitely planning on signing up for a half marathon in the future and doing some real training to see how well I can do. I have heard rumors of a half marathon around the Sea of Galilee... I will keep you posted!

Temple Mount Sifting Project

2010-03-17T19:26:00.002+02:00

Yesterday I set out from my apartment bright and early at 7 am to try my hand at being an archeologist. First I went to school and met up with my friend Seth and from there we walked about 40 minutes around the walls of the Old City across the Kidron Valley to Emek Tzurim, which is a national park where archeologist work at what is known as "the sifting project." They allow volunteers to come and help out with the project of sifting through 400 truck loads of dirt that were taken illegally from the temple mount!

In terms of world religions, the temple mount is probably the number one hot spot on the planet, a place sacred to Muslims, Jews and even Christians. The religious traditions that are tied to this one location are mind blowing if you ask me. One mountain, maybe even more of a hill, which Jewish tradition holds is the center of the earth, the place where God created Adam, the Garden of Eden. Later the spot of Mt. Moriah, where Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac. Later the spot where David bought a threshing floor from Arunah the Jebusite and then Solomon built the first temple. After the Babylonians destroyed the temple in 586 BC, the Jews went into exile for about 70 years. The population that returned built a smaller second temple on that exact location. It was not until around the year 40 BC that Herod the Great reconstructed the second temple and it became known as one of the most impressive temples in the ancient world. The temple mount platform on which Herod's temple was built still remains in Jerusalem to this day. In order to build such a large and grand temple Herod built retaining walls around the mountain that the temple stood on to build a large platform on which to construct the new temple. These retaining walls are all that is left of Herod's temple since the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD. A small section of the western section of Herod's retaining wall is known as "the western wall" where Jews go today to pray.

Just a little more history and then I will get to the interesting stuff. So after the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 AD, the emperor Hadrian builds a temple to Zeus on top of the temple mount. Of course the Jews are furious and this leads to the Bar Kockba revolt (132 AD). The result of this is Jews getting kicked out of the land, Jewish practice, study of Torah and circumcision are outlawed. Then Rome turns to Christianity (think Constantine), thus begins the Byzantine empire. Helena, Constantine's mother builds a number of churches in the Holy Land, in particular the church of the Holy Seplecure very near the temple mount. But from written records it seems the Byzantines did not realized the importance of the temple mount for Christianity and used the area as their garbage dump. After the fall of the Byzantine empire, the Muslims were the next people to take control over the temple mount. They built the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock which still stand there to this day. For a time the Crusaders took over control of the temple mount. I actually learned this today, (they may or may not have read their Bibles...) but they knew something of a first and second temple built in this area and they actually thought that the Al Aqsa mosque was Solomon's temple and the Dome of the Rock was the second temple. That is why the name Solomon's stables is still used to describe the portico on the southern end of the temple mount, even though it has nothing to do with Solomon. But as you probably know, the Muslims regained control from the Crusaders and have maintained control of the temple mount.

Another thing I learned today, during the Israeli war for independence in 1967, Israel recaptured the temple mount and gained complete control over it. For the first time, an Israeli flag flew over the temple mount. And shortly after, the Israelis handed over control of the temple mount to the Muslims. You might ask yourself how and why the Israelis would hand over the temple mount which is such an important part of the history of Israel. And the simple answers: Over a billion Muslims in the world, they control a lot of oil and the naturally high tensions in the Middle East. Therefore the Islamic Waqf has control of the temple mount today and Israel only has control sovreignty of the area for safety reasons. So if rioting or anything of that nature happens the Israeli army/police break into the temple mount to calm things down.

So today we sifted some soil that was illegally dug from under the temple mount. We are talking archeological remains that date back from the time of King David through Herod the Great, crusades, Islamic period to today.

So the story goes like this: The al Aqsa mosque on the temple mount has been remodeled and renovated a few times. But the temple mount has never been excavated. In 1999, the Islamic Waqf decided to build another exit on the South West corner of the temple mount. In order to do this they had to dig down and remove a lot of earth from the temple mount. They basically did it in the course of a few nights. In order to build the exit they had to remove about 400 truckloads of dirt which they unloaded in a trash dump outside the city. This was completely illegal and stirred up all kinds of controversy. Long story short, our archeology professor, Dr. Gabi Barkay is in charge of over seeing the sifting project in which people come and sift through the dirt to pick out pieces of pottery, coins, metal, ancient glass, mosaic pieces and many other things. They have made some amazing finds over the past ten years, and there is still a lot more sifting to do.

Seth and I didn't find anything too exciting in the few hours we spent sifting. Mostly just some pottery and mosaic pieces and plastered stones. we hope to go back again and I will bring my camera and take some pictures.

Quick Update...more to come

2010-03-08T20:22:00.003+02:00

Great is your faithfulness
Great is your faithfulness
You never change
You never fail, O God

True are your promises
True are your promises
You never change
You never fail, O God

These words are from a popular song by Chris Tomlin and they are my song of thanks and praise to God. I am so thankful for the oppurtunity I had to travel this weekend. I was able to spend three days on a field study to the Shephelah (the lower foothills to the west of Jerusalem), the Negev (desert region south of Jerusalem), and a few sights along the coast of the Dead Sea.

God has put such a passion in my heart to be here in Israel learning about his word and the historical context where it all happened. I am so blessed to be here and as I learn more and more I come away with a stronger sense that God is continuing to work on my heart and prepare me for things beyong what I can comprehend or imagine. And the most amazing thing is that it is all Him and not me at all.

A few highlights from the weekend excursion: On Saturday we went to Beit Shemesh, which is near Samson's hometown and stomping grounds, then to the Elah valley where David fought Goliath. Sunday we went to Beer Sheba where Abraham made a covenant, to the wadi Zin near the area where the Israelites wandered for 40 years. Today we hiked up to Masada, Herod the Great's palace fortress in the wilderness, En Gedi where David may have hid from Saul (also ran up a mountain to see remains of a Chalcolithic temple, from over 1000 years before Abraham even lived here) and then went to Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

The majority of the sites we visited were ones that I had been to at least once before. There were only a few new sites I had never seen. But the whole time I had a sense of things sinking in and becoming more clear in my mind. I feel like God is using this oppurtunity to give me more exposure to the land and the history and that hopefully I will be able to lead groups of my own there someday.

I am so blessed and thankful for the oppurtunity I have to be here traveling and learning. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers. Please continue to pray for me that my passion to follow God continues to grow. I hope you are able to go out this week remembering and dwelling on the faithfulness of our God. His promises are true, he is never failing, never changing. All of thethings he does work together for good.

Grace and Peace,
Emily

Happy Purim

2010-03-01T11:51:00.003+02:00

Hag Sameach! Happy Holidays!

This is a time of celebration in Israel! Last night I went with some friends to a synagogue to celebrate Purim.

Purim is the Jewish holiday which commemorates the story of Esther, when the Jewish people were saved from Haman's plot to annihilate them. The word purim means lots in Hebrew, referring to the lots that Haman cast to see what day he would enforce his policy to destroy the Jews.

In the service on the night before Purim, Jews read the Megillah Esther, which means the scroll of Ester. They read the whole book. At the service I went to last night, the Megillah was chanted in Hebrew, and actually it sounded sort of like a really long song. On Purim everyone dresses up in costumes and brings noisemakers. During the chant of the Megillah, whenever Haman's name is mentioned, everyone makes lots and lots of noise. There are people shouting and hissing and stomping and clapping and clanging their noise makers. The reader has to wait for everyone to quiet down before he or she can begin reading again. And Haman, being a fairly main character in the story of Esther, is mentioned over 40 times!

The reason for the shouting and stomping and loud noise everytime Haman is mentioned is not only becuase of Haman's wicked plot to destroy the Jews. According to rabbinic tradition, Haman is a direct descendant of Amalek, of the Amalekites who come into conflict with the Israelites in after they leave Egypt.

A geneology in Genesus 36:12 says that Amalek is a descendant of Esau. Exodus 17 records the story of Israelite encounter with Amalek: When the Israelites are wandering through the desert, they have been grumbling and complaining and then after the Israelites drink water from the rock, they are attacked by the Amalekites. Ex 17:14 says, "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven."

Later on, in Deuteronomy God again reminds Moses, "When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven! Do not forget!" (Deuteronomy 25:19)

Later, Saul fights against the Amalekites, but fails to destroy them completely after God had commanded him to. Bad news... The Ammonite who survives who is spared by King Saul is the Amelkite King, Agag.

In the book of Esther, Haman is called an Agagite (Esther 9:24). According to Rabbinic tradition, he is a descendant of the Amalekites. King Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, failed to obey God's command to completely blot out the memory of Amalek. Esther, who is also from the tribe of Benjamin (Esther 2:5) now has an oppurtunity to fulfill the commandment and destroy the Amalekites. In the process, she saves her people from complete annihilation. To commemorate this event, Jews celebrate Purim.

On Purim, when Megillah Esther is read, the Jews shout, stomp and make lots of noise whenever Haman's name is read as the fulfillment of the commandment to oompletely blot out the name of Amalek.

Everyone dresses up for Purim because it is a time of hiding a trickery, which is a theme in the book of Esther. First of all, there is a word play on the Hebrew name for Esther: Megilat Hester which literally means revelation of that which is hidden. There are a number of things hidden in the book of Esther. Esther hides her identity, Mordechai's true identity is hidden, Haman's true motives are hidden, and the most significant thing that is hidden is the name of God. Esther is the only book of the Bible that does not mention God's name. It is clear that God is still actively working to bring about the miracle of the salvation of the Jews, but God is completely hidden in the story.

Sometimes God feels like he is no where to be found and he is missing or even completely absent from our lives. But he is always working to bring about his plan for salvation in our lives. I would encourage you to read the book of Esther as a reminder of God's goodness and faithfulness to his people.

2010-02-26T18:24:00.003+02:00

It is a stormy day in Jerusalem. As I am looking through the glass slider door of our living room out over our small balcony I see rain and flashes of lightning and loud cracks followed by booms of thunder. It has been one of those days in which I have not yet left the apartment and it is almost 6:30.

It has been a day of roomie bonding filled with homework, hot beverages, long gazes out the window and jokes about the thunder of Assyrians coming from the North.

I've had some good hang out time with the roomies. Just as a little update, this is my second semester of graduate school. Last semester I lived in the dorms on campus. This semester I live in an apartment with three other grad girls. There names are Adria, Alana, and Ada. They have been living together for about 8 months now. I am the newbie and the baby of the flat. They are each 6 or 7 years older than me.

This is my first time living in an apartment and I am learning a lot. Mostly in the cooking department. Yesterday Adria cooked her specialty, Pad thai... Today we made some homemade Pizzas. My job was to make the dough... from scratch.

Lately I have spent a lot of time reflecting on what I am doing in Jerusalem and what I hope to get out of this experience. I have realized that I have been putting a lot of pressure on myself to do so much and make the most of all my time here that I get caught up in the business and activity in Jerusalem and the worry of my future. I'm a really big planner and I want to do it all and sometimes I stress out about my life and the future. But I do not believe that is what God wants from me.

When I was having some quiet time today I read these verses from Psalm 37 and they really hit me:

Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him and He will do this:

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him.

These verses hold a special place in my heart. I have applied them to my life. It has been my goal to delight myself in the LORD in all I do. As I seek to desire what I think he wants for me I go after whatever I believe that is with all of my being.

I came to Israel for the first time three years ago and fell in love with it. I love studying the land, the history and the culture of the Bible. For a long time I was praying God would bring me back to Israel. Being in Israel is my passion and my delight. Now I am here and rather than being here and letting God's word wash over me as I learn and soak up the experience, I am worried about the next thing. I am not trusting in the Lord and what he is going to do in my life. I am trying to plan things beyond my control.

What I need is to be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him.

I think this is a message that God has been trying to convey to me and that He wants me to share with people back home. A lot of my friends and family have recently been in situations in which all they can do is be still and wait patiently for the LORD. It is a hard place to be.

There has been a lot of waiting going on whether it be graduate school admissions, job interviews, school stuff, test results, house sales, and the list goes on and on. Waiting is never fun, but God promises that if we delight ourselves in him he will give us the desires of our heart. I hope these words can be of some comfort to you wherever you are at today. My prayer for myself and all of you is that we can find sometime everyday to be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. While we do that we need to delight in the Lord and commit our way to him.

Blessings in Christ,
Emily

FOOD pictures...

2010-02-19T11:46:00.002+02:00

This goes with the post I put up yesterday about grocery shopping in Jerusalem. These are some pictures of the market where I go to buy food.

MMM meat... Yummy? Actually meat is very expensive here so we hardly ever buy it.

Strawberry season in Israel. One of my favorites!

I also really love dried fruit. The roll things in the middle are dried figs,
the back circles are dates, and you see some different types of raisins,
and some nuts and other things that I'm not sure of...

Just a regular day at the Grocery Store

2010-02-18T17:52:00.002+02:00

Living off campus this semester has come along with many new and exciting experiences.

Like grocery shopping...

Living in America, when you think of grocery shopping you probably envision yourself hopping in your car, driving to the store, using a shopping cart, and actually being able to read labels and prices and having a good idea of what you are getting and how much it costs before you buy it. That is not usually the case for me in Israel.

I live in a neighborhood of Jerusalem called Abu Tor. It is a mixed neighbor hood of some foreigners, as well as Jews and Arabs all living in close proximatey. Within a five minute walk of our apartment there is a pizza shop, a small Arab convenience store, an 'Israeli' 24 hour store, and a Western Grocery store called Super Deal. Super Deal is the equivalent to a very small American grocery store. If you are familiar with Holland, Michigan, I would compare it to a Weirsma's. But it is more expensive because they cater to Westerners and most locals do not shop there.

My preferred place to buy produce is called Makhne Yehuda, also lovingly known as "The Shook." It's about a 45 minute walk from where I live now, so I don't venture to the shook often. It was near where I took Hebrew class so I used to go there. One of my favorite things about the shook is the crazy busyness of it all. The smells and sounds are unforgettable. People are shouting and pushing and throwing meat and fish and cabbages. Little old ladies are giving elbows pulling their rolling shopping bags over top of anyone and everyone. It's a good place to listen to Hebrew and practice speaking.

You walk up to a produce stand, grab what you want and put it in a bag. The man behind the stand puts it on the scale and shouts at you in Hebrew how many shekels you have to give him.

It reminds me of the Farmer's Market in Holland, but it's a lot bigger and louder with a lot more people. The produce is so fresh and so yummy. We are coming into strawberry season in Israel. The citrus is also very tastey. It is so much sweater and juicier than I remember it being in America.

But today I had a new experience of going to a smaller shook and grocery store just south of my house. It took about 20 minutes to walk there, and a bit longer to walk home with all the grociers... (a weeks worth for 4 people).

First I went to the shook called Ramat Rachel. The owner is a nice old Jewish man who sits behind a counter happily greating everyone who comes in and chatting with his customers as they shop. He speaks very little English, so it was another great oppurtunity for me to practice some Hebrew. Across the street is a grocery store where many Israelis in the area shop, called Mega Bowl.

The interesting thing was the fact that my roommates are what I would call exotic cooks. Some of the things on the shopping list are things I have never even bought in America, so trying to figure out what it was in Hebrew was all the more interesting... Things like tofu and cilantro and lots of random goodies. Most things that are not from Israel are transliterated into Hebrew so I was able to search the store and find most things.

As I was standing in line with my grocery bags stuffed full and waiting for the checkout there was an elderly Jewish couple in front of us with a lot a lot of groceries. I would guess that they don't make many trips to the grocery store and when they do they like to stock up. The line was about 4 people thick. Just then a register next to us opened up. I was about to make my move and head to that line because I was the last person in my line. The little old lady in front of would have none of it. She put her hand on her hip, got right into my face, or as high as she could reach and said, "Sleekhah, lo, lo, lo." or excuse me, no no no. She continued to say in Hebrew that she was next. As this little old woman was heading to the next register, another Israeli woman wizzed up and made a move to be first at the register. They started arguing in Hebrew about who was there first. Then the little old woman's husband was complaining that he didn't want to move the groceries that he had already put on the counter. A fight almost broke out between the two woman right there in the grocery store. It was complete with yelling in Hebrew, arm grabbing and something extremely close to pushing. Only in Israel!!

As I walked out through the parking lot, I saw an orthodox Jewish man sitting in his car dialing in his cell phone. It's a sight that I often see when I am walking the streets in Jerusalem. And today it struck me how I no longer see this as an odd thing. I'm used to it. The man was in his black suit, white button up shirt, black top hat, beard and long ear curls, on his cell phone about to drive away in a car. Then as I was lugging my groceries home, I was passed by a fully uniformed nun whizzing by on her bicycle. She was wearing the entire nun get-up with the head covering and cross necklace. Right out of Sister Act. And she was moving on that bike! As I was turning onto a side street coming close to my house, I saw a taxi parked on the side of the road. And next to the taxi was a Muslim man who had carefully laid out his mat on the ground and was participating in the Muslim call to prayer.

My outing to the grocery store is a good depiction of the clash of cultures and people groups that is Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a city of Muslims, Jews and Christians all living side by side. Living off campus has allowed me even more of an oppurtunity to experience life and just observe the culture and see how people live in Jerusalem.

I will try to be a more faithful blogger this semester and continue to share my stories with you as I experience life and culture in Jerusalem.

La-heet-tra-ot... See you later!

New Things!

2010-02-02T11:01:00.005+02:00

Shalom Friends,

Greetings from Jerusalem. It is an exciting time of year for me as a new semester is just beginning.

This is a time of many new things for me: New classes, new friends, new teachers, new apartment with three new flatmates, and new volunteer activities.

We had a six week break from JUC classes from mid December through January. Now it is great to be getting back into the swing of things. Last week about 40 new students arrived, most of whom will only be staying for the semester and then transferring their credits back to their home universities. The past few days have been filled with introductions and making new friends. It has also been good to catch up with old friends who are back from their break.

During the break I enjoyed taking a modern Hebrew class. Another highlight of the break was having my mom come to visit me. We spent a lot of time exploring Jerusalem and rented a car to see Galilee. We were also fortunate enough to have Boaz Shalgi, the tour guide RVL uses in Israel, show us around for a couple days. In his 7 passenger van, Boaz took my mom and I as well as some of my friends from JUC on a trip to the Shephelah (the foothills to the west of Jerusalem) and to Galilee. Because we are in the rainy season right now in Jerusalem, everything was so much greener than I have ever seen it. I had a blast showing my mom around and practicing my skills as a tour guide. It made me realize how much I still have to learn.

Monday was our first day of classes. This semester I am taking Archeology, Historical Geography, History of the Second Temple Period, Cultural Backgrounds of the Bible, and Parables a seminar class taught by a Jewish Rabbi in which we will study Jesus parables and Rabbinic Parables of the same time period.

I am very excited about an opportunity to coach basketball this semester. Today is our first day of practice. On Tuesdays and Fridays, I play basketball at the Anglican school in Jerusalem. One of my fellow players coaches the high school girls’ basketball team and has asked me to be the assistant coach. I am very excited to meet the girls today and help the team in any way I can.

Please keep me in your prayers as I go through a period of change, making new friends, new classes and a new semester.

Blessings in Christ,

Emily

Christmas in Bethlehem

2009-12-29T14:48:00.006+02:00

This year I had the oppurtunity to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem, the place where Jesus was born. On Christmas Eve, a group of 12 of us from JUC made the six mile walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. The road we walked on is known as the Patriarchal Highway. Because of the hilly terrain of Israel, the main route through the country follows the watershed ridge. Both Jerusalem and Bethlehem are located on this road. Abraham, King David, as well as Mary and Joseph all would have traveled on this road.

Bethlehem straight ahead!

Below: Part of the crew walking along.

Below: some olive trees growing by the side of the road, and in the distance you can see the seperation wall that divides Jerusalem from the West Bank. Bethlehem is in the West Bank so we had to pass through a check-point guarded by heavily armed Israelis to go to Bethlehem.

Below: the seperation wall, which is covered in graffitti. Notice the Israeli tank in the lower left hand corner. All of the graffitti is on the Palestinian side of the wall.

This picture above shows Christmas being locked in behind the wall.

I thought this picture of a rhino breaking through the wall

with the words USA SUPPORTS YOU was very profound.

As you can imagine, the wall between Israel and Palestine

(The West Bank) is the cause of much tension.

How you refer to the wall often tells what side of the argument you are on. Israelis sometimes refer to it as a seperation fence, while Palestinians sometimes refer to it as an Apartheid Wall. Israelis are not aloud to enter the West Bank and the Palestinians are not allowed to enter Jerusalem, or the rest of Israel without special permission. The wall was built to cut down on terrorism, but many question whether or not it was the right answer. It is a very complex issue with no easy solution.

When we got to Bethlehem we were just in time to watch the Christmas Eve parade. Bethlehem is made up of a mixed population of Muslims and Christians. The parade was so long that it seemed as though every single Christian kid in Bethlehem was marching. Most of the marching bands were composed of mainly of drummers and bagpipes. Because of the mountainous terrain of Bethlehem, most of the parade route consisted of steep hills. Hiking up and down the hills, the kids probably would not have been able to breathe if they were all playing wind instruments!

After watching the parade we went to an area known as Manger Square. This is the main tourist section of Bethlehem. Year round, Arab shopkeepers sell nativity scenes made in Bethlehem from Olive wood. Across the street from Manger Square is the Church of the Nativity. (Below)

Below is me in the Church of the Nativity. Downstairs in the area just past the columns is the spot where Jesus was born, according to church tradition.

Often when we as Western Christians picture the Christmas story, we imagine Joseph walking along and pregnant Mary riding on a donkey. Only the very wealthy had donkeys and we know based on Mary's offering at the temple after Jesus' birth that they were not a wealthy family, so no donkey for Mary; she would have been on foot. There was also probably not a local inn that Mary and Joseph tried to check into. The Greek word in Luke that often gets translated as inn is kataluma, which is better translated guest room. Upon arriving to Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph probably went straight to the house of their relatives, but because they had no room, were sent down below the house to stay in the stable with the animals.

Bethlehem is located on the outskirts of the Judean wilderness, an area with many, many caves. Often houses were built over top of caves and the animals lived in the cave below while the people lived in the house built about the cave. Many houses today are still built in front of a cave. The cave was used for storage and to house the animals. Of two gospels that mention the story of Jesus' birth, (Matthew and Luke) neither of them mention a cave.

Interestingly, Justin Martyr and Protoevangelium of James, which were both written less than a century after Jesus' birth, mention the fact that Jesus was born in a cave. In the 3rd century, Origen and Eusibius also mention that Jesus was born in a cave. We have reason to believe that the same cave was remembered throughout history until Constatine's mother Helena had a church built over the cave in the year 326. This church was destroyed by Justinian in 530, but he rebuilt a larger church which is the one you can go to Bethlehem and see today.

After leaving the Church of the Nativity, we walked to Beit Sahour, which is a small village next to Bethlehem. According to church tradition, this is where the shepherds were when the angels appeared to them.

Below is a picture in the church that commemorates one of the possible sights of the Shepherd's fields.

Here is a picture of some fields and country side of Beit Sahour.

Last stop of the Day, not StarBucks, but some Stars and Bucks, Palestinian style.

Hag Sameach

2009-12-18T09:53:00.002+02:00

Hag Sameach!

That means happy holidays in Hebrew. I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas already! This year I am planning to walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem with some friends on Christmas Eve. We are still formulating our plans for Christmas Day.

The majority of my classmates from JUC are now back home and will be celebrating Christmas with their families. There are a handful of us remaining, a few on campus and a few of us off campus. I moved into a new house which is about 20 a minute walk from JUC, across the Hinnom Valley.

Here’s an interesting fact: the Hinnom valley is the valley known as Gahenna in the New Testament and is sometimes translated as hell. (See M It’s a steep valley on the southwest corner of Jerusalem. So if it snows in Jerusalem I will be able to say that I had to walk to school in the snow, uphill both ways, through hell!!

My fellow housemates include Allison, possibly in her 70’s, who is a retired English woman who volunteers at Christ Church, and Yudah, a German woman probably in her 50’s who works for Youth With a Mission at the International Prayer House. They are both great women who love the Lord and have devoted their lives to serving him. I feel blessed to live with them. Our house is really nice. I have my own room! In our basement we even have a bomb shelter! A few days ago we dug out the Christmas decorations and put up a tree and some ornaments. We also draped tinsel throughout the house. It’s nice a cheery!

Last week Friday was the beginning of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah. The history behind this holiday is fascinating to me. I actually wrote a paper about it last year as the capstone of my history minor at Trinity and presented it at a conference last spring. (I’d be happy to send it to anyone if you are interested in reading it).

I think that a lot of people do not realize that Jesus celebrated Hanukkah. John 10:22, says, “Jesus was at the temple for the Feast of Dedication which is also called Hanakkuah.”

Hanukkah is an 8 day Holiday which celebrates the cleansing and rededication of the temple after the Maccabbean revolt against Antiochus Epiphanies. Jews still celebrate this holiday every year in December, but today they are not able to celebrate with a complete sense of joy because the temple no longer stands.

Now I’m about to get all historical and explain some details about Jewish history as it pertains to this holiday that Jesus celebrated and many people still celebrate today.

In order to understand the setting of the story of the Maccabean revolt and the origins of Hanukkah, it is important to know something about the previous history of Judea and the surrounding regions. In 586 B.C., the Babylonian empire conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the temple and sent Judea into exile. (Read the prophets) In 539 B.C., the Persian Empire conquered the Babylonian empire and shortly after allowed the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild their temple. (Read Ezra and Nehemiah).

Around the year 320 B.C., Alexander the Great, son of Philip, a Macedonian, conquered the world from Greece to India, and took it over from the Persian Empire. For the Jewish people who returned to their homeland, obedience to Torah became central part of Judaism because they thought this was the way to ensure that they would not be exiled to a foreign land again. A sense of exile still lingered in Judea because of the foreign oppression, but at least the Jews were able to return to their homeland.

Alexander the Great’s goal was to spread Greek culture to all the regions he conquered. While tolerating all cultures and religions, he began to incorporate Hellenism into native cultural practices. Alexander was very successful at by installing theatres, gymnasiums, temples, and other Hellenistic institutions all over his empire. In doing this, he showed the people that Greek culture was a sophisticated and civilized improvement. Gradually people were happy to accept Hellenism more and more.

A tension arose in the land of Israel between Jews who remained zealous for Torah and Jews who accepted Greek Hellenistic culture. These emerging groups within Judaism were able to live side by side for a number of years.

Fast forward many years: Alexander the Great dies, not leaving a successor. His two leading generals Seleucid and Ptolemy fight for power. In Israel they continued to govern the Jews by tolerating their religious practices and trying to spread Hellenism.

Fast forward to the year 187 B.C. Antiochus IV came to power and decided he would no longer tolerate this strange group of Jews who refused to accept Greek culture. The apocryphal book of Maccabees records some of the things that Antiochus IV did in attempt to stop the Jews from following Torah. The worst thing he did is known as the “Abomination of Desecration,” when Antiochus went into the holy of holies in the temple and erected a statue.

As you can imagine, this enraged many Jews. A revolt began in the small city of Modin, when a devout Jew, named Matthias, who was head of the Hasmonean priestly family killed his fellow Jew who was about to offer a pig as a sacrifice on an altar. Matthias and his five sons assembled a band of resistance fighters who fought against Antiochus’ soldiers. After Matthias died, his third oldest son, Judah, became the next leader. His nick-name was “Maccabeus” which means the hammer. This is where the name Maccabean revolt comes from.

The revolt began in 166 B.C. and by 164, The Maccabees had reconquered Jerusalem. Their first action was to cleanse and rededicate the temple. The Talmud tells the story of the miracle of Hanukkah. When the time came for the priests to light the menorah in the temple, they only had enough oil that was ceremonially clean to light the menorah for one day. But, miraculously, the oil burned for eight days straight. Jesus celebrated this miracle in the temple in Jerusalem and Jews today still celebrate this miracle.

I think this period of history if fascinating because it sets the stage for the ministry of Jesus. Inter-testamental history is so important for us as Christians to know and study because it helps us understand something about what the world was like that Jesus came into. If we understand the divisions and differeing viewpoints of people living in Palestine in Jesus day we can better understand what Jesus message was to his original audience and how we should understand it today.

I think the various groups that existed within Judaism during Jesus’ day that began to emerge during the time of the Maccabean revolt are also represented in Christianity today. There are people who have bought into the Hellenistic mentality of gaining worldly wealth, like the Sadducees. There are others who believe they need to separate themselves completely from the world to live a pure life, like the Essenes. Still others believe that through obedience, righteous living and following the law they alone will be saved. Jesus came to tell all people that salvation comes only through him.

What a great gift to celebrate this Christmas season. Hag Sameach!

The End of Semester Whirlwind!

2009-12-06T14:28:00.003+02:00

Wow, I can't believe my first semester at JUC is over!! Well, almost over. We finished up finals last week. I had a killer archeology final on Friday that I think my brain is still trying to recover from. But I still have one more research paper for my Rabbinic Literature class that I have to write and then my semester will be officially over.

To celebrate the end of the semester on Friday night we went to a church in the Old City called St. Anne's. It is near the pools of Bethesda where Jesus performed a miracle. We sang Christmas carols and then came back to JUC for punch and cookies. Then Saturday morning most of the students eft for Egypt for the final field trip of the year. Lord willing, I hope to take the Egypt class next year and go on the week long trip to Egypt next December. Most of students who did not go to Egypt flew home. Most of my friends are in Egypt for the week and I will get to see them all for another day and a half when they come back to Jerusalem next Saturday. Then they fly back to the states on Sunday. This is my last week living on campus at JUC and Sunday the 13th I will be moving to a house in Abu Tur which is about a twenty minute walk from JUC. Campus is very quiet this week. There are only seven of us who are still living on campus.

I have a few other friends who are grad students living off campus who are sticking around over Christmas break, so I won't be too lonely! I'm hoping to spend some more time with the friends I am making in my Hebrew class and hang out with some friends who I met while volunteering in Bethlehem. But for this week, I am in the transitional stage as I am anticipating saying good-bye to some really good friends that I made over the semester. We have grown close in the last few months as we have learned how to adopt to life in a different culture together. I'm sad to see them go and I will miss them a lot a lot!

I am thankful for the alone time. The busyness of the semester is great, but I am excited to have some time to go over things and let all my experience sink in. I'm hoping to put some pictures up soon and do some blog entries about some of places I've visited and things I've learned. It will be a good season of slowing down, reflecting and recharging.

As I've been doing some reflecting already, I have been thinking about some of my favorite memories of the semester. I've made a few categories:

Best adventure Alone:
(I feel like I could go on Fear Factor after this one... do people remember that show? "Fear is not a factor" for me!!)
I heard there was a group from Michigan touring in Galilee so I took the bus up there alone, unannounced not sure how to get to the hotel or what would happen when I got there. On the long bus ride up from Jerusalem, I met an Israeli soldier. He showed me what bus to take once we got to Tiberias and how to get to the hotel. I arrived at Nof Ginnosaur late that night and slept in my sleeping bag on the beach. The next morning I met the group at breakfast and they let me travel with them for a few days and they even gave me a ride back to Jerusalem.

Grossest volunteering memory:
I was in Beit Sahour helping clean out an old abandoned restaurant which was going to be turned into the location of a high ropes course. My job was to clean out the bath room and smash the cracked tile floor to remove the tiles. I won’t go into all the gross details, but I’ll mention a few words: diapers, syringes, razors, and tick infested blanket.

Closest to getting lost memory:
On Halloween, I went to Bethlehem to hang out with some friends and then go to a Halloween dance at the school that I volunteer at. My friend Rachel was supposed to pick me up after I went through the Bethlehem checkpoint. But she thought that she had to pick me up at the Beit Jala checkpoint. So I waited for about 45 minutes at the checkpoint and she did not come. The time went by quickly because I made friends with some Arab kids who were trying to sell postcards and trinkets to tourists. They ended up giving me free postcards and jewelry while I waited. When I finally realized Rachel wasn’t coming I thought about heading back to JUC, but then decided I could probably find her house which was a few miles away in Beit Sahour. So I took a service (which is like a shared taxi) to the Bethlehem bus station. Then I was able to find the bus to Beit Sahour. When I got to Beit Sahour I knew the general direction of where Rachel’s house was but I wasn’t exactly sure how to get there. So I started walking. As it started getting dark, I knew I was close to the house but I really had no idea how close. I went into a few little shops but couldn’t find any English speakers who might be able to direct me. Secretly I was freaking out a little… But finally after walking up and down street after street I found the house! I was soo relieved to see my friends there!

Favorite hitch hiking memory:
A couple friends and I had been walking around the Sea of Galilee all day and it was just getting dark. We know that if we had to walk back to our campsite where the rest of our friends were at with the food and the tents, we wouldn’t get there until after midnight. Our legs were pooped so we started asking people at a gas station if they were heading in our direction. We met an American named Lauren who was looking for something to do. He brought us to our campsite and slept at the campsite in his car. The next morning he drove us to Yehudiya Springs, a nature trail and waterfall where we all hiked together. Then he drove us to the Arbel cliffs, my favorite spot in all of Israel. After that he drove us all the way back to Jerusalem.

Favorite meal:
Two of my friends Seth and Ian were in a movie about the Bible a couple weeks ago. It was for some Christian TV station. They had to grow their beards and wear first century costumes and everything! They starred as extras… As a thank-you, Seth and Ian received gift certificates to a really nice restaurant in Jerusalem. They took our group of friends out for dinner and we had a really fun time. It was probably the best food I’ve had in a long time!

All time Favorite memory thus far:
Hiking the Jesus’ Trail. In August two friends and I set off from Nazareth to Capernaum to walk where Jesus walked. We trudged through fields, olive groves, up and down mountains, and along the Sea of Galilee. We left from Jesus’ hometown Nazareth and walked to Zippori, a town a few miles away where Jesus may have been employed as a stone mason. Then we went to Kana where Jesus performed a miracle turning water into wine. As we walked through the Arab village a family shared some delicious food and drinks with us and let us use their bathroom. We got to sleep in the valley between the Arbel cliffs, my favorite spot in Israel. And we made it all the way to Capernaum, which was the base of Jesus ministry. We learned that Jesus must have had amazing leg muscles! It was an amazing experience and I hope to do it again sometime. If anyone wants to join me let me know!

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T17:40:00.002+02:00

It does not really feel like Thanksgiving in Jerusalem. I feel like usually it has always snowed at least once before Thanksgiving rolls around. Today when I walked to my Hebrew class which is a half hour away I went in my t-shirt and didn't bother to grab a jacket. In the sun I felt fine but I was a little chilly in the shade. But that's because I am a tough Michigander. Walking along the sidewalk, I got some strange glances from many Israelis who were bundled up in winter coats and hats and scarves. My friend, Jeannatte, who is an Arab girl a couple years younger than me in my Hebrew class told me from now on I am not allowed to leave my house without a coat or at least a sweater!

For obvioius reasons, no one really celebrates Thanksgiving in Israel. I still have Hebrew from 9-12 tomorrow and then two more classes in the afternoon. But we are having a special Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night. They are going to make turkey and mashed potatoes and lots of yummy deserts. We hardly ever get desert here so that is really exciting!!

I have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. It's hard being away from friends and family back home, but God has provided me with a really great community of people in Jerusalem who I am blessed to celebrate Thanksgiving with. Being away from friends and family back home also makes me realize how lucky I am to have them. I miss you all soo much! I realize that sometimes I take my friends and family for granted. Thanks for all your love and support. I couldn't be here without you!

Love always,

Emily

Happy Birthday To Me!

2009-11-18T19:30:00.002+02:00

Shalom from Jerusalem,

I decided it would be appropriate for me to take a break out of the crazy business of life to do a blog update on my birthday... God has blessed me with 21 excellent years of life and I feel so fortunate to celebrate my 22nd birthday in Israel.

Here's a little recap of my day:

Woke up 7:30 am, received a nice b-day card and some chocolate chip cookies from my roommate Nicole.

8:30 am we had our last regular exam for my phsical settings class about the history and geography of Israel. We don't have assigned seats, but I have a seat in the front row that I always sit in. I walked into class and sitting on my desk in my usual spot was a beautiful red rose and a red envelope with my name on it. I know what you're thinking with the rose... but don't get too excited! ;)

The card and the rose were from Hermana, who is a fellow classmate of mine (I won't guess her age, we'll just say older than me...) from South Africa. Hermana is pretty much the mom of our class. As we take our field studies around the country whenever anyone gets hurt or sick or has a problem it is Hermana to the rescue. Hermana and I have a joke going because we are the two tallest girls on campus and we are about a head taller than every other girl on campus. Hermana gives me lots of hugs and we joke that we are the only ones who are able to give eachother full body hugs because no one else comes up to our height. She has been such a joy and delight for me to get to know over the semester. Hermana is a woman of God who has been such a great friend and example of a strong, independant Christ-like woman that I admire very much.

So this morning I walked to my desk to take the test and there sitting on it was a wonderful birthday note and rose from Hermana. It was such a nice start to my day.

Ok so before I continue explaining my day I should probably give you a recap of the latest news regarding my Christmas break plans. I was trying to decide whether or not to come home for Christmas and praying that God would open the doors for me to stay here or let me know if I should go home. The few deciding factors were whether or not I could get into a good modern Hebrew class that fit my schedule, if I could find a place to live, and if I could afford to do it.

I was on a waiting list for a modern Hebrew class and about 2 and half weeks after the class had already started I got a call from them saying someone had dropped out and they thought that because I had a good background in Biblical Hebrew I would be able to start the modern Hebrew class and catch up to the rest of the class. About two days before that I received an e-mail from someone from a local church who was house-sitting and could offer a bedroom for December and January that was very affordable. I also found out from my school that I would have an oppurtunity to work on campus over the break and make a little bit of money to help me out over Christmas break. I was praying for God to make it clear what I should do with my time and within a week he opened those three doors for me and I felt really at peace about making a decision to stay in Jerusalem over Christmas break....

But that has meant that my life just got crazier... if I even thought that was possible. The modern Hebrew class meets Monday through Thursday from 9-12. So now I am going to those classes whenever I don't have JUC classes. I am behind because I missed the first 2 and a half weeks of class, but I'm not in too bad of shape because I have a good handle on the language from my study of Biblical Hebrew. It is a lot different from Biblical Hebrew, but I am learning a lot and really enjoying it. I don't really have time to study, but my plan is to try to go to as many classes as I can, basically just enough to keep my head above water. Then after the first week of December my JUC classes will be done and I will study Hebrew hard core until I am fully caught up. The class continues through the third week of January.

Ok, after that long tangent... Back to my day:

I went straight from my physical setting test at JUC to my modern Hebrew class. (This is called an ulpan class.) My ulpan is about a half hour walk from JUC. I was a little bit late, but they are very understanding. My class is composed of about 24 people. It is taught almost entirely in Hebrew; only once in a while do they give English explanations. In fact there are a few people who hardly speak any English.

Today we learned a lot of vocabulary and practiced changing verbs from active to infinitve. We would ask eachother questions using the active verb and then have to change them into infinitives. I had a conversation in Hebrew with a guy from Russia (I can't remember his name) who does not speak hardly any English. We were able to talk about where we live, what we do, where we want to live, what we want to do and some basic questions like that. It's a lot of fun and I am getting to meet people from all different countries and nationalities in my ulpan.

My best friend in ulpan is an Arab girl named Jannette. She lives in the Old City, so we usually walk back together after ulpan. Today I found out that Jannette is engaged. She is probably a couple years younger than I am. Her finace lives in Ramala, which is an Arab city near Jerusalem. She met him two months ago and they got engaged one month ago!! But he is a friend of the family and that is just the way things work in that culture. Still I was pretty shocked when Jannette was telling me the details.

I have another friend in ulpan named Kelly. She is the wife of a pastor and mother to 4 small children. Their church is located on the Mount of Olives. Kelly invited me over tonight to attend a Bible study on the Mt. of Olives, but I am not able to go due to other birthday plans. She has also invited me over for Thanksgiving or just to come hang out any time I want. I think I will have a great time getting to know her and her family in the coming weeks.

So after I left uplan I walked back to JUC and had about 20 minutes to grab lunch before I had to head out to catch the Arab bus to Beit Jala, which is in the West Bank. I think I have written about this before in my blog, but every Wednesday I volunteer at an English speaking Arab school in the suburb next to Bethlehem. I help teach 10th grade Bible and tutor math and social studies. After tutoring today a few of us went to get shwarma in Bethlehem. Shwarma is the meat spinning on the pole that they carve off and put into a wrap with sauce and veggies. That was a good birthday treat. After that we walked from Beit Jala to Bethlehem which takes about a half hour. Then we walked through the check point to leave the west bank and catch the bus back to Jerusalem.

My friends made me a birthday cake and we are going to have a little celebration later tonight. But for now I think it's back to the homework...

But before I go I want to say thanks to everyone who is reading this: all my family and friends far away. I'm a little bit sad to be away from you all on my birthday and with the holidays approaching know that you will be greatly missed. Thanks for supporting me as I am in Israel living out my dreams and following the passions God has put in my heart. Thanks for your continuous prayers for me throughout my life and especially now as I am away from home.

As I sit here on my 22nd birthday I am amazed at what God is doing in my life. Just a few years ago I never would have imagined that God had this in store for my life. If you would have told me in middle school or even high school that when I turn 22 I will be away from everyone I know and love, studying modern Hebrew, being invited to a Bible study on the Mt. of Olives, and eating shwarma in Bethlehem, I never would have thought it was true. And this is just the beginning! I know God has great things in store for my life and I can't wait to find out what's next! Thanks for being a part of my life and helping me as I strive to follow God's call on my life. God is so good!

Love always,

Emily

Go Big or Go Home

2009-10-28T17:50:00.002+02:00

Shalom from Jerusalem,

Things are busy, busy, busy for me here. I can't believe how the semester is flying by. I am learning so much and so grateful for the opportunity to be in Israel studying. I still wake up many mornings thinking to myself I can't believe how blessed I am to be studying in Israel.

This weekend we took a field study to Galilee to Jesus' hometown and his main stomping grounds where he instructed his disciples. We also went to Caesarea on the coast, Mt. Carmel, and many other sights. We were gone for 4 days and we stayed in a kibbutz for 3 nights right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. I will work on putting up some pictures. The internet here is very slow and downloading pictures and videos is never easy.

On Wednesday night I went on an adventure to Galilee and got back Friday. I heard there was a group visiting from the states. I felt so blessed by God to be able to see familiar faces from home and have a little time away from JUC to reflect on why I am here and what God is doing in my life. There have been moments of homesickness and tiredness from the busy schedule, but despite the difficulties that living in a foreign country can sometimes bring, God has been increasing my passion to study his word in this land more and more.

I want to share one amazing opportunity that God dropped into my lap. Every Wednesday I take the bus to Beit Jala, a west bank city near Bethlehem. That means I take the Arab bus and go through the checkpoint into the walled area known as the West Bank. Almost all of the kids I teach and hang out with are Palestinian and they are not allowed to go into Jerusalem except for like once a year when they get special permission. I teach a 10th grade Bible class every Wednesday afternoon to a talkative, ambitious, rambunctious group of teenagers, some of who are Christian, some of who are Muslim. I did not ask to teach Bible, I just showed up and they put me in the class and asked if I would like to teach it once a week. The guy from JUC last semester who volunteered at the Beit Jala school was asked to teach sex ed!! I am really glad that I get to teach Bible. As I prepare lessons God is increasing my passion to teach and affirming to me that I want to work with high schoolers. Bless God!

I've been having so much fun hanging out with them and playing basketball after class and getting to know them. God has blessed me so much by providing me with an oppurtunity to share what I have learned and am currently learning with these kids. It's put a whole different perspective on learning when the tables are switched and I become the teacher rather than the student. Please continue to pray for me as I work with these kids. I know God is working in their hearts and I am so blessed to be a part of that.

My other prayer request is concerning the upcoming months. I have been praying a lot as I try to discern God's will for my time here. I have been thinking about coming home for Christmas break or staying in Israel to study Hebrew intensively and do some travel on my own. My desire is to make the absolute most out of all the time God gives me to be in Israel.

I think that is going to mean staying in Jerusalem over Christmas break. JUC gives us a 6 weeks off in between the semesters. I have been praying about what to do with that time and where to live and how I am going to pay for this time and for next semester and what I am going to do about a plane ticket. I got a big answer to prayer already about housing in December and January. God is so good and I know he will provide, but please pray for me as I continue to discern his will and walk in his ways in making decisions about the future.

Shalom and SHEMA,

Emily

Israel Happenings

2009-10-17T20:04:00.005+02:00

Shalom from J-town!

The semester just keeps flying by! I don't even know where to start! This past weekend our class went on a 3 day field study to the Shephelah and the Negev desert and the Dead Sea area. We visited some archeological tells in the Shephelah. A tell is an ancient mound covered with dirt. It looks like an artificial hill, but as archeologists dig into it, they unearth layers of civilization, some of which go back to the time before Abraham. On our field studies we go to these tells and see the remains of Israelite settlements and discuss the Bible stories that happened in these areas.

First we went to the Shephelah, which is the Hebrew word for lower foothills. These are the foothills to the west of Jerusalem that lie between the Judean hill country and the coastal plain, which was inhabited by Philistines during Biblical times. The Shephelah is the buffer zone between the Israelites and the Philistines. It is the setting for much of the Samson story and the David and Goliath story and many others. Below is a picture of the Elah valley where David fought Goliath.

The next day we went south towards the desert and visited the Tell Beer-sheba, which is where Abraham made an oath with the king of Gerar, dug a well, planted a Tamrisk tree and made an altar to God. We also went to the Tell at Arad, where we saw Early Bronze Age ruins from the time before Abraham. On top of these ruins were ruins from the Iron Age II (the time of divided monarchy, the kings of Israel after David and Solomon.) It was interesting that at Arad, an Israelite city there was a temple with a similar design as the temple at Jerusalem, but inside the holy of holies were two standing stones and two incense altars. Below is a picture of the holy of holies in the temple at Arad.

We also went to the Maktesh Rimon, which is a crater in the Negev highlands. Basically this huge crater 25 by 8 miles was formed in the desert a long long time ago when water eroded the limestone. It was really beautiful. Here's a picture of sunset at the Maktesh.

The next day we went to Masada, Herod the Great's palace fortress located on the shore of the Dead Sea. Then we went to En Gedi, the natural springs where David is said to have hid out from Saul. We also went for a swim in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is the lowest elavation on the whole earth and it has the saltiest content of any body of water. If you get any water in your eyes it burns for about 7 minutes! But it's very relaxing to float with ease in the warm water. Our final stop was at Qumran, the settlement from the 1st century which is near the cliffs of the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Here's me at the base of Masada.

It is still quite hot in Jerusalem. Today it was 95 degrees! Our travels in the desert last weekend were also warm. We had to drink lots of water as we trecked all over! From what I've heard, it should start to cool down a little in the next few weeks. In November the early rains should start to fall and then the rainy season which lasts a few months will begin.

This weekend is pretty laid back for me. A few of my friends who are in the undergrad program took the bus to a city called Eilat, located on the southern tip of Israel near the Red Sea. They are going to camp on the beach, do some hiking and snorkel in the Red Sea. I have a lot of work to do in the library with midterms this week and some papers to write so I decided not to go. Plans are currently in the works regarding Christmas break. I have a break from JUC from mid December thru January. I am hoping to stay in Israel and take modern Hebrew classes and do some traveling around the country during that time.

Update from Jerusalem

2009-09-21T10:43:00.003+03:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged! Sorry about that. I will try to do better at updating this in the future. I have been very busy with classes kicking in and making new friends, going on field trips and just life in general in Jerusalem.

This weekend was the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah, which marks the beginning of the period known as the high holidays. This coming weekend is Yom Kippur the day of Atonement, and following that is Sukkot, the Feast of Booths. Rosh is the Hebrew word for head and Shana is the word for year, so Rosh Hashanah literally means head of the year. It's the start of the Jewish new year, but this is actually the seventh month of the Jewish year. It's a bit confusing because there are two calendars. Rosh Hahsanah marks the beginning of the high holidays, also known as the days of awe. For the next week until Yom Kippur, Jews focus on repentance. Yom Kippur is the final day when God decides whose names are written in the book of life and whose names will be blotted out.

This weekend also marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of Islam in which all devout Muslims fast during the daylight hours. If you can imagine the excitement of Christmas time in the states that is basically what the end of Ramadan feels like to Muslims. They celebrate and put up Ramadan lights and have off of work and school. In Beit Sahour (the city in Bethlehem where I volunteered in August) they are hosting a carnival. People living in the west bank region of Beit Sahour rarely get an oppurtunity to experience anything like a carnival. I am going to go help out with running some kids games with some of my friends from JUC on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I am also very excited to tell you about the other volunteer oppurtunity that I am going to be involved in this semester. Once a week on Wednesday afternoons, I am going to take the bus from Jerusalem to Beit Jala (a city near Bethelehem in the west bank) to help out at a high school there. This past Wednesday was the first week I went and I met about twelve kids in a 10th grade class who I will be helping to teach Bible to this semester. It's a private school and the teachers are all Christians, but half of the kids in the class are Muslims. Their parents send them to this school because it is taught in English and it is a better education than the other schools in the West Bank. So this is going to be an amazing oppurtunity for me to get some experience teaching high school Bible and to be able to build relationships with these high school kids and tell them about Jesus. So please be in prayer for me as I travel to the West Bank and teach Bible and make friends with the kids.

Yesterday we had an all day field study in which we went to the tribal area of Benjamin, which is to the North of Jerusalem. We started off our day driving through the Wilderness to get to Jericho. Here are some pictures of the wilderness to the North East of Jerusalem.

This picture is looking over the wilderness to the North and to the west (left) is back towards Jerusalem.

Below if you can make out a city in the distance beyond that one hill in the center, that is Jericho.

If you want to, you can check out my youtube videos. I am in the process of trying to upload a couple new videos right now. It's sometimes difficult with the crappy internet connection we have. But go to youtube.com and do a search of "emilythomassen." The newest ones are about the wilderness, Jericho and Gezer. A few of my new friends also made it into the video so I hope you enjoy that!

Well it's time for me to get back to my homework. I just had a test this morning and tomorrow is my first quiz in Hebrew... Prayer is always appreciated!

Love from Jerusalem,

Emily

2009-09-09T21:58:00.003+03:00

Shalom,

Thanks for your continuous prayers for me during this transitional period. The move into JUC went well. I am getting settled into the routine of trying to find a good balance between classes, homework, and meeting lots of new people. My new home is starting to feel like home. And a couple days ago I successfully got my student visa, which means I can legally stay in Israel for a year!! Praise God.

So thanks for your prayers. I have a great sense of peace that I am in the right place and God is at work in my life right now as I am here studying, and also preparing me for when I do come back to the states to share all the amazing things I am learning.

I have been in class for about a week and a half and I have already learned soo much! I bless God for the oppurtunity to be here studying in the land where so much of the Bible took place. I am amazed at what I am learning. My classes are great. I think my favorite class is rabbinical thought and literature. Our professor is a Jewish Rabbi named Rabbi Moshe. He is teaching us about Classical Rabbinic Literature. We are studying literature about the Old Testament called midrash. Midrash is a way to interpret the Old Testament. Often when you read the Old Testament many details are left out of stories. The Biblical authors do not tell us everything that goes on. The Rabbis believe that every single detail in the Bible is important and when there is a "problem" or misunderstanding or something not clear in the text, they need to explain it. Some of their pracitces on interpreting scripture are very similar to how Jesus' intrepts scripture as a Jewish Rabbi in the New Testament. I hope to share an example of something I have learned in class with all of you in the future. I think it's really great stuff.

Another favorite class of mine is physical settings of the Bible, which involves field trips all over Israel. Every weekend we go somewhere new and learn about the history and geography of where we are. It involves lots of work with maps, memorizing dates and places, and applying it to the Bible. I love it!

I am also taking a class on the ancient history of Israel, which is taught by Yigal Levin a world class scholar. I'm also in a class about the history and geography of ancient Egypt which is quite excellent. The Exodous story is central to understanding the formation of the nation of Israel. It is so beneficial to know the history and archeology of ancient Egypt to better understand what it was that Israel was escaping and how that formed their development as a nation.

On Friday mornings from 8-11 am I have archeology class with Gabi Barkhay, the top archeologist living in Jerusalem today. He is an older Jewish man and he really knows his stuff! We take notes for three solid hours while he talks about archeology. He does not give a syllabus, he does not assign homework or even give a suggested reading list. If he mentions a book in class, he assumes you will read it and know it. The entire grade is the final at the end of the semester. I have heard many horror stories of students who have failed! But so far it is a very interesting class.

My other class is Biblical Hebrew. As you probably know if you have been keeping up with reading my blog over the summer, I took a 6 week intensive Biblical Hebrew class here in Israel. Other than a few Hebrew lessons last year at Trinity, that is my only Hebrew training. The six week class is supposed to be equivalent to a year of Biblical Hebrew. I do feel like I know a lot of Hebrew and have a good handle on the language, but the style of learning in the Hebrew ulpan is totally different from a western classroom. Our teachers only talked to us in Hebrew and we studied the language as a living language, rather than analyzing it and talking about grammar. I learned Hebrew like a child learns his or her first language.

Upon coming to JUC, I knew a lot of Hebrew, but not traditional grammar stuff. The terms prenomial suffix and infinitve construct and infintive absolute and weak verb strong verb where all unfamiliar to me. I know words and I know many examples of what these things are in Hebrew, but I never had them explained to me. It was a totally different learning environment than what I am in now. Despite this fact, I did not want to start over with Hebrew I and be in class with people who had not taken any Hebrew. I talked to the professor about it, and he seemed ok with letting me be in the upper level Hebrew III class even though I am behind in grammar. But then he seemed to change his mind because he sent an e-mail to my advisor saying that I should not be allowed to take the class and that I would surely not succeed in the class. Well, I was not willing to accept this. I disagreed. He decided to let me stay in the class... I took it as a personal challenge. When someone tells me I cannot succeed and I think that I can it motivates me even more. So I am taking Hebrew and we are working on translating the book of Deuteronomy into English. It's time consuming, but I love it.

Weekends here are mostly filled up with field trips. This weekend we will be going to the West Bank and studying the geography around Jerusalem.

Other than that I have been keeping busy playing basketball and other various sports. On Tuesdays and Fridays I play basketball with a group of people at an Anglican school which is about a half hour walk from JUC. I also play ultimate frisbee on Fridays and today I played soccer with a group of people. We actually played on a fenced in basketball court. About half way through our game two Hasidic Jews who only spoke 2 words of English asked if they could play. I was the only one who speaks a little Hebrew and I was able to understand that they asked us if they could play. So they joined in. These guys were in their full black suits with hats on and tassels hanging down from their waists and ear curls to their shoulders. But they joined right in and had fun running around with us. It was a good time.

Well I'm off to study some Hebrew and go to bed! Shalom!

3 More Days!

2009-08-26T09:17:00.002+03:00

The countdown begins! Only three more days until I move into JUC. I'm getting very excited and antsy to move in to my new dorm, start classes and make new friends. I have really enjoyed the month off after my intense Hebrew ulpan, but I'm definitely ready to get the semester started!

I don't have too much news to share with you today. My last few days have been very relaxed. I've been studying some Hebrew, playing some basketball and doing some other reading for fun. I just finished The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It's a really good book about following your dreams and going after the desires of your heart, which is what I feel like I'm doing by being here in Israel. It's not a hard read and I recommend it to you if you have not yet read it. I'm pretty sure it's an international best seller.

The other news I have is that I am starting a video blog of sorts on youtube. I am going to put this disclaimer out, that I have no training in cinematography and often I find myself struggling to walk, think, talk and tape myself all at the same time... And I am still not really sure how to do the editing thing on the computer so my videos are very "rough." That being said, you are welcome to check them out on youtube. I think if you do a search of my name as one word "emilythomassen" my videos should pop up.

My plan for today is to go into the Old City. I need to buy some more fruit and I don't want to walk to the main shook so I am going to check out the Arab market in the Old City. And I'm going to go to the Western Wall and the Temple Mt and try to make some more videos... It should be an interesting day!

Video Blogs!

2009-08-24T13:34:00.004+03:00

Shalom le-haverim (Hello Friends),

Things are going great in Jerusalem. Last week was a wonderful week. I spent Monday recovering from our hiking expedition in Galilee last weekend. Tuesday afternoon I went to my weekly Hebrew class which is always a good time. Our teacher Irene is actually turning 90 this week! Wednesday through Friday I went to Bethlehem to volunteer with Paidia.

My days at Paidia are extremely full days. From 9-4ish I work in the office helping them get ready for the Carnival they will be hosting in about a month when Ramadan is over. Ramadan is the Islamic holiday that involves fasting for a month. For a month, Muslims fast during the daylight hours and eat after the sun sets and before it rises in the morning. Then when Ramadan is over, it's a holiday time of celebration. People don't have to work and they hang out with friends and family. So Paidia is going to be hosting a carnival in Beit Sahour after Ramadan. I've been helping to make games and prepare for the carnival. My other job is to recruit people from JUC who can help work at the Carnival.

This week I spent my evenings at Paidia helping them build a fence around their climbing tower. They recently got a new site where they are going to build a high ropes course. This site used to be a restaurant and park, but now it is abandoned and totally trashed. So we have been cleaning it up and collecting lots of old scrap metal from that site that we are now using to build a fence around the climbing tower at the other site. One of the guys who is the mastermind behind the operation knows a lot about welding and grinding and that sort of thing. My job has been carrying lots of metal around and I got to drill the holes into the limbstone with an awesome jackhammer drill. Building anything in Palestine is quite an interesting experience. Typically, woman in Palestine do not participate in this kind of labor at all, so naturally I get some weird looks. We also had many issues with figuring out how to build the fence, connect the random pieces of metal, get it to stand up straight, get the right tools. I think many of the locals who walked by were probably laughing at us, the stupid foreigners building a random fence. I'll have to post some pictures of the fence when we're done with it.

Then on Friday afternoon I came back to Jerusalem with Jason, who works for Paidia. He also plays basketball at the Anglican school on Tuesdays and Fridays with me. At basketball there was another girl there for the first time since I've been going, so that was exciting! We played 4 on 4 for a couple of hours and then I went home. That night Cameron who I went hiking with invited me over to his apartment where he lives with 3 other grad students from JUC. Friday night is the first night of Shabbat so they invited me over to partake in Shabbat dinner with them.

Saturday morning I went to Narkis church, first to the Bible study at 9:30 and then to the church service which went from 10:45-12:30. Church services are usually 2 hours minimum in Jerusalem. Randall Buth, who is the head of the Hebrew ulpan led the Bible study. It was about reading Acts 2 as if you were one of the disciples listening to all the different languages being spoken and seeing the tongues of fire come down from heaven. His emphasis was on trying to understand the text as if you were there, as the original readers would have understood it. When this happened, the disciples did not know what to expect. They had no idea what Jesus meant when he said he would give them the Spirit. Just as these early believers lived in uncertainty and had to walk by faith, we too have many gray areas in our life where nothing seems certain but we must continue to trust God and walk by faith. After Pentacost happens and the Holy Spirit comes in Acts 2, Peter quotes scripture from Joel 2. Peter changes the first word of the quote. Joel 2 starts out "after this" but Peter uses the same lines but starts the quote with "in the last days." He uses scripture to interpret what is happening. God's promises to Israel are being fulfilled. And we are in the last days. We may not know what that means. Peter may have thought that "the last days" meant Jesus would return in his lifetime. Well, 2,000 years later Jesus has still not returned, but we are still in the last days. The term last days represents the change of an age, after Jesus' came and brought the kingdom of God to earth. Now, if the Holy Spirit lives in us and we submit ourselves to God's reign, we are a part of bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth.
Peter quoting from the prophet Joel after Pentacost is an example of an account where people see God working in their personal lives and they use scripture to interpret it. Like them, we too have glimpses where see God working in our lives. We should be like Peter and look to Scripture to remind us of God's promise to us and God's faithfulness. As we walk through our own world, being led by the Holy Spirit, we need to remember God's faithfulness. We will face gray areas of uncertainty when we're not sure if what we're doing is God's will or our own sinful desires. But we need to continually walk by faith and trust God, looking to scripture to interpret your life and lead you forward.

Every week at Narkis, they invite someone different to give the sermon. The Narkis congregation is made up of many Christian intellectuals who study in Israel. This week the sermon was led by Gary Alley, who is also a teacher at the ulpan I attended, and who also happens to be Randall Buth's son-in-law. I did not have Gary for a teacher, but I had his wife Sharon. Gary gave an excellent teaching about the parable of the sower in Luke 8. After the service I stayed at Narkis for another hour or so and talked with the Buth's for a while and had a great morning of mingling, net working and connecting with some great people.

After that I went back to my apartment and ivinted my friend, Rachel, whose apartment I stay in when I volunteer in Bethlehem to come hang out in Jerusalem. She also brought Audra, another friend from Bethlehem. We spent the day walking around Jerusalem hanging out and talking. They have both been living in Israel for over 4 years so they gave me tons of pointers on good coffe shops and places to hang out or study. and how to avoid the tourist traps. For dinner that night we went to a cute little part of Jerusalem called the German colony.

Yesterday I went to Christ church in the morning and then I went to the shook, which is what they call the marketplace in Jerusalem. I bought some groceries and hopefully I will have enough food to last me until I move in to JUC on Friday! Then I won't have to cook my own food anymore!! Hooray!

This morning I tried to set up a video blog on youtube. I'm not sure if it worked yet, but I'm hoping to make videos on some of my field trips so I can better share some beautiful sights I see and some of the cool things I learn in my classes. If you want to check it out, my youtube name is emilythomassen. I hope to get that up and running and put up some good videos for you to enjoy!

The Jesus Trail

2009-08-17T21:07:00.009+03:00

Shalom Friends,

As I sit here in Jerusalem my body is a little achy, my feet are a little blistery and I might be slighty dehydrated, but this weekend I had an amazing hike on the Jesus trail starting in Nazareth ending in Capernaum.

Nazareth and Capernaum are the two main cities in Galilee where Jesus lived. Nazareth is a city hidden in the hills of Galilee, Capernaum is a city 40 miles from Nazareth located right on the Sea of Galilee. The trail we hiked weaved around many hills, spiraled down streets in villages and brought us through miles and miles of valleys, fields , and forests. I was accompanied on the journey by two other grad students from JUC, Cameron and Autumn.

The journey started at 12:45 on Friday when we left the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem on a 2.5 hour ride to Nazareth. We hopped off the bus in Nazareth and wandered around the city until we found our way to a hostel called the Fauzi Azar Inn. The Jesus Trail website told us to go to this hostel to get directions. From there we were able to meet up with a volunteer named Linda who brought us to the start of the trail, which was 400 stairs!

The start of the trail is in the middle of the Nazareth neighborhood. The first leg 400 steps, is a great start to any hike! When we got to the top of the steps we looked into the vast Galileen hillside and realized just how far we were from the Sea of Galilee. The Sea was not in sight at this point, nor were the Horns of Hittim nor the Arbel cliffs, which are huge land marks on the West side of the Sea of Galilee. We knew we were in for a lot of hiking, but we were so excited to be on the trail!

The trail is marked with orange and white striped paint. The trail markers are painted all over pointing us the right way, showing us where to turn and what path to follow. We had planned to print a map or some directions, but the printer at JUC was out of ink, so we just trusted that we would find the trail and follow the markers and we set off! It felt like we were on an epic scavenger hunt, perhaps the Amazing Race, looking for clues on various rocks, sign posts, walls, and fences.

We hiked out of Nazareth and the next stop we made was Zippori. There is a really cool national park located there, but we did not visit it because that was not the point of this trip. We continued on the trail and through some fields until we came to another Arab village. The awesome thing about hiking through Arab towns is the wonderful hospitality people provide. Three different times people saw us walking by and invited us in for tea and coffee. We only accepted one of the offers because we knew the sun was setting, and we wanted to make it to a campsite before it got too dark.

We stopped to visit with an Arab family in the village of Mashad, which is near Cana. Cameron and Autumn both speak a little bit of colloquial Arabic and I speak a little bit of Hebrew. This combination made it interesting to talk to the family, who spoke Arabic and Hebrew. I was able to talk to these three little girls; ask them their names and how they are doing and a few basic sentences. I was also able to explain where we were going and where we had come from in Hebrew which was exciting for me! The best part was after they had offered us chairs to sit down in, they gave us this type fried bread covered in honey. The closest thing I can compare it to is an elephant ear covered in honey! It was so good and gave us a little sugar rush to make it to Cana. I also enjoyed the second half of mine for breakfast the next day.

Above is Autumn and I as we hike past the last few houses in Nazareth. Below is a few hours later. You can see the start to our journey, the hills in the distance, where Nazareth is located.

When we got to Cana, it was starting to get dark. We walked through town and saw the church that commemorates Jesus' first miracle, turning water into wine. We checked our water bottles, but unfortunately they were still water. We continued through Cana as it grew darker and darker until we set up camp in a forest of some kind just outside Cana. The first days hike was about 14 kilometers (around 9 miles). At this point our muscles were a little achey so after some much needed stretching we set up our tent and rolled out the sleeping bags and called it a night.

Cameron and I having our stretching session in the dark in the Forest in Cana.

I probably slept about 4 hours the first night. A multitude of mosquitos seemed to be humming right outside our tent. At first I was freaking out that they were in the tent, but luckily they weren't. They did however sing me a lullaby all night long that kept me awake for most of the night.

We got an early start on day 2 and headed out at about 7 am. The itinerary we looked at on the Jesus Trail Website called for a 12 kilometer hike from Cana to the Golani Junction. We reached Golani Junction in the mid afternoon and decided to keep going. Along the way we encountered an ancient Roman Road.

Above: Autumn and I walking along the ancient Roman Road. Below: us standing on the road.
Day 2 ended up being about 30 kilometers of hiking. Here are some of the highlights:
Autumn and I at the Horns of Hattim, where Saladin and the Muslims fought off the Crusaders on July 4, 1187. Nearby where this picture was taken was an abandoned shack where bees where kept and Autumn got stung on the forehead. Not fun.
Here is the view of Mt. Arbel and the Sea of Galilee from the horns of Hattim. Day 2 ended with us sleeping in between those two cliffs. Capernaum is located right on the Sea, not directly across, but on the northern edge.

Above: Autumn and I hiking through a freshly plowed field towards the Arbel cliffs. We're getting closer!
Now the only thing standing between us and the cliffs is a barbed wire fence! Actually we still had to get over this fence, walk down the steep rocky hillside and then get over another barbed wire fence until we could set up camp for the night. This was just us taking a quick breather!
How to climb a barebed wire fence: Very slowly and carefully, also throw your pack over first. This is barbed wire fence number two. As you can see, the sun was quckly setting on day 2. Notice the blue and white stripes on the fence post. These are the trail markers.
Dinner: yummy two day old peanut butter and jelly and some trail mix! That night I took one of Autumn's Tylenol PM pills and slept like a rock. The only time I woke up was when I heard the hyenas calling back and forth across the valley. Luckily they left us alone.

Day 3: Began in the valley of the Doves between the Arbel cliffs. In Israel the sun sets around 7:30 pm and rises super early!

After a few hours of hiking, during a much needed water break, it felt great to look back and see how far we had come. In the far off distance you can see a hill with two little bumps; that is the horns of Hittim. The tallest cliff is the Arbel cliff near our campsite the night before.

At around 1 pm, we finally made it to Capernaum, it was great to take a dip in the Sea of Galilee. After 64 kilometers (40 miles) of hiking in less than 48 hours, I was afraid to swim out very deep for fear my legs would cramp up and I would drown! At this time of year, the Sea of Galilee is really hot and the we were quite warm sitting in the sun.

Originally we planned to spend more than two nights on the road in Galilee. We weren't sure how long it would take us to complete the hike. We considered spending the night near Capernaum, but because we were so hot and exhausted, we decided to catch the bus back to Jerusalem. We spent a couple hours on the beach and then hiked another mile to the bus stop. The bus stop ended up being farther away then we thought. We were still a little ways away from the stop when we saw the last bus of the day headed to Jerusalem approaching the bus stop. It was a very fitting end to our trip to run the last 100 feet uphil to the bus stop to catch the bus.

Below: the beautiful Sea of Galilee from the water's edge.

A Trip to Galilee

2009-08-13T22:00:00.002+03:00

Shalom,

Things are going great in Jerusalem. I have been spending some time here checking out the city and practicing my Hebrew. It's been a very chill couple of weeks. Having some down time has been wonderful after the 6 week whirlwind of Hebrew ulpan. As far as Biblical Hebrew is concerned, I think things are starting to settle in and make sense in my brain. And I have been practicing my modern Hebrew. Lots of people on the streets ask me questions in Hebrew. I think they think I look like a local. I get excited when I understand what they ask me and even more excited if I can actually respond! (It's happened a couple times!)

Tuesday evening, Wendesday and all of Thursday I spent in Bethlehem volunteering at Paidia. I did some work developing their new cite where they hope to build a high ropes course in the next couple of months. The people in Bethlehem are awesome. I love hanging out with them and it's good to do some work and feel useful. I did some sledge hammering, moving concrete, and taking apart wooden structures to reuse the wood.

Tomorrow I'm taking the bus to Nazareth and spending the next few days hiking in Galilee. We are going to take the Jesus trail from Nazareth to Cana to the Golani Junction to Mt. Arbel to Capernaum. You can check it out at www.jesustrail.com.

My roommate Autumn and I are going, along with Cameron, who is another grad student from JUC. We are borrowing a tent from JUC and some sleeping bags. The website maps out the trail really well and suggests some good places to sleep. We are going to be roughing it all the way. I'll give you an update hopefully next week sometime on how the trip goes.

I'm so excited to do some hiking. I think it will be great to do it on our own, to really take in the sights and get a feel for the land. Hopefully someday I can lead lots of other people on trips like this through Israel. I would love to take you along!

Love,

Emily

New Friends

2009-08-05T13:49:00.004+03:00

Things are great in Jerusalem. I'm absolutely loving being here, exploring the city and just hanging out. For the month of August, I'm living in an apartment complex called Yemen Moshe. I've been told it's one of the more expensive places in Jerusalem. And I can see why! It's absolutely beautiful. I wake up in the morning and walk out of the apartment and say I can't believe I get to live here!! Israel is so beautiful. People say Jerusalem is actually not a very beautiful city; it's quite ugly, but I love it. There are many beautiful alleys and courtyards and gardens that are so nice. The only bad thing is that during this time of year it is soo hot.

Here are a couple pics from our place:

This past weekend I had a great time in Bethlehem. I went there on Saturday night to help with the climbing wall and then spent the night at Rachel's apartment. Rachel is the volunteer coordinator with the organization for international development called Paidia. Saturday we stayed at the wall until about 10:oo pm and then went to get some food after that. The thing that's great about Bethlehem is that everything is much cheaper there than it is in Jerusalem. I got a huge chicken sandwitch and it was only 10 sheckels (about $2.50 USD). Then we went and sat on the roof of their house and talked for a few hours before we headed to bed.

The next morning I went to church with Saliim, who is a Palestinian who works for Paidia. He graduated from Bethlehem Bible College a few years ago. The church we went to is called Bethlehem Immanueal Evangelical Church and without Saliim I don't think I would have been able to find it. Church was interesting. They had a guest speaker who was like the Benny Hinn of the Arab world. We witnessed some "slain in the spirit" action and someone "healed" of diabetes. Everything was in Arabic, but they had a translator that you could listen to through headphones. It was about three hours long!!

After church Saliim and I grabbed some lunch and headed back to Beit Sahour where Paidia is. I was planning to go back to Jerusalem Sunday afternoon, but I decided to stay and hang out with some of the new friends I made. The people who work and volunteer at Paidia are very nice. I really enjoyed hanging out with Eric and Candice's two daughters, Elle who is 4 and Opal who is 1. They are so cute and so fun to play with! Sunday night they had a barbeque of chicken and veggie shishcabobs which was delicious. It was party to say thank you to the volunteers and for one volunteer who is leaving.

Monday was an adventurous day! I went to the shook (marketplace) in Jerusalem. It is a crazy atmosphere. People are throwing food and veggies and yelling and it's crowded and smelly and messy. It was a little overwhelming but I managed to speak some Hebrew and buy some carrots, cucumbers, plums, a potatoe and an onion. Then we went to a grocery store that felt a little more like home. I bought noodles and sauce and peanut butter and jelly and that has been my diet! I think I'm going vegetarian for the month! Then in the end of August I'll move to JUC and live in the dorms and I won't have to cook for myself anymore (if you can call boiling water and throwing in noodles cooking!) Shopping is a whole different experience in Jerusalem because you have to walk about 45 minutes to the shook, then another 15 to the grocery story, and fill your bakepack and then lug everything home. It's so hot that I was drenched with sweat when I was done. So that was Monday's adventure.

Yesterday was an awesome day. A friend I met at church told me that every Tuesday Narkis church there are free Hebrew lessons. So yesterday I went to check it out. I think there were about 4 of us there to learn and the teacher was an 89 year old woman who has been living in Israel for over 40 years. And she is pretty much my hero! Her name is Irene and she came to Israel for the first time in 1948 right after Israel became state. The coolest part was that as we were learning Hebrew, she would stop and talk about things in Israel's history that she knew about. Or she would teach us things about the history of Jerusalem and the Hebrew language. If you know anything about the history of the Hebrew language in Israel, this will mean something to you. For a while, Irene roomed with Ben Yehuda's daughter. For a period of time, Hebrew was not spoken as anyone's mother tongue. People only knew it as a second language. Ben Yehuda is known as the "reviver" of Hebrew. He is the man who is responsible for bringing back Hebrew. He only allowed his children to be exposed to Hebrew while they were growing up. And his kids were the first native Hebrew speakers. Now Hebrew is once again the mother tongue in Israel. And Irene roomed with Ben Yehuda's daughter while she lived in Israel.

Our Hebrew lesson began at 12:30 and lasted until 5:00 pm. That's four and a half hours with no breaks, and let me repeat myself, Irene is 89! This woman is amazing. She had us reading pages that she copied out of a book and stapled together that were probably from the 1960's. It was awesome! And then we read from the Torah, from Deuteronomy 7 and 8. And we read from Isaiah 50.

For most of the time, Irene had us read in Hebrew from the packet she handed out. The packet has Hebrew dialogues and pictures. Then she asks us questions about what we are reading to make sure we understand it. The whole time she is explaining things about verb tenses and about sentence structure and grammar analysis. We also sang a few songs.

After the lesson another woman and I walked with Irene back to her house and helped her get her things home. I asked Irene how long she has been teaching Hebrew and she said she has been teaching it as long as she can remember. Irene has a passion for the language that is so inspirational to me. She loves it so much that she gives free lessons to anyone who comes. She told me that every since she learned Hebrew she has been teaching it to others. I told her that I am so excited to be learning it and I hope to teach it to others some day as well. And she said that she would love to continue to teach me if I would like to keep coming. I checked my JUC schedule and I don't have a class on Tuesdays so I plan to spend my Tuesday afternoons with Irene all semester. I am so thankful God gave me the oppurtunity to meet this incredible woman of God and to learn from her. I pray that God will give me her passion and that someday I can be like her.

Life in Jerusalem

2009-08-01T14:19:00.003+03:00

It's official! I've passed my first two Hebrew ulpan courses! And I am now able to read sefer yonah and pareck aleph through gimel in sefer bereshit in Hebrew!! That would be the book of Jonah and Genesis 1-3. It's amazing how much Hebrew I have learned in only 6 weeks. The time really flew by despite the fact that I was in class for 4 hours a day and studying for about 5 hours every night.

Yesterday I was sad to say goodbye to my roommate Geli. To celebrate being done with the Hebrew course and for Geli's last night in Jerusalem, we went to a shabbat dinner at a Rabbi's house. The dinner started around 9:30 and didn't conclude until after midnight. There were about 6 courses of food as well as Torah reading and teachings in Hebrew and English, praying and singing. (The singing was all in Hebrew and it was really fun because we learned some of the songs in our class.) If you have ever read The Chosen by Chaim Potak or seen the movie Fiddler on the Roof, it was like a scene out of one of those. All the men had on black pants and suit coats with their tzitzit (tassels) showing. And the women wear long skirts and blouses. The Jews do this every week to celebrate shabbat. The blessings that the Jews recite are the same blessings that Jesus and his disciples would have recited.

This morning I went to a Bible study at Narkis church and then shabbat worship service. This afternoon I am taking the bus into Bethlehem to volunteer at a climbing wall for Arabic kids. I'm going to spend the night with Rachel who is the volunteer coordinator and then go to church in Bethlehem tomorrow morning.

One thing I love about being in Israel is that there are so many different church services. You can find a Bible study or prayer meeting or church service on any day of the week. They are different denominations and often in different languages, but people are extremely hospitable and welcoming. I'm very excited to be living in Jerusalem for the month with no agenda set in stone. I can check out different churches and meet lots of people and get a feel for the city.

A Poem by Geli

2009-07-31T10:18:00.002+03:00

God has blessed me with an amazing roommate (Geli) who I have come to love over the past 6 weeks. I'm so sad to say goodbye to her in the next few days as she heads home to Leeds in the UK. Geli is extremely intelligent and is beginning her first year at Oxford this fall. I want to share a poem with all of you that Geli wrote about her experience in the West Bank.

Geli and I have spent some of our weekend time volunteering in Bethlehem with an oganization called Paidia. We help run a climbing wall for Arabic kids. Paidia is the organization that I will be helping out with for the month of August while I am done taking Hebrew classes before I start my master's at JUC in September.
As you may know, Bethlehem is located in the West Bank which is located in Palestinian territory. In order to get into Bethlehem you show your passport and go through a check point which is heavily guarded by Israeli soldiers. Generally, Israelis aren't allowed to go into the West Bank and Palestinians aren't allowed to leave.

Here's a picture of the check point we go through to get into Bethlehem.

But there are illegal Jewish settlers who cross over into the West Bank and settle on the land and try to claim it for Israel. A group of settlers are trying to claim a spot of Palestinian land right next to the park where we volunteer at the climbing wall. It is illegal for them to come and take this land, but the Israeli government does not stop it.

Huge cement walls with barbed wire seperate the West Bank from Israel. Parts of the wall are covered in graffiti. Four of the lines from Geli's poem below come from what we have see written in graffiti on the wall. (n.b. habibi mean means "my love" in Arabic).

Here's a picture of the wall and you can see below a close up of some grafitti written on the wall.

The entire situation between Palestine and Israel is a very complex political matter, and depending on who you talk to, you can hear two completely different stories of what is going on. Some members of our Hebrew class who are very pro-Israel have been to Israel numerous times and have never been to Bethlehem. They were shocked to hear that we would even go there to help out with the climbing wall.

Geli wrote a poem about a conversation she had with Daniel, a Palestinian friend she met in Bethlehem. Daniel lives in Bethlehem but is not allowed to come to Jerusalem because of his PID (Palestinian I.D.) It was interesting to talk with him and hear his perspective on the conflict.

Take my hand, O brother
You are not so different to I.
Stripped of culture, creed and masks
We laugh, we cry, we envy, we die.

But take me to the checkpoint
Take me to the wall
The bastard child of Israel
Smeared with your spirited scrawl:

"Jesus wept for Jerusalem"
''Give me back my ball"
''Existence is resistance,''
"Here, habibi, we fall."

And watch me cross the border
A privilege of birth.
Watch me show my passport
My defining factor of worth.

"Your eyes are brown," you said to me,
"Just like a Palestinian."
But your P I.D. defines your life,
Your boundaries, your human rights.

I come, I see, I ask of you,
"How can you live with so much joy?
They treat you like a terrorist,
No talking, just a bloody fist."

And then your brown eyes looked to mine,
Entangled them and then replied.
"God chose this place to come to us,
Christ was not scared. In him I trust.

All is fallen, all is rot
Please do not judge, that it God’s lot,
Do not take sides in bitter rage,
For 'twas such things which formed this cage.

So break the chain, love all you meet,
And pray that peace may find its seat,
Among the bloodshed and the hate,
The Lord, your God, will shape our fate."

By Angelika Ketzer, July 2009.

Here's a picture taken in Bethlehem of Nathan, (a friend from Ireland) Geli, and Daniel.

Tisha B'Av

2009-07-28T18:10:00.005+03:00

Exciting things are going on in Israel; tomorrow after sunset the Jewish holiday Tisha B'Av begins. Tisha B'Av which is the 9th day of the month of Av is a day when Jews fast and remember the destruction of both temples in Jerusalem. King Solomon built the first temple which was destroyed by the Babylonians on the 9th of Av in 586 B.C. After the Jews returned from exile, they rebuilt the second temple in the same spot in Jerusalem. On the 9th of Av in 70 A.D. the temple was again destroyed, this time by the Romans. Because the temple was destroyed twice on the same day, the ancient rabbis declared the 9th of Av a day of fasting and remembrance of the destruction of the temple. Religious Jews in Jerusalem go to the western wall, where the temple once stood on the evening of Tisha B'Av. They read the entire book of Lamentations, which is about the destruction of the temple and the exile to Babylon in 586.

As you may know, the muslims are now in control of the area where the first and second temple once stood. Where the temple once stood now stands the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque. The wall you see below is known as the cotel in Hebrew, or the western wall. In the picture below you can see the Dome of the Rock and the western wall. The Dome of the Rock is the third most holy sight in all of Islam. Muslims believe that Mohammed ascended to heaven from this spot.

Tomorrow evening some of my friends and I will be going to the Western Wall. I will try to get some pictures and maybe even a video to put on my blog.

Shalom!

Emily

Bereshit בראשית

2009-07-26T09:52:00.004+03:00

Bereshit is the Hebrew name for the book of Genesis. It is also the first word of the book. In the Hebrew Bible, the name of the book is usually the first or second word in the book.

Bereshit בראשית is literally translated "in the beginning."

In class for the past week, I have been so blessed by studying Genesis in Hebrew. Some of you who have been reading my blog earlier may remember me talking about the church I sometimes attend in Jerusalem called Narkis. This is the church where several of the teachers from the Biblical Language Center (where I'm learning Hebrew) attend. A whole array of Biblical scholars who live in Jerusalem attend Narkis Church. Every Saturday morning they invite someone different to lead the Bible study before church.

And let me tell you the Bible studies are amazing! Depending on who is teaching, we sometimes dive into the Hebrew Bible, the Greek New Testament, the Septuagint (which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bibile) and they sometimes reference several rabbinic commentators regarding the text.

God's timing is amazing.

This week the Bible study was led by Josh Walton. (Remember that name, he will probably be a famous scholar someday.)

I met Josh on Friday playing basketball in Jerusalem. Actually, I guarded him for most of the day... Since we were playing basketball and not talking, I only got to hear a little bit of his story, why he was in Jerusalem. Josh just graduated from Hebrew University with a degree in Assyriology and archeology, focusing on cuneiform. He spent the summer on a dig, doing archeology in Ashkelon. In a week he is headed home, to the Chicago area, until he moves to Boston this fall to start his Ph.D at Harvard.

Small world, Josh's dad is John Walton, is a professor at Wheaton. Wheaton was one of my top choices of schools to go to if I did not go to Israel for grad school. I actually met Josh's dad (John Walton) last fall and asked him all my questions about Wheaton and grad school in Israel. He told me he had a son studying in Israel who I should watch out for.

So Josh led the Bible Study at Narkis on Saturday morning. And the topic he chose to teach about was Bereshit. When Geli and I heard he was teaching on Genesis 1, we were like, "Yes! Of all the chapters of the Bible he is going to teach on one we just learned in Hebrew!!"

He based his teaching on his dad's brand new book called The Lost World of Genesis One, by John Walton.

The book is about reading Genesis 1 as ancient cosmology. Basically, this means that you do not interpret Genesis 1 as scientific data, but rather as an explanation that the original hearers of the text would have understood. You may have learned something about ancient cosmology in church or school at some point in your life. Obviously they did not study the unvierse scientifically in Biblical times. Ancient Israelites believed the earth was flat, there were four corners, there were waters above and waters below as well as an expanse (sometimes called a firmament) that seperated waters above from waters below.

To read Genesis 1 as ancient cosmology is to try and keep the worldview of the original hearers in mind and understand that Genesis 1 was written in a way that would make sense to the original hearers.

When we think of the creation account in Genesis 1, we think of creation in terms of causing things to exist. The question Josh asked in the Bible study was: what do we mean by existance? What does it mean that God caused something to exist? The most common answer that our western 21st century minds come up with when we are asked how we know something exists is because we can see it, touch it, it has a form and physical properties. The fancy term for this is it exists because of it's material ontology.

Josh offered a new way to think about creation. Rather than thinking about Genesis 1 as the account of God causing things to exist by means of the creation of material, but as God's act of giving a name and a function to the material.

In the ancient world, if something did not have a function, essentially it did not exist. Take the god Baal for example. If Baal fails to bring rain, then Baal does not have a function in the ancient world. Therefore Baal does not exist. Or take the chaos waters of Genesis 1:2 as an example. These waters are tohu vevohu or formless and empty. In an ancient worldview, they have no function therefore they do not exist. Josh taught that God's act of creation is not actually the creation of material, but the naming of functions. Things are given an order, which is good; things are made to operate within a system of order and control. God takes the chaos and orders it.

This theory has several implications which effect the relationship between science and the Bible. If we think in terms of Genesis as ancient cosmology, it does not conflict with modern science. Scientists have had problems dating the age of the earth according to the Bible, but this view helps rectify those problems.

Now let me give you some evidence that Josh used to support his claims.

First take the Hebrew word Bara which means create. In all of the Hebrew Bible, when the word bara is used God is the only person who is every the subject. The word is used for things God creates in Exodus, Psalms and Isaiah. The things that God "baras" are always things that fit into the functional world.

There is nothing connected to the word bara that points to creation ex nihilo which means creation out of nothing. Josh still believes that God created the all of the world out of nothing, but Genesis 1 is not the story of God's creation of the whole world out of nothing, but it is the story of God creating or giving function to what is already there.

As I mentioned earlier, what's there in Genesis 1:1-2 is chaos. It seems that when God begins creating (giving function) it was already there without function. This matches up with the worldview of the Ancient Near East. There are other Summerian texts in which the creation of the world is depicted by a god who installs function into the world.

Within the book of Genesis, there are 11 toledoth sections. The book of Genesis is broken up into 11 sections that all start with a similar phrase: this is the account of...

Examples:

Genesis 2:4 this is the account of the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 5:1 This is the account of Adam's line.
Genesis 6:9 This is the account of Noah.
etc, etc. to 11 toledoth sections.

If you take Genesis as the account of God giving function to creation, then Gen 1:1-2 can be seen as the introductory section to Genesis 1 and the introductory toledoth to the book of Genesis. Then there would be 12 total Toledoth sections and 12 is a nice biblical number.

When God creates he is giving an orderly function to the world. When God says, it was good, he is essentially saying now it functions as it is supposed to. It was not good for man to be alone. It does not work because man cannot function correctly alone. To become functional, God created woman.

Day 1, God created the function of time. Some people have asked the question of how could God create light on day 1 and create the sun on day 4? If makes sense if you understand that God created the function of time as a "period of light" on day 1.

Day 2, God created the function of weather. God makes the rakia (firmament or dome) which is the expanse that controls the waters above from the waters below. God gives order to the weather and the atmosphere.

Day 3, God gives the function of seperation. Things must be seperated in order to function correctly. Land and water cannot be one big conglomoration. Order and seperation is a necessary function of the world. One purpose of the land is food. God also gives the function of food on day 3.

Time, weather, and food are the hardware of the world. Now on day 4-6 God installs the software.

Day 4, God gave the cosmos a function for humans. The celestial bodies (sun, moon, stars) are functionaries to govern time. This is hugely significant within the worldviews of the Ancient Near East. God functions the cosmos for humans. In the accounts of creation of the world, the other gods create these functions for themselves. Other gods have many specific needs, our God does not. He functioned the entire cosmos for us!

Day 5, God gives the birds and fish a function. He tells them to be fruitful and multiply. It is interesting to note that the monsters of the sea, which are associated with chaos and un-order in other Ancient Near East creation accounts, are also a part of God’s ordered system.

Day 6, This is similar to day 5 in that God gives the livestock, the ground creepers and all the animals a function to fill the earth. In verse 26 God gives things to man and gives man the function of subduing and ruling. Man was created in God’s image and given the responsibility and function accordingly.

Day 7, God blesses the seventh day stops his labor to rest from his labor. Josh emphasized the idea that God is now dwelling and controlling creation, he is not tired and does not need to rest. The Hebrew word rest “shabat” can also carry meaning of dwell. In Psalm 132:7-8, you can see the connection of God’s resting place and his dwelling place.
“Let us go to his dwelling place;
Let us worship at his footstool—
Aries, O LORD, and come to your resting place,
You and the ark of your might.”
God’s resting place is where God dwells. God is done giving function and order so now he is in a state of controlling and running the universe. God controls and provides so that we don’t have to. Deuteronomy 12 gives another good sense of the meaning of rest. God talks about giving Israel rest from her enemies. In this sense, rest means that the conflict will be over and they will be left with a state of safety, security and stability.

Josh also made a connection between the inauguration of a temple in Ancient Near Eastern Culture and the Genesis 1 account of creation. In the ancient world, temples were thought to be cosmic in nature. The created world was thought to be God’s temple. When building a temple, they would first build everything they needed for the new temple. Then in a 7 day period the temple would be functioned and inaugurated.

God could have created in any number of years and then over a 7 days he inaugurated the earth which is his cosmic temple.

Therefore the purpose of Genesis 1 is not to explain how material things came into being from nothing, but to show God giving function and order to what he created, and making it good.

I love it when I study the Bible and learn something new about a well known passage. I think it is extremely valuable to hear new interpretations of the text that seek to challenge us and shake up our old interpretations. Hopefully you were able to read through this intreptation of the creation account. As you think it through for yourself, I hope you gain new insight into who God is and his power, might, wisdom, glory and honor, for he created all things and by his will all things were created and have their being.

Shabbat Shalom

2009-07-24T20:56:00.002+03:00

Shabbat Shalom!

Happy Friday. To celebrate the coming of Shabbat, (Sabbath, which begins on Friday evening after the sun goes down and you see the first three stars in the sky and continues to sunset Saturday evening) we hiked up to the ruins on top of one of the hills near the kibbutz.

As we sat on the hill overlooking Jerusalem, we reflected on all the Jews who love God and love his word, but do not know Jesus the Messiah. While we were sitting there, a muslim call to prayer went off from a local mosque. There are several Arab villiages around Jerusalem and many small mosques. Five times a day they play the call to prayer and devout muslims pray to Allah. There is a muslim prayer that asks Allah to open the hearts of non-muslims to Islam.

Being in Israel you can feel the spiritual tension, even spiritual warfare that exits in this country. It's intense.

~~~~

Amos (Andrew in English) is an older man in Hebrew Genesis class with me. Amos and his family regularly celebrate Shabbat in the UK. He and his wife and kids take a day of rest on Saturday. His wife is also here studying in the advanced Hebrew class. They invited us to come up to the ruins with them to celebrate the beginning of shabbat and to watch the sun go down.

After we hiked to the top of the ruins, Amos read to us from Genesis 2 in Hebrew.

וַיְבָרֶךְ אֱלֹהִים אֶת-יוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, וַיְקַדֵּשׁ אֹתוֹ: כִּי בוֹ שָׁבַת מִכָּל-מְלַאכְתּוֹ, אֲשֶׁר-בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים לַעֲשׂוֹת.

"And God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy; because in it He rested from all His work which God in creating had made."

It was really great to hear the Hebrew read aloud and be able to understand it. The two week class that I am now half way through is covering Genesis 1-3. We have been working so hard academically at learning Hebrew, that to actually be able to use it was very awesome. Understanding just bits and pieces of Hebrew as I travel around Jerusalem, trying to listen conversations and trying to read street signs has been so fun. When I do understand glimpses of Hebrew here and there it motivates me to keep working hard at it and learn as much as I can while I am here.

After reading from Genesis 2, we sang a few songs in Hebrew. Every week, Jewish families sing shabbat songs on Friday night. They sing about rest, praising God for all the blessings he has given.

Amos' family brought wine and bread for everyone and gave the traditional Hebrew blessing. On Shabbat Jews always have two loaves of "Hallah" bread. They have two loaves to symolize the Israelites who ate manna in the wilderness. Everyday they collected enough manna for one day, but on Friday they would take extra manna for Shabbat. On Shabbat today Jews remember how God provided in the wilderness on Shabbat, so they always have two loaves (or more) to symbolize God's provision.

The following blessings have been recited from before the time of Yeshua (Jesus). When Jesus blessed bread and wine with his disciples he probably said these words in Hebrew:

"Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha-olam hamotzi lechem min ha-aretz."

which translates: "Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, for bringing forth bread from the earth."

And the blessing for the wine:

"Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha-olam borei pri hagafen."

"Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, for bringing forth fruit from the vine."

Jesus often recited these blessings with his disciples. It was within this context that Jesus broke bread with his disciples and said, "this is my body, broken for you."

In John 6, after Jesus feeds 5,000 people, and walks on water, the people in Capernaum ask Jesus for a sign.

They ask, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat." (John 6:30-31) You should go and read the whole story in John 6.

Jesus is teaching about manna from heaven that God gave the Israelites in the wilderness. He says, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty..."

"I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." (John 6:54-58)

As we sat on the hill overlooking Jerusalem, eating bread and saying the traditional Hebrew blessings, we celebrated the truth and life we have found in Yeshua (Jesus). As we ate bread and drank wine, we reflected on Jesus, the bread of life, born a few miles away in Beit Lechem (Bethlehem: house of bread).

We continued our shabbat service by reading from the book of Isaiah in Hebrew. It comes from chapter 56, and we read it on Shabbat because it is about foreigners who keep Shabbat. This verse applies to us, who are not Jews and are foreigners in the land of Israel. I have to admit, this was a little advanced for my beginner Hebrew skills, but I'll give it to you in English:

1 This is what the LORD says:
"Maintain justice
and do what is right,
for my salvation is close at hand
and my righteousness will soon be revealed.
2 Blessed is the man who does this,
the man who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it,
and keeps his hand from doing any evil."
3 Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say,
"The LORD will surely exclude me from his people."
And let not any eunuch complain,
"I am only a dry tree."
4 For this is what the LORD says:
"To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant-
5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will not be cut off.
6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD
to serve him,
to love the name of the LORD,
and to worship him,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant-
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations."
8 The Sovereign LORD declares—
he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
"I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered."

In this passage from Isaiah, God is promising salvation for us, people from all nations. It is only through Jesus the Messiah that we gentiles have been grafted in to the people of Israel.

In Acts 8, there is an Ethiopian Eunuch who had gone to Jerusalem to worship. On the side of the raod, he was reading from Isaiah 53, the famous passage about the suffering servant. Philip shares the gospel with this man and he is baptized near the road. When reading this story in Acts 8, it is important to read the context of Isaiah 53, especially chapter 56, which talks about eunuchs who will be included in the temple practice and in the everlasting covenant. (Especially in light of Deuteronomy 23 which forbids a eunuch from entering the assembly of the LORD.)

The prophet Isaiah prophesied about a time when Israel would be restored. Not only would God's covenant with Israel be renewed, but people of all nations will be invited to be part of God's cosmic reconciliation.

When the Ethiopian Eunuch is baptized, it is a sign that Isaiah's prophecy is being fulfilled. Indeed the suffering servant has come, he has suffered and he has been glorified. The kingdom of heaven is among us. If you continue reading in Isaiah, you read about God's promise to restore glory to his people Israel.

In his ministry, Jesus picks up on the prophesies in Isaiah over and over again, saying, Look, what Isaiah prophesied is now coming true in me. God is keeping his promises to you!

If you continue reading in Isaiah, you read about "the new heavens and new earth, in which the former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind." The LORD says,"But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and it's people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more." (Isaiah 65)

Blessings to you from Jerusalem on this beautiful Shabbat evening.

Shalom,

Emily

Basketball in Jerusalem!

2009-07-22T12:44:00.003+03:00

After not touching a basketball for about 6 months, last night I played for the first time, in Jerusalem. One of my teachers invited me to come and he was kind enough to pick me up and and drop me off. We played on an outdoor court at the Anglican School in Jerusalem. We started playing around 8:00 which is just after the sun goes down in Jerusalem, but the court is lit up quite well. Unfortunately, there were only three of us there to play, so we played "21" for about an hour and a half.

My teacher won two games, I won one game and the other guy we played with won one game. So naturally my teacher had to rub it in today in class. They invited me to come back and play this Friday and hopefully more people will show up so we can play a full court game. I hope to continue to play with them throughout the year since I will be living in Jerusalem. After playing and practicing basketball so intensively for much of my life, it's nice to play for fun with friends. I think it will be a great way to make friends and stay connected with people throughout the year.

Class is going well. We have several new people in our Genesis class who were not in the previous Jonah class. Some of them have studied Hebrew anywhere from a year to several years, so they are ahead of those of us who have only been studying Hebrew for a month. But we are learning so much and I am so grateful for the oppurtunity to be here. God has blessed me with great friends from around the world whom I get to study with and hang out with.

In class we are reading Genesis 1. Tomorrow we are going on a field trip to the zoo in Jerusalem, to learn about the animals God created. I will try to take lots of pictures to add to my blog.

On Monday I took a visit to Hebrew University with one of my teachers from the Jonah class, named Stephen. Stephen is a student at Hebrew University and he gave me a wonderful tour and was so helpful in answering my questions about the school. In the past few weeks I have been asking lots of questions and seeking lots of information about Hebrew University. I know I would absolutely love to study there someday, but I'm not sure if that time is now. I am continuing to surrender the situation to God and seek to follow his will for my life.

Two passages that have meant a lot to me lately are these:

Psalm 37:4-7
"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him."

Ephesians 3:14-21
"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."

The prayer I have for myself and for all of you is that in the uncertainty and trials that come up in life, we may continue to delight ourselves in the LORD and trust that he will give us the desires of our hearts. We need to surrender our own agendas and find delight, rest and peace in the LORD. As we wait patiently, we can have peace in trusting he who promised is faithful and he will give us the desires of our hearts. It's hard to wait patiently, but we know that God will strengthen us in our inner being through his spirit and through Christ who dwells in our hearts.

So I often I find myself stumbling along and doubting everything. On my own I could never get by. I'm weak, and I have so many doubts, fears and failures. I bless God that I don't have to do anything on my own. Christ is at work within me. He is able to do immeasurable more than all I ask or imagine. (And I'm asking for a lot of things!) I know He who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. As I am faced with my own uncertainty and doubts regarding what lies ahead, whether it be tomorrow or this coming year or years to come, I have found a sense of rest and peace in knowing that God has a firm grip on my nefesh (life, soul, body) and he will never let me go.

The Completion of Jonah

2009-07-17T15:28:00.003+03:00

Shalom,

I am officially a Hebrew scholar. Just kidding; not quite yet. But I have officially made it through my first ever intensive Hebrew course! And I lived to tell about it. I can hardly believe it's already been four weeks of Hebrew ulpan. The past four weeks have really flown by, but I am amazed at how much Hebrew I already know.

Today we took our first exam. It was 55 questions entirely in Hebrew and it took about 2 hours to complete. Talk about stress! We've been studying the book of Jonah so the qustions were primarily about Jonah. The questions consisted of fill-in-the blanks, grammar questions, pictures to identify, verb tense identification and we had to memorize the shema (Deut. 6:4-9) in Hebrew. After studying for hours and hours every night for the past month, I am happy to say that I got 95% correct.

I have to say that although I was ecstatic to have earned a good grade and to know that I am able to understand so much Hebrew, my proudest moment came last night when I was studying. For the first time I got out my very own Tanakh and read the book of Jonah in Hebrew.

The Tanakh is the name for the Hebrew Bible. It's like our Old Testmant. In ancient Hebrew, they didn't use vowels (actually they still don't use vowels in modern Hebrew today, except to learn the language) so the name of the Hebrew Bible is TaNaKh which stands for
Torah which is the first five books of the Bible Genesis through Deuteronomy
Nevi'im which are the prophets.
Ketuvim which are the writings.

So I bought a Tanakh at orientation on the first day I came to Israel. Last night I read from it for the first time. It was amazing to be able to read the Hebrew script and understand it for the most part. There were still words I did not know, and when I get to them I sound like a first-grader sounding it out. But it was awesome to read the Hebrew on my own. It's great to hear the flow of the language and try to figure out why the author repeats certain phrases or uses one word in one place and a different word somewhere else.

I'll give you a short analysis of a couple neat things from the end of the book of Jonah. You should really go back and read the whole book and then read this. So if you read Jonah in the NIV Bible, you see he flees to Tarshish, gets eaten by the whale, and then goes to Ninevah. When they repent, Jonah gets mad that God is gracious and relented from sending calamity on Ninevah. Jonah decides he would rather die than live.

In the NIV you read that God provides a vine to give Jonah shade from the hot sun. In Hebrew the word provide is va-yi-man, which is better translated "and he appointed." This same phrase is used throughout the book of Jonah for God's action in appointing elements of creation to do his work.
"Va-yi-man" he appointed: a fish to swallow Jonah
"Va-yi-man" a plant to give him shade
"Va-yi-man" a worm, to kill the plant
"Va-yi-man" a slight wind accompanying the hot sun.
Throughout the book of Jonah, the repition of this verb shows God's power over all because he appointes the storm, a fish, a plant and a worm and the wind and they all do his bidding.

The NIV says it was a vine that God provided to give Jonah shade. The Hebrew word is kikayon which actually meas plant. (could be a tree, a vine, a bush, we don't know). God then appoints a worm, and the NIV says the worm chews the vine and it withers. The word for chews is actually va-tak **you should say it violently VA-TAK!! like Wha-bam!!** Va-tak literally means hit or attack. So you should really picture the worm hitting the plant violently. And the same word va-tak is used to describe what the sun does to Jonah's head. It attacks him or hits him.

I found it so interesting that in translating va-tak in Jonah 4:7 they used the word chew to describe the worm va-tak-ing the plant. Then in Jonah 4:8 they translated va-tak as blazed to describe the sun blazing on Jonah's head. At first this bothered me that the same Hebrew word was translated into two completely different words, so I asked on of my teachers about it. We had a good discussion about differnt translations and he helped me see the purpose of having a good English translation that reads well and gets the point across.

In the NIV, they also switch around the order of the last phrase of the end of the book of Jonah. The NIV ends with God asking Jonah the rhetorical question, "Should I not be concerned about that great city?" But in the Hebrew Bible, God firsts asks Jonah the question should I have compassion on that great city, and then God describes the city of many more than 120,000 who do not know between their right hand and their left, and many livestock.

So the last line of the whole book of Jonah is "many livestock."

When I realized that Jonah ended on the phrase "many livestock" I thought maybe the NIV added a phrase to help it make sense, but then I realized they just switched around the order so the book would end with God asking the rhetorical question.

It is interesting to note the role that livestock play in the book of Jonah. In Ninevah, when the people repent they declare a fast and put on sack cloth. They also make their animals fast and make their animals where sack cloth. And then in the end of the book God seems to show concern for the people of Ninevah and their livestock.

As I've been studying Jonah, I have been thinking a lot about calling. Sometimes I wish my calling were as crystal clear as Jonah's calling. He knew exactly what he had to do, but he did not obey. Right now I am struggling to discern my calling. I've been faced with questions of where to stay for the next month and what organizations to volunteer with and whether to go to JUC or Hebrew University and what classes to take... I would love the audible voice that says get up, go and do this... But God doesn't always give us that voice.

So I am seeking to live faithfully one day at a time. Sometimes I know I'll get it wrong. I'm going to try not to be like Jonah and flee to Tarshish if God is calling me to Ninevah. (by the way, Ninevah is in the complete opposite direction of Tarshish from Gath Hepher, Jonah's hometown.) God said go here, Jonah went to the complete opposite direction. Please continue to keep me in your prayers as I will be making some important decisions in the next few weeks, hopefully discerning God's call for my life and obeying it.

Wow, this is getting to be a long post, but I'm not quite done yet!! It's been more theological up to this point and now I am going to tell you about my life...

So tomorrow I am planning to go south for the day with two of my friends, Peter and Lee who are both Bible professors from the states. They are like everyone's adopted Dad's in Israel. They are both excellent Bible scholars and in the advanced Hebrew class. They are planning a trip to Beersheba and Arad, in the desert and they invited three people to come. I am going to try and be a tour guide because we went to those cities last summer with JUC and learned about the archeological ruins there.

So today after class I decided to go to the Mall in Mevaserret to go the ATM and buy some food. It's about a 40 minute walk each way in the hot Israel sun (it is known to va-tak!) One of my teachers overheard my plans and offered to give me a ride there. He lives in Mevasseret with his wife and children and is currently working on his Ph.D at Hebrew University. In class he only talks Hebrew to us, so it was nice to get to talk to him in English. I found out that he goes on Tuesdays and Fridays and plays basketball in Jerusalem at the Anglican School on Prophets street, near the shook. He invited me to come, so I might have to go check it out once I move to Jerusalem.

Another one of my teachers offered to take me to Hebrew University on Monday and show me around. I plan to go and talk to the admissions counselors at Hebrew U to see if it will work for me to attend there. Please be praying that if it is God's will for me to go there, he will open the door and make it clear to me.

Now tonight my roommate Geli and I are just chilling. She is reading about the swine flu epidemic in her home country (the UK). Our brains feel like mush from all the Hebrew cramming we have been doing so it will be really nice to have the weekend off before we start our class on Genesis on Monday.

Shabbat Shalom,

Emily

A Bump in the Road

2009-07-13T20:21:00.003+03:00

Shalom haverim.... (hello friends),

The past few days have been a little rocky for me. As many of you know, I went back and forth for a long time when I was deciding where to study this fall. I applied to three schools in the states and I was also considering two schools in Israel. My heart was in Israel and I felt a burning passion inside of me to come back to Israel to do my master's degree.

The two schools in Israel that I was deceding between were Jerusalem University College and Hebrew University. Last summer I was at JUC for five weeks and absolutely loved it. JUC is a small American college in Israel and Hebrew University is larger public university. I have heard people call Hebrew U the Harvard of Israel. There were plenty of pro's and con's to both schools, but a few months ago I decided on JUC.

Over the past few weeks, since I have been talking to people here, I have been questioning my decision to study at JUC rather than Hebrew U. Previously I felt complete peace about my decision to study at JUC. I know I will absolutely love it there. Hebrew University is more of a mystery to me, but I have been hearing really good things about it.

As I mentioned earlier, my passion for studying Hebrew has really come alive these past few weeks. One or the requirements at Hebrew U is that you take modern Hebrew and become fluent in the language. JUC on the other hand does not offer modern Hebrew. Our teachers at ulpan strongly recommend that we learn modern Hebrew to increase our Biblical Hebrew comprehension.

These thoughts along with many others have been floating around in my mind as I have been considering my decision to study at JUC rather than Hebrew U. I've been talking with lots of people, some who have studied at both JUC and Hebrew U. At this point I do feel like I want to go to JUC, but I'm not sure if that will be the right choose for me for the entire MA. I have been looking into the possibility of doing some grad work at Hebrew U.

That being said, I had a skype conversation with my mom last night in which she told me that because JUC is an American institution in Israel, and they are not accredited in America, my student loans will not go into deferral. Normally when you continue on to graduate school you don't have to pay your student loans until you are done. But because the bank does not recognize JUC as a school, I have to start paying off my student loans now. I have been looking into it and I think Hebrew University is acredited so if I went there my loans would be deferred until I graduated. Seeing as I am not allowed to work in Israel with my student visa, it will be difficult for me to pay my student loans while I am studying and not working. At this point I am still sorting out all of the financial aspects, and trusting that God will provide for all my needs.

So this has been a bump in the road. I am continually praying for wisdom and guidance from God as I seek to follow his will and discern where he wants me to be. I feel like I already went through this process and I chose JUC, but for some reason I don't feel complete peace about this decision. Please pray for me as I am continually looking into all my options and trying to follow God's will. Pray that God makes his will for my life clear and gives me peace about the decision.

Other prayer requests that I have:
1. The complicated and frustrating process of getting my student visa
2. I am considering different volunteering options for the month of August and a few options of where to stay. Pray that God makes his will for me clear in this.

Thank you for being in this with me.

I appreciate all your support and prayer so much.

Emily

Field Trip to Galilee

2009-07-10T14:07:00.004+03:00

Shalom,

I have officially finished week three of Hebrew class. One more week to go and then a final exam on Friday. The following Monday I start an intermediate class on Genesis 1-3.

And I now realize why the course is called "Living Biblical Hebrew."

Our class of 12 talmidim (talmidim means students or disciples) and two teachers spent Wednesday and Thursday in Galilee. In class we are studying the book of Jonah, so the trip was to Galilee to see the area where Jonah is from. For almost the entire duration of the two days of our field trip, our teachers only spoke Hebrew to us. Most explanations of where we were and what were doing were in Hebrew. For me this was different than what I have been used to from spending time in Israel the past two summers. We weren't talking about history and geography, but we were learning Hebrew words and talking about the book of Jonah all the time.

We left from Kibbutz Tzuba around 8:30 am and went down to Yaffo. (Jaffa you say in English; modern day Tel Aviv/Caesarea). Part of our assignment for class was to memorize dialogues in Hebrew based on the Jonah story. We got to act them out on the beach where they happened. I got to be the fish who swallowed Jonah!

Then we went swimming in the Mediterranean before heading to the University in Haifa. At the university we went to a museum where we saw an ancient boat that dated from before the time of Jonah. We also acted out part of the Jonah story in Hebrew at the museum. A few people enjoyed the show!

We spent the night at Beit Brucha which is near the Sea of Galilee in a town called Migdal. The next morning a few of us hiked the highest "mountain" located right near the Sea of Galilee, called Mt. Arbel. We woke up at 4:30 and started hiking before the sun was up. It takes about 45 min to an hour to hike to the top. (Longer if you do it in the afternoon because it's so hot in Galilee.)
Above is a picture of Arbel from the Sea of Galilee and below is a picture of the Sea of Galilee from Mt. Arbel

This one is me at the bottom of Arbel. You can see there are a lot of caves in the side of Arbel. Someday I am going to sleep out in one of those caves! (I have to admit I did not have my camera with me so these pictures are ones that I had on my computer from last summer...)

It was so peaceful to be out early in the morning overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Jesus is not recorded as going to Arbel specifically, but Matthew records that he went on a mountainside to pray. Arbel is the closest thing to a mountain on the Sea of Galilee. It was amazing to have some quiet time atop Arbel yesterday morning.

In class we are also memorizing the whole Shema in Hebrew (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). Religious Jews say the Shema twice daily and Jesus probably would have also said the Shema twice daily, in Hebrew. It was powerful to stand together atop Arbel and recite the Shema in Hebrew. Mt. Arbel is probably my favorite place in all of Israel. It is one of those places where I can really feel the presence of God. I think Jesus may have been drawn to that mountain to spend time in the presence of his Father as well.

If you have not been to Israel, hopefully someday you can come and we can climb Arbel together. I would love to take you there!

Our first stop on Thursday was a beautiful nature reserve called Tel Dan. There is a lovely river that runs through the reserve. Also at Tel Dan we saw a Canaanite gate dated from the time of Abraham as well as another gate from Jonah's time. There are also ruins of a temple and a large altar. (Remember the story of Jeroboam and Rehoboam and the golden calves at Dan and Bethel.)

In the afternoon we had lunch near Capernaum and went swimming in the Sea of Galilee. Then we headed to Gath Hepher, where Jonah is from. It is very near Jesus' hometown, Nazareth. There was not much to see at Gath Hepher today. It is near a small Arab village. We sat under a tree and read from the book of Jonah in Hebrew at the place were Jonah was from. I loved it! I am very amazed at how much Hebrew I have picked up in just three weeks. I still have so much to learn, but I'm loving being here and being immersed in the language. God is so good.

I plan to study for a few hours this afternoon. Then at 6:30 tonight some of us are meeting outside to hike over to some crusader ruins and have a "pot luck" for dinner. I'm bringing some chocolate cookies and some carrots. My roommate Geli is bringing pretzels. I think it will be a great dinner and a wonderful time of fellowship!

Well it's back to the Hebrew homework for now!! I have to start studying for my exam next Friday!

Tov Meod

2009-07-03T18:56:00.003+03:00

Shabbat Shalom! Technically it is not Shabbat yet. Shabbat starts when you can see three stars in the sky on Friday evening. But everything is shutting down as the Jews prepare for Shabbat.

I officially made it through my second week of Hebrew and now it is the weekend at last. I still have a lot of studying to do this weekend, but it will be nice to have a little bit of a break. After class today we had a party because today is the last day for the Greek class as well as the intermediate Hebrew class. They all took their final exams today so we celebrated with bread, grapes, wine, cake and cookies.

After the party I went for a run to the Mevaserret Mall. Mevaserret is a small city (maybe you could call it a suburb) on the outskirts of Jerusalem. I bought some food to eat for dinner here at the kibbutz because they only serve us breakfast and lunch. I looked around for a long time and ended up getting some pita, cottage cheese, apple sauce and dates. Sounds like the dinner of a champion!

Speaking of dates, I was inspired to buy dates because I have decided to take on Tamar as my Hebrew middle name. Tamar means date palm tree in Hebrew. My first name is Yael (from Judges 4-5). It's kind of an interesting story of how I came to take on the middle name Tamar.

Yesterday in class we were learning the titles of different people in the Bible. For example, we learned the word for farmer, sailor, baker, merchant, doctor etc. We were all given a title and a prop or action to go along with our job. Everyone else had a very respectable job.

I, however, was the class prostitute. "Zonah" you say in Hebrew.

Our teacher gave me this polyester aqua green dress with sequins on the front. It went down to my ankles and the sleaves were netting that draped like an angel. To learn the Hebrew people took turns saying their title.

My beautiful aqua green dress was quite warm. I think it was made of polyester, and the inside was rather scratchy. I had shorts on underneath, of course, so I decided to pull it up over my legs because it is quite warm in our classroom.

So the teacher is going around the class asking people to identify the Hebrew titles. She comes to me and says, "Zonah" with a smirk on her face and points to my dress pulled up and my exposed legs. Everyone in the class laughed.

This was yesterday. Then today we were learning the words for cover and reveal in class. Everything we learn is only spoken in Hebrew and is acted out. We learn by seeing and listening to the Hebrew. In light of the happenings yesterday our teacher thought it would funny to have someone cover my legs and then reveal them. I guess I am still officially the class prostitute!

But now I have to tell you why I take that title with honor. While I was at Trinity, I wrote a research paper for my Pentateuch class on the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38. It is one of those stories that seems totally obscure and people wonder why it's in the Bible. You should really go and read it right now and then come back and finish reading this!!

Judah wrongs Tamar by not allowing her to marry his son Shelah. Then Tamar pretends to be a prostitute and sleeps with Judah and becomes pregnant. Tamar is actually acting righteously by pretending to be a prostitute. She gives birth to twin boys and it is through this line that Jesus, the Messiah, is born. Tamar is one of only four women mentioned in Jesus' geneology in Matthew 1.

So I have decided to be Yael Tamar. But don't worry, I have no plans to be the class prostitute any longer.

;)

In class we have been working on memorizing the shema in Hebrew (Deuteronomy 6:4ff). I had a big head start over my classmates because I memorized part of the shema in RVL's class in high school. It's been really great for me to learn to write the words and know what exactly the words mean and to really understand the Hebrew. This is the portion that we memorized with RVL:

Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. V'ahav'ta eit Adonai Elohekha b'khol l'vav'kha uv'khol naf'sh'kha uv'khol m'odekha. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

Hear O Israel: The LORD your God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

The last word in Hebrew "m'odekha" gets translated as strength. The root of the word is Meod and the dekha part means your. By choosing the word strength, the Bible translaters were trying to get the meaning of "umph" from the word meod. But meod literally means "very."

In Genesis 1:31 when God looks over creation He sees that it is very good. It is "Tov Meod." Tov Meod is a phrase that our teachers use in class when we understand something difficult. They tell us we are very good. Tov means good and meod means very.

So the command in Hebrew literally means to love God with all your very. What is your very? How do you love God with your very? You love God with everything that's in you. With all that you have, all of your "umph."

God does not make following him it black and white. Often their is a murky gray area where we just have to trust him.

How do you love God with all of your very? What would that look like for you in your life? It's not easy to follow God with all of your very. You have to figure out what your "very" is and surrender it to God. I think this verse in Deuteronomy is a picture of what the Christian life is like. Sometimes it's a struggle to know what God is calling you to do and to trust him and to follow after him with everything you have.

Maybe Tamar thought, "You want me to do that?" But she trusted God.

One of the "very" aspects in my life is the passion I feel to be here in Israel studying the Bible. As I strive to love God through learning about his word in the land where it happened, I am so thankful that all of you are in this with me as I seek to love God with all of my heart, my soul and my "very".

Shabbat Shalom,

Emily

New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus: Insights from His Jewish Context

Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus: New Insights From a Hebrew Perspective

Running, hiking and one of the many reasons why I love Israel!

2009-07-02T20:53:00.002+03:00

We are almost done with week two of Hebrew classes and things are going great. Class is hard and we study all day! Well almost all day. I would say on average I do about 6.3 hours of homework each night. That usually includes memorizng Hebrew dialogues, Bible verses in Hebrew as well as verb endings and bits of grammar. We do a lot of drills in which we listen to a CD and follow along in our books. My roommate Geli and I found that sometimes it's good to get out of our room and go study by the pool. Today I did some swimming while memorizing sequential future tense verb endings.

Now that I'm getting established into a routine of eating and sleeping and studying here at the kibbutz, I've decided to try to start running more consistantly. I have been exploring different trails around the kibbutz and there are some really nice places to run. Tonight I went back to a beautiful national park that I discovered while running a few days ago. I decided to take my camera along with me on my run to capture the beautiful scenery.

The park I ran to is called En Tayasim. It is probably about two miles away from my kibbutz. One thing I love about Israel is that all over the country there are national parks that have beautiful trails for hiking. They mark the trial by painting on the rock so you can easily find your way up and back down again. I plan to post some pictures of the trail and the surrounding Judean hill country. Jerusalem is sort of on the edge of the Judean hills. To the east of Jerusalem is the desert wilderness. My kibbutz is about a 20 minute drive to the west of Jerusalem and is in the heart of the Judean hills. It's so beautiful and I'm afraid my pictures just don't do it justice, but I hope you enjoy them.

Well I'm off to study for a bit and then go to bed.

Shalom,

Emily

Shabbat Shalom

2009-06-27T20:57:00.002+03:00

Shabbat Shalom!

Shalom is the typical Israeli greating everyday, but on Shabbat (Sabbath) they say "Shabbat Shalom." I had a really great Shabbat today. It was so nice to have the day off from studying Hebrew. We have been studying non-stop so it was great to have a day to let our brains relex and just enjoy being in Israel.

In the conservative Jewish areas of Israel, everything shuts down on Shabbat. Conservative Jews are not allowed to do any work on Shabbat. For us, that means the buses do not run, so we had to take a taxi from our kibbutz into Jerusalem.

This morning we took a taxi to Narkis Church, where our teachers attend. Randall Buth, the head teacher, leads a Bible study before church every week. His Bible study was probably one of the most intense Bible studies I've ever been a part of. He read from the Hebrew Bible, translated it, then compared it to the Greek Septuagint (which is the Greek translation of the OT) and read from the NT in Greek.

He ananlyzed the story of Phinehas in Numbers 25, which is also referred to in Psalm 106. Phinehas speared two people who were participating in temple prostitution in the Lord's house. Psalm 106, (referring to Phinehas) is one of only two places in the entire Hebrew Bible where "credited to him as righteousness" appears. In the Bible study we discussed what this meant, and compared it to the only other place where this phrase is used (Genesis 15:6 the story of Abraham. "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness"). Then we had a great discussion about faith and works and how righteousness is credited. Phinehas was credited righteousness for his actions, Abraham was credited righteousness for his belief. Randall as well as other Biblical scholars who are part of the Bible study quoted from Paul and James as well as compared other rabbinical interpretations on the texts. {If this intrests you, shoot me an e-mail and I would be happy to send you my notes.} One highlight of the study for me was the fact that in English we translate Genesis 15:6 as "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness." But in Hebrew the verb actually says Abraham was believing. He did not have it all figured out; he was in the act of believing. Abraham had a living relationship with God in which there were a murky grayish areas in which Abraham was believing in God rather than himself.

It was really great for me to be a part of this Bible study. It is so easy to get bogged down studying Hebrew. Already in just the first week I have realized that it is so much work. But being a part of a Bible study in which you witness the importance of knowing the Hebrew and Greek to get a deeper understanding of the text was very meaningful to me. It put things into perspective and I realized how fortunate I am to be in Israel studying Hebrew with world class scholars. I'm very excited to be able to know the Hebrew and Greek well in order to better understand the Bible and lead Bible studies.

After the Bible study, we went to the worship service as Narkis Church. I loved it so much. It was similar to a contemporary worship service back home, but they read some scripture in Hebrew, some in Greek and some in English. We even got to sing one song in Greek, which I loved. I also really enjoyed the sermon, which was a close reading and study of Luke 8, when Jesus heals Jairus' daughter and the woman who has been bleeding for twelve years. The woman who preached gave lots of historical background and did a close exegetical study of the text. I've been told the pastor invites someone different to preach every week and you never know quite what you're going to get at Narkis. But I plan to go back as often as I can on Shabbat.

After church I went and ate lunch in Jerusalem with some of my friends from class. One of our assitant teachers who is a student at Hebrew University invited a few of us to come with him to Bethlehem to volunteer at a climbing wall. So my roommate Geli and I as well as two other guys from our class went with our teacher to Bethlehem (actually we were just outside Bethlehem at a place called Bet Shahar). It was so much fun. We got to play with lots of Palestinian children at a park. Our job was to get the kids into harnesses and be the "belayers." You can imagine the five of us who speak no Arabic trying to help this kids climb this big wall safely. There was one guy in charge who spoke English and at times it got a bit interesting with kids on the wall shouting down to us in Arabic and us standing with the rope having no idea what they wanted. But it was really fun to get out and play and get a glimpse at what life is like in the West Bank. We also played some "futbol" (soccer) and had a really good time.

I will probably study some Hebrew tonight for a couple hours before I go to bed. I have to memorize some Hebrew and work on some grammar.

Tomorrow morning I am going to Christ Church which is in the Old City in Jerusalem near Jaffa Gate (near JUC where I was last summer and where I will be this fall.) Christ Church was the first English speaking church in Israel. It is the church that Pastor Keith (from Providence CRC) recommended I visit. My roommate Geli knows some people there, so we are going to wake up early tomorrow and catch the bus into Jerusalem for church. Then it's time to study study study!!

As they say in Arabic:
Salaam,

Emily

Hebrew Class

2009-06-25T10:38:00.002+03:00

Shalom!

I am getting all settled in to my kibbutz and getting used to listening to Hebrew for 4 hours a day. The class is a Hebrew immersion program which means that our teachers don't speak any english to us. We learn by listening and participating. They call on us in Hebrew and teach us what to do. For example, I have learned to stand, jump, walk, point to objects in the room and return to my seat and sit. We are also learning lots of nouns: animals, plants, and food etc. We listen to the teachers speak Hebrew and then we follow them and act out what they tell us to do. We usually make lots of mistakes, but that is part of the learning process.

At 12:30 class is done and we usually head to lunch. Our afternoons are free, but we usually have a few (maybe several tonight!) hours of homework. For today I have to listen to some picture lessons and practice listening to different sounds/words and follow along in a book. I also have to memeorize six lines in Hebrew of a dialogue about Jonah for class tomorrow. Tomorrow will be our first day of actually speaking Hebrew.

Yesterday I took the bus into Jerusalem and had coffee with one of my teachers at JUC last summer. She is leaving for the states on Friday so I am really sad that she will not be at JUC for the fall semester. I also met some students from JUC who I will get to know a lot better this fall. Yay for new friends! There is one girl in my Hebrew class who is also a student at JUC. It will be great to have some familiar faces when I start there this fall.

Time to go study!

-Emily

P.S. my new Hebrew name is Yael. (Jael in English. see Judges 4-5)

I made it!

2009-06-22T06:29:00.000+03:00

Shalom!

I made it into Israel yesterday morning at about 4 am. I went 1 for 2 on bags and they are optimistic that the other one will arrive soon and they will have it sent to me at the Kibbutz.

Speaking of the Kibbutz, that is where I will be staying for the first six weeks of my trip. Those of you not familiar with the idea of the Israeli Kibbutz, let me give you a brief overview. A Kibbutz is like a little colony of people who live together. It's very socialistic. They all have jobs, pool their money and get the same pay. On this Kibbutz no one is rich but they are all well enough off. Part of the income of the Kibbutz is that they run a hotel, which is where I am staying. It's really nice and I hope to post some pictures of it later. A lot more people used to live on Kibbutzim in the past, but they are less popular in Israel today and many Kibbutzim no longer practice social living.

Yesterday morning when I first got here I couldn't find the hotel so I wandered around and talked to some Kibbutzniks (people who live here). They told me there are about 215 Israelis who live here and participate in the socialistic community and there are about 45 people from around the world who live here and take the modern Hebrew ulpan which is 5 months long.

I'm going to recommend a really good book that will give some insight into kibbutz life and is also one of my favorite books about archeology and Biblical history. It's called The Source, by James Michner. It's about two billion pages long, but if you don't want to read it all you could just read the first two chapters and it would give you a picture of what the kibbutz is like. It's an older book so it gives a perspective of Israel that is a little outdated, but I found it very helpful in understanding Israeli history, from the first people who live in Israel on.

Anyways... back to an update of what I've been doing...

Yesterday I got to the Kibbutz at about 7 am, wandered around for a while and talked to some kibbutzniks until I made it to the hotel. (The kibbutz is huge!) Then I stored my bags in a closet and jumped on the bus to Jerusalem. I spent the day walking around and visited the Old City and the Western Wall and Ben Yehuda street which is a shopping district in the new city. I made a friend at the hotel who came with me.

We got back to the hotel around 3 and I moved into my room. I have a really cool roommate who is from England. Her name is Geli (short for Angelica). And her Hebrew name is going to be Mala which means Angel... like Angelica...

Yesterday we had an orientation session and my classes start today. I will be taking Biblical Hebrew from 8:30 to 12:30 6 days a week. I still need to pick a Hebrew name so if you have any ideas let me know!

My sleep schedule is a little bit off; I've been awake since 3:30... But breakfast is in 45 minutes and then I'm off to class.

Shalom,

Emily

Almost There

2009-06-20T15:26:00.000+03:00

Greetings from Heathrow!

I'm happy and suprised to say that I am in London for the day. Which is an interesting development and since I have about 7 hours to kill at the airport and a free internet connection, I think I might tell the whole story of how I got here. So here comes my first update to my blog and I am putting out this disclaimer: I had about less than an hour of sleep last night on the plane...

So the journey started when I left Holland with my Dad late yesterday morning. 4 and a half hours later, after some brutal construction and traffic jams, we arrived at O'Hare. I was about an hour and a half early for my flight... which was supposed to take me to Frankfort.

Or so I thought...

This is where the mishaps begin... One thing I learned along the way was that it's important to read your boarding passes and ask questions. When I checked my bags at the counter in O'Hare, the woman at the counter gives me two boarding passes... I glance at them and see the words Chicago, Philadelphia, and Frankfort. I kinda did the glance without really processing what I was reading... Sometimes that's my style... But she tells me my bags will be sent through to Frankfort and I will have to re-check them. No big deal, I was hoping they would go right to Tel Aviv but that's fine I will recheck them in Frankfort.

Later after I go through security, I see my plane that was supposed to leave at 4:00 is delayed to 5:32. On the screen it literally said Philadelphia Frankfort with the same flight number but I look at my two boarding passes again and see Philadelphia and Frankfort on them... Hmm at this point I decided to think twice about this... Just to double check I ask a woman in the waiting area about the boarding passes and she reassures me that Philadelphia is the name of the airport in Frankfort... O really?...

Here comes a tip for anyone reading this that might be flying in the future. It's generally not a good idea to get on a flight going to Philadelphia when you think you are going to Germany. Once I realized this I asked the man at the gate and he said that I was on a through flight to Philly and then I would be going to Frankfort from there. But when I bought my ticket it said one flight from O'Hare to Frankfort and one flight from Frankfort to Israel. I thought we should just give the people getting off at Philly some parachutes and push out the emergency exit keep on going to Frankfort, but no one else agreed. We ended up being further delayed in Chicago until about 8:30 and I missed my connection to Frankfort.

And just to let you know the name of the Frankfort airport is not actually Philadelphia, it's Flughafen Frankfurt am Main.

When I got to Philly they booked me on a flight to Heathrow and I literally felt like I was in Home Alone running through the airport in order to make the flight! But I made it and even got a seat in the emergency exit row. But the biggest concern I have is for my bags which were probably not on the flight with me... They were supposed to be sent to Frankfort and then re-directed to Tel Aviv so I am praying that they are there when I'm there.

For someone like me who hopes to lead people on tours in Israel in the future, I consider this good travel experience. I learned a few lessons in my adventure, the first and foremost one being to read the boarding passes thoroughly right away!

So that has been my day and I will try to update again when I arrive in Israel and have an internet connection!!

Love always,

Emily

My First Blog

2009-05-26T20:41:00.000+03:00

24 Days until I leave for Israel!

I am so excited to start the next phase of my life as I follow God's call to study in the Holy Land. My sister Kelly helped me set up this blog so I can share my adventure with all of you.

Here's an update of what I've been up to and what I'll be doing before I leave on June 19.

May 16 I graduated from Trinity!! It's been an amazing whirlwind of an experience and I can't believe it's over already. It will be so strange next year no longer going to class and basketball everday, walking my routes in alumni hall and stopping in everyone's rooms.

I'll dearly miss book club at Dr. T's house on Monday nights and Younglife on Wednesday nights.

My next adventure before I leave for Israel is a Younglife mission trip to Guatemala. We will be flying out on June 7 with a group of 40 from Hinsdale, IL. We'll be spending a week working in Guatemala city. I'm leading a group of high school junior girls. It has been amazing to see their lives change over the past couple of years and I am so excited to see what God is going to do in their lives in Guatemala. Please keep us all in your prayers.

As I prepare for Guatemala and Israel, I am doing a lot of packing, sorting, and cleaning. I feel like I should be on the TLC show Clean Sweep where they sort all their stuff into 3 piles: keep, sell, trash. While packing, I am taking lots of breaks to study Hebrew. The intesive classes I will be taking in June and July require a lot of prepratory work involving listening to audio CD's and following along with picture books. I'm really enjoying learning the Hebrew alphabet and some new words and I can't wait to start classes.

I bless God for so many people who are supporting me financially and through prayer as I start this new adventure in my life. God has placed many people in my life who have taught me to follow my passion and trust God. Please continue to pray for me as commit my way to the LORD and delight myself in the LORD and trust that He will give me the desires of my heart.

Shema,

Emily