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Home in Jerusalem

We have a day off between three days of travel in the Dead Sea area and four days of travel in Galilee (beginning tomorrow). I’m sitting in the garden at JUC atop Mt Zion, a light breeze rustling the grapevines above me and wafting the smell of laundry soap from the stiff, dry, white sheets blowing on the line. It’s about 75 degrees in the shade at this time of day, and we just finished dinner (which consisted of fruit, noodles, sauce, and lots and lots of mushrooms). Some of the guys are playing basketball in the courtyard, another is playing guitar over by the gate, and I’m just enjoying the perfect weather before the sun sets.

I’m tired of travelling, tired of getting in the bus and climing yet another wadi and exploring another archeological site in the scorching midday sun. But I am loving being here–just being, just hearing the church bells ringing during the day and the birds singing before sunrise (which is at 5:30 am) and the cars honking as they race around the city; and seeing the colors and smelling the smells of the market with the chatty vendors who speak three to five languages and make everyone feel at home. I love the carts of bread loaves for one shekel and the shop proprietors who will serve you tea and juice before barganing. I should photograph the ladies in the market with huge bundles of herbs for a shekel, or the rows of boxes of candy sitting open to the street. They make me hungry. They make me want to stay. I am tired of traveling, but I’m ready to live here.

I want to live somewhere–anywhere–and just establish a daily routine. Be a local. Know the people around me–that is the woman who bakes my bread, the man who delivers my mail, the teenager who brews my coffee. The settled, simple kind of life is attractive to me at this stage of my life. A dear friend of mine is spending six months living in South Africa, and I envy her.

But then again, yesterday at this time I was looking at the lights of Jordan in the mountains across the Dead Sea from Masada, looking up at a full moon that cast its reflection upon the briney waters, and discussing the Church with a pastor from Vancouver and a feminist from LA, and three Biblical Studies students from Azusa Pacific University. What’s not to love?

And truely, I do love it. I played in the Dead Sea yesterday (the water is so salty as to be almost caustic) and explored the ancient fortress of Masada, and climbed around the caves where David almost killed Saul and went to Qumran and found a couple of the caves that used to house the Dead Sea Scrolls. The day before, I spent a couple of hours wandering in the Wilderness of Sin and feeling the same thirst the Israelites felt. Two days before, I was walking along the same Roman Roads Paul walked and reenacting the story of David and Goliath in the valley of Elah. They were all AWESOME.

But when we went shopping the old city today, I saw a bunch of school-aged kids playing on their bikes while the stores closed for Shabbat, and wondered what it would be like to grow up in Jerusalem. Tory, one of the guys with us, commented that it would be impossible to travel anywhere more significant, with older history. I mean, what do you say? “Hey mom, how about I study abroad at Disney World!”? Seriously. Nothing else in the world compares to this.

But still, what I love the most is this: the simple pleasure of sitting in a walled garden, feeling the breeze while the philosophy guys discuss theme parks at the picnic tables, watching the sun go down and listening for the call of Shabbat. This is something that no one can sell. One of the vendors here told us to thank God for these simple pleasures–fresh fruit, cool shade, beautiful sunsets–and remember that it is prophecy fulfilled.

Deut 33: 13-16 And of Joseph he said,

“Blessed by the Lord be his land,
with the choicest gifts of heaven above,
and of the deep that crouches beneath,
with the choicest fruits of the sun
and the rich yield of the months,
with the finest produce of the ancient mountains
and the abundance of the everlasting hills,
with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness
and the favor of him who dwells in the bush.
May these rest on the head of Joseph,
on the pate of him who is prince among his brothers.

The Pomegranate tree at Migron

Yesterday was my favorite day yet. Beyond a sense of familiarity with Biblical places, I’m really starting to see Biblical history come alive. I’m remembering why I came here, something easily forgotten on days spent curled up in bed, crouched over a toilet or squished in a smokey church with hundreds of other tourists.

We began our day at Gezer, which used to be a thriving OT city, but is now just a huge hill of ruins surrounded by kibbutzes. We were able to climb in and around the ruins of a city gate from Solomon’s time, and collect tons of pieces of pottery from the late Bronze age that literally just covered the ground. It was hot and windy and felt like a grown-up playground. Climbing on limestone walls instead of wooden playsets and picking through pottery instead of digging in a sandbox? It could catch on.

Our second stop was at Nebi Samwil, the ruins of a Crusader church on top of a huge hill. The ruins are nothing to speak of (see my callousedness! After a week here in Israel I can say that RUINS were “nothing to speak of”, when previously anything resembling ruins was fantastic), but the view from the roof of the church was perfect. We could see all the surrounding countryside: the strategic Central Benjamin Plateau. It’s a triangular valley about 30 minutes from Jerusalem that is surrounded by four cities: Gibeah (Saul’s hometown/headquarters), Ramah (Samuel’s), Gibeon, and Mizpah, cities right on the central North-South route through Israel. It was strategic for trade, for the fertile plains, and for its location right in the middle of everything. We spent a while discussing various military manuevers in the Bible, pointing here and there. Standing up on the roof of the church, I imagined I was Joshua taking the land, encamped on the highest hill in the area and spreading out a map with Caleb and discussing what to conquer first. It was so real. Those cities were right there. Okay, so they were filled with tall antennea and large apartment buildings, but I could imagine they were late Bronze age apartments and pretend I watching for campfires in the distance that would tell me an army was on the move.

We ate lunch, hopped back in the bus, and began the treacherous journey to Jericho. On the way, we stopped for a while at Michmash just to see the cliffs Jonathan and his armor-bearer scaled together in 1 Samuel 14. The cliffs were enormous–those guys must have been ripped! It certainly gave me a great appreciation for Jonathan, who took off to do the Lord’s work while his dad was hanging around making stupid vows “under the pomegranate tree at Migron”. In this hot desert land, trees are hard to come by, so they are landmarks, and their shade a relief from the heat. For Saul to be just under a tree chilling makes me wonder how he raised such a godly son who went off and climbed the cliffs at Michmash in order to conquer the Philistine garrison there single-handedly…and then, at the end of the day, Saul almost killed him. It’s a wierd, facinating story–go ahead and read it tonight, and then let me rub it in: I was there.

So we made our way to Jericho, wending our way through desolate, magnificent mountains of chalky limestone dotted with an occasional Bedouin encampment. It took us nearly an hour, and there were times we thought the bus was going over the edge. And then, all of a sudden, a palm tree appeared, then another, and then we were in Jericho, a veritible oasis in the desert. Settlements in this area are situated around one thing only: water. We took some pictures of the ruins (unfortunately, nothing from Joshua’s time, but still cool), played in the spring that Elisha blessed, ate some ice cream, and then headed home.

We finished our day as Israelite soldiers by going out to this great Armenan restaurant for one of the girls in our group’s 21st birthday and trying a light Israeli beer called Taybeh. The authentic Israelite experience, for sure.

Grafted In

Today (6/13) I had an identity crisis: I couldn’t decide if I was the Apostle Peter or Martin Luther. So I decided to be a tree.

We started out the day by visiting the Pater Noster church on the Mount of Olives. Claimed to be the site where Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, the walls are covered with translations of the Lord’s Prayer into over a hundred languages. Although the Lord’s Prayer comes packed in with most of Jesus’ teaching in Parea, and therefore was probably not taught from this spot, the courtyard of the church is beautiful, and on a cool, breezy Medditeranian day we sat on rocks under the palm trees and read the Lord’s Prayer. For me, I could finally picture Jesus actually being here, actually teaching on a morning like this, maybe around breakfast, before heading down to Jerusalem. We students wandered around looking for the Lord’s Prayer in our favorite languages (I bonded with a fellow student from Kenya over Swahili), and then sat on rocks under the palm trees and discussed theology, imagining that we were Jesus’ first century disciples, instead of his twenty first century ones.

We continued on our way down the Mt. of Olives, taking in the view from Hebrew University and viewing some first century tombs. The Mt. of Olives is traditionally a cemetary, and the soft limestone it is made from make it ideal for hewing tombs. We continued to the site where, traditionally, Jesus stood and wept over Jerusalem. Although we can’t know that this is the exact sight, it is along the road to Jerusalem that Jesus most likely took from Bethany. There is a small chapel on the site, built out of white limestone, beautifully designed with tear-shaped embellishments on the four corners of the roof and mosaic floors. The window in the front of the chapel looks out onto the temple mount. Here we read scripture, discussed Jesus’ last few weeks of ministry, and played with a tiny praying mantis trying so hard to blend in to a cactus bush. No one leaves worshippers in peace these days.

At the foot of the hill we came to the garden of Gethsemane and the Church of all nations. The garden is very likely the actual site where Jesus spent his last night. There is a grotto or small cave nearby, and the cave held a olive press, which is what Gethsemane means. Apparently olive trees have a pretty long lifespan–the trees in the garden were about 400 years old. It was cool to gather around and look at these old, gnarly olive trees, to see where the roots send up shoots, birthing new trees, to hear about its longevity and ability to survive hardship, and discuss the significance of us Gentiles being “grafted in”.

The church of all nations was dimly lit and people were praying all around the church, although the noise from the road outside was obnoxiously loud. It’s called the church of all nations because so many different churches from around the world helped fund its constuction. It’s kinda a cool symbol of the church universal, right here in the middle of the olive grove where Jesus was about to graft us in to the body.

The symbolism of the church in the olive tree really grabbed me. The olive trees twist and turn and bend every which way, goofy gnarly trunks and branches. Sending up new shoots from the root is how they stay alive when cut down, dried out, or broken in half. When an olive tree is demolished, the farmer will take a small shoot from the roots, and graft in into the original trunk, and the tree will survive. For years and years–olive trees can live 1,000 years.

We went from the Church of all Nations across the street to some shrine to the tomb of Mary. Of course it isn’t really Mary’s tomb, but pilgrims are told it is. When we walked in, the scent of inscense was so strong it was hard to breathe, and the smoke was visible in the air. The room was dark, and nauseatingly overdecorated in huge gaudy candlesticks and pictures and inscense holders. I felt like I had entered the building of another reliegion–some Eastern religeon.

From the Mt. of Olives we boarded the bus and took off to Bethlehem. Although Bethlehem is only a few miles from Jerusalem, it is located inside the West Bank and under Palestinian control, and getting through the border took an hour. The border is marked by a huge wall–gigantic concrete and barbed wire, surrounded by checkpoints and military personnel carrying big guns. The Israeli side of the wall has ministry of tourism posters reading “Jerusalem-Bethlehem: Peace” and the Palestinian side has emotional graffitti crying, “fight to make your voice heard” and “we will be forgotten if we do not fight.” It’s a stark contrast between the lies and pasted-on smiles the Israeli government shows the world, and the human rights disaster that the Palestinian problem really is.

A few miles outside of Bethlehem is the ruins of the Herodian palace, so we explored the ruins, climing through the cool tunnels of rock and peeking into ceremonial bath houses before descending into Bethlehem proper. Bethlehem is more like a third world country than Jerusalem is; the streets are littered with trash and the houses are little more than hovels. We visited the church of the Nativity, which was dirty and crowded and thick with more inscense, to see the “place where Jesus was born”, a icon-encrusted spot on the floor that everyone was touching and kissing and weeping over. Across from it was “Jesus’ manger” made out of marble. Those animals lived well. About the only thing that was authentic was the fact that it was hot and smelly.

My roommate and I escaped to a little chapel next door and sat and discussed the people in the church of the Nativity who were weeping and really believed they were touching the spot where Jesus entered the world. It was sad and disgusting to look upon these people who had been so decieved. To us it smacked of indugences and the cult of relics. Who was lying to these people, and why? 

Descending to Jerusalem again, we took photos of the wall and discussed the Palestinian’s situation. Israel is building this wall (only part of it is finished, when complete it will stretch for miles) far into the original boundary of the Palestinian territory. The oppression of the Palestinian people is an outrage that needs to stop. But when, and how, and what are little college students like us going to do but listen and learn?

We ended the day on a somewhat depressing note, but the visit to the olive grove in the morning reminded me of a song. The people of God are just people, weak and frail and full of sin, but they are all peoples, whether mislead and full of strange worship, or locked on the other side of a wall, or well-educated sceptics from the U.S. To me these are so foreign and unrelated that it might take Heaven for me to see how they will come together. But they will, because they have all been grafted in, in their weakness and failures, to be part of one tree, one that shall see storms and endure:

The church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain and cherish
Is with her to the end;
Though there be those that hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against a foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

Jesus. Was. Here.

Top 5 things that are essential in Israel (that you wouldn’t expect)

1. Gatoraid

2. Chacos

3. Fruit snacks

4. Bathrooms

5. Sweat pants

So today was my first day. First day out of the JUC compound, first day eating real food, first day experiencing something other than the Israeli bathrooms. I’m tired and still trying to get better; we have an all-day trip tomorrow that starts at 7:00, so I’ll keep this fairly short. I will put pictures up, though, so check my picasa.

Things you don’t expect to see in Israel

1. Cars in the old city

I noticed this in Madrid, also. Against the ancient buildings made of limestone, against the throngs of people milling in the streets: Israeli schoolchildren, old white Americans with huge water bottles and tour guides, soldiers, old bearded men in orthodox garb–there are strange juxtapositions of the modern world. I feel like every part of the city should be preserved just as it was, but this is a living, working city. In the US we never have to deal with this: we just turn our few “historical” (compared to 4,000 years of history, 200 seems pretty pitiful) sites into national parks and live elsewhere. In Europe and here in Jerusalem, they don’t have that luxury. How do you know when to preserve and when to say, “life goes on”?

2. Lots and lots of trash

I guess I expected a bubble of protection to be hovering over the old city, zapping any unholy garbage that passed through the gate–or maybe I’ve worked at Disney too long. Being in the old city is nothing compared to the slums of Kibera, but it is gross. These are tourist sites, and tourists generally aren’t a very responsible bunch. But it seems heart-wrenching to me to walk through an ancient graveyard and see piles of garbage everywhere. Where is the respect for the land?

3. Other tourists

It’s a logical deduction: if we’re touring Israel, others must be doing so also. But I expected exclusive rights to study this very cool area, and it seems weird to me to see tons of tour buses full of old people and church groups at every historic site. On the steps of the temple mount, there was a black church group of maybe 60 people waving wheat stalks in the air and calling out prayers of blessing. I wondered why they didn’t share the blessing with us. I wanted to wave wheat stalks too.

4. Open excavations and ruins

Everything in the old city is built on top of everything else, and so digging down a few feet produces ancient ruins, and digging down more produces ancienter ruins, and digging down even more produces the ancientest ruins. These excavated things are just out in the open. We went into a museum that had been built over the ruins of three different villas belonging to priests of Jesus’ day. We could just walk right up to the limestone walls and touch them…but we weren’t allowed to take pictures. Go figure. We walked through the pools of Siloam (and had close encounters of the arachnid kind). Some of the ruins of Herod’s temple–huge stones that toppled off the temple mount–are still laying on the street below. Way cooler than any museum’s glass-encased pottery shards and pieces of engravings.

5. Churches covering up holy places

Every hold spot in the city has some sort of church built over it. This was my first experience with the Rome that enraged Martin Luther, and I’m starting to see a little bit of why. We were supposed to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre today, but ran out of time and only made it to the courtyard. For those of you who don’t know what that is (since I didn’t), it’s a huge basilica-type structure built over the supposed site of Golgotha and the garden tomb. I know I promised a couple of you pictures of Golgotha…well, it’s going to be pictures of a cathedral instead. I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I’m from Orlando, the land of magical concrete, but this grosses me out. I hated Gatlinburg. I love the outdoors, and all attempts to bottle, commercialize, or “tame” it for tourists really bothers me. I don’t even like Rock City, for heaven’s sake. What on earth would possess you to want to take the most holy site in all Christendom, and build a huge, decadent basilica over it?! And then sell souvenirs, tours, and prayer walks? I thought we got rid of relics long ago. As a good protestant chick, it just ruffles my feathers. I want access to that holy place without having to go through the church. Give me the truth without myth, legend, or huge golden candlesticks.

6. Places where Jesus was not

We visited the traditional site of the “upper room” today. It was crowded with a group that was singing and praying in Spanish, so we only spent a few minutes. As soon as we emerged onto the roof of the building, our professor, with arms crossed and an amused light in his eye, asked us if we thought it was really the upper room. At first everyone said yes, and then someone mentioned the pillars in the room. “Go on,” Dr. Mullins said mischievously. The woman commented that they looked, well, kind of Roman. “They’re Byzantine,” Dr. Mullins said. “There’s architecture in that room that didn’t exist in the first century.” And so began a pattern of visiting venerated sites, only to find out that Jesus couldn’t actually have been there.

And then we went to the Temple Mount. On the back corner, next to where a gate had been walled up, Dr. Mullins showed us the original step and stonework in the gate. “You know, with all the talk about where Jesus went and walking in his footsteps and all that, we know for sure that he went to the temple. If you stand here, you know for sure that you are standing where Jesus stood.”

Slowly, one-by-one and then groups of us at a time, we took turns standing on the two-foot square slab of stone. Then we hiked down to the Kidron valley, joking, “did it change your life? Do you feel like a new person?”

But tonight, sitting in the garden while the sun went down, I was talking to God and thinking. You know, we always talk about Jesus as a person, like, he’s personal. But I think we often think about him as an amorphous “being”…he’s here with you now like some spirit in the clouds. How often do we think of him as a real, historical person, like Martin Luther or Abraham Lincoln or Ghengis Khan? A real, physical, living person who had feet that walked up those temple steps and probably spent some of his time here in Jerusalem being sick like I have and watching sunsets like I am. Right here. Like a carving in those benches at the park or your bunk beds at summer camp: Jesus was here.

Really, really here.

I’m still trying to let that sink in. In the meantime, I’m rejoicing in small miracles like my room being the only one right next to the bathroom (it’s quite a hike from the others) or not having to sleep in my chacos or being able to keep down Pringles (ironically, the only food I can eat. New miracle diet! Pringles!) or being able to finally meet some of the other students here. And knowing that I’m doing everything so close to where Jesus did these things too (except maybe eat Pringles. Unleavened bread?).

Psalm 147

Psalm 147:10-11

He takes no pleasure in the strength of a horse
or in human might.
No, the Lord’s delight is in those who fear him,
those who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Well my friends, it has been quite a journey, but I am finally able to say, GREETINGS FROM ISRAEL! I am here at last, and things are finally starting to look up.

I’d love to upload some pictures, but unfortunately all I have seen of Israel so far is my room and the bathroom next door. This hasn’t been too much fun so far. But let me start at the beginning.

Due to some unexpected traffic, we arrived at the Miami airport only an hour before my scheduled flight. I went to check in and was told that I was at the wrong counter and needed to be at a counter way down on the other side of the airport. We ran there, but couldn’t check in because check-in closed an hour before international flights. We begged the woman who was first in line to let us jump in line with her, which she graciously did. My luggage almost didn’t make it on the plane, but miraculously, the person taking luggage to the plane was still standing by the counter. I could only check one of my bags, but the other was small enough to be a carry-on. We frantically pulled out all the liquids from it and raced to security. I had 5 minutes to hug my parents before rushing through security and racing to the plane.

On the plane, I thought surely my troubles were over. I relaxed and did homework that was due upon arrival.

We were late getting into Madrid, which meant I wouldn’t be able to leave the airport and see the city. I waited and waited for my luggage, but it never came out. The lady at the counter told me it would be transferred to my next flight. I was getting close to the one-hour mark on my next flight, so I went to check in.

Once again, I was sent back and forth across the airport as people told me one counter after another for me to check in. The counter I needed was closed and the whole area vacant. Finally, one helpful lady looked up my itinerary and was able to tell me that my flight had been cancelled. After a little finangling (one customer service guy wanted me to pay 200 Euros to get on the next flight!), I was put on standby for the next flight to Tel Aviv: 11:35 Pm.

Well, that gave me more time to see the city! I bought a metro pass and spent the day walking around the remarkable city, taking tons of pictures and in general looking like a crazy tourist. The city is huge and so full of beautiful archetecture, that I don’t know how the people there get used to it. Even the most fuctional of buildings is beautiful. The people are beautiful, too. I watched them in the park and in the metro, trying to slyly take pictures of the little kids coming out of school and the old ladies in the park. The face of Madrid will always be, to me, the face of this one girl on the metro. She sat across from me with her two friends–college age, Eurochic, all wearing a different colored pea coat belted around their waists and scarves and their hair slicked back into ponytails. They were beautful, but this one girl in particular, with her round, dimpled cheeks and wide dark eyes.

I got stared at a lot. I’m sure my camera and wide-eyed awe screamed “tourist” a mile away, but I would have people look me up and down and then just keep staring. Is that still considered rude in Spain, or only in America? Sometimes I stared back.

I started my journey in the downtown buisness district, but since it was around 3:30, when everything closes, it was somewhat boring. I took the metro to what seemed to be an outdoor mall, and that’s where the people were. I enjoyed a shot of “Italian” coffee (fulfilling my dream of trying coffee and alcohol in Europe) and a crossiant in a little coffee shop with lots of ambiance, and watched the people walk through the city or chat in the coffee shop. I found that I knew more Spanish than I thought I did; I was thinking in Spanish the whole time I was there, translating things in my head, and I was able to communicate whenever and whatever I needed to.

I bought a scarf. Everyone there wears them, and I mean everyone. To me it is the quintessential Madrid. So I purchased a scarf (speaking only Spanish! ) and wore it, hoping it would make me fit in better. I am pretty sure it didnt. I made friends with a one-toothed old man standing outside the money-changer–he recognised me as a foreigner and asked me if I was from England; then told me in very broken English that he was from the United States too.

I wandered into a few cathedrals, took pictures and marvelled at the extravagent decor. No wonder Calvin was against pictures of Jesus…If I had grown up in that atmostphere, art would terrify me.

Then backagain to the airport, taking the metro and thinking about Dr. Kapic’s London tube stories. The young man standing across from me was addressed in Spanish by a lady trying to exit, he looked confused and sputtered something about “no Spanish.” I felt like welcoming him, although I’d only been in Madrid for six hours. He told me he was from Texas, and we chatted for the two minutes before my stop.

I waited for a few more hours in the airport, tired and footsore, before they began boarding the next plane. The line for boarding was so long, and there were about 15 people in standby, that I was afraid I wouldn’t get on. Finally, the stewardesses counted up the boarding passes, and announced that there was one seat left. The first people on the waiting list were a couple, and they would have to be separated. They stepped aside to discuss their options, and the stewardess called out, “the next name is…Klukow, Katheryn.” “Oh, that’s me,” I cried, throwing up my hand. The couple turned to me and said something in what sounded like Hebrew. When I told them I didn’t understand, they repeated in English, “if you go, will you watch the children for us? Our son is waiting for us…he is young and handsome.” They were both smiling wth a twinkle in their eyes, and I thanked them over and over.

So I arrived in Israel 12 hours after I was supposed to, at 5 AM rather than PM. I was frantically trying to finish homework and hadn’t slept for 48 hours or so. My luggage didn’t arrive, so I stood in line for two hours to report it and get it recovered. The gentleman at the counter greeted me with “shalom” (which made me think of Dr. Eames ) and gave me hope, saying the suitcase would be here by that evening.

So I borded a Nesher (shuttle-bus) with six crazy American old people, two locals, and a student from Finland, and we made the hour and a half drive to the old city. I was the last to get dropped off. A woman named Cindy greeted me warmly and took me to my room. She told me that the class had just left for a tour of the old city, and if I ran after them I could catch them, but I thought there was no way I could catch anything. She told me to rest; I actually spent most of my time doing homework.

When the class returned, I met my roommates, skipped lunch to finish homework, and finished it just in time for the first class meeting. Cindy gave us orientation and a tour of the campus, which is made out of stone and full of green things and cool breezes and is beautiful, and then we returned to class. I lasted through about 1/2 an hour of class before I began to feel incredibly ill. I thought maybe it was lack of sleep and food, so I left class, tried to eat and drink something (since I hadn’t eaten in 24 hours) and ended up throwing up. After that, it was a nightmarish 12 hours of sleeping and throwing up–about 45 minutes of sleep before waking up to throw up on the hour. My suitcase hadn’t arrived, I was still wearing the clothes I had put on three days before. I curled up on my bed and cried and wondered why on Earth God had brought me here.

But the graciousness of his people has been a joy to me. The students here, especially my roommates, have been welcoming and supportive and so willing to sacrifice anything for my needs. I am wearing my roommates’ clothes right now (down to underwear!) and have been offered clothing from others. A girl heard me throwing up in the bathroom last night and chased me down to ask me if I was okay, offer me medicine, and tell me she was praying for me. After I missed class this morning, a woman stopped by my room to tell me that her whole group was praying for me and offer me medicine, clothes, anything I needed. Right now the guy sitting next to me in the computer lab offered me food. The amount of lovingkindess these people have shown to a complete stranger is a magnificent testimony to the people of God.

Right now, I am in fairly high spirits. Although I’ve missed two days of classes, my roommates assure me that they will be able to show me around Jerusalem on one of our free days later. My luggage has just arrived (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I haven’t thrown up in 12 hours and I am sipping Gatoraide and eating wheat thins, which have never before tasted so much like cookies. I am going to go take a shower for the first time in four days, put on my own clothes, and sleep so I can go to class in the morning. Thank you for all your prayers, loved ones! I can feel them buoying me up in spite of circumstances. Our God is good–blessed be the name of the Lord.

Love.

KT

Ps. I put up some of my pictures from Madrid! Check them out.

Unscheduled Adventures

Hola! I am in Madrid with 8 minutes left on an internet kiosk and I thought I’d post an update. I just barely got on the plane to Madrid; now that I am here, I find that my flight to Tel Aviv is cancelled. Yuck. BUT… it does mean more adventure in Espana! Pray for me that I can find a flight and that I take courage. Love you all!

KT

I’m Off!

I’ll be travelling for the next 24 hours, so pray for everything to go smoothly!

Love.

KT

A Small Plant Growing

I just got off the phone with one of my (many) roommates. We discussed our tendency to think that only ministry can be done to the glory of God. but wait, what does that verse say again? “Whether you preach or sing, do all to the glory of God”? No, it involves eating and drinking, very mundane and commonplace activities. But sometimes seeing my summer as a time of growth and service, rather than something to get through, is really hard. I feel like I’m working so I can earn money to pay the bills so I can get back to my real calling: ministry. But this week, God has been showing me how it’s not true.

It has rained for the past three days at work, and all three times it has led to interesting and meaningful conversations in the break room with people I work with.

Day One: A girl at work had an intriguing conversation with someone who came up to her and started sharing her testimony. She wants to know more, and she’s heard I go to church. “Are you, like, a real Christian girl?” She asks me. I tell her yes, but her concept of a “real Christian girl” might be differant from who I am. Instantly, she pours out her story of being witnessed to the night before. “This lady told me that I was going to Hell and kept saying ‘the Lord Jesus’ over and over. I just wondered if all Christians are like that.” I am praying like crazy as I try to manuever through the conversation with equal amounts of grace and salt. She just asks questions and I just give her answers; but curiousity can mean an awakening.

Day Two: A Billy Graham special is playing in the break room during prime time TV. A few employees that don’t work at my location complain and change the channel. A middle-aged woman sitting in the back of the room asks “isn’t Billy Graham dead?” My sister definitively answers “no!” While the heckling group cracks jokes about TV preachers in the front of the room, this woman asks my sister and I questions about who Billy Graham is and whether he has ever been involved in a scandal. I tell her he hasn’t, and that I really respect him. Quietly, she confesses that sometimes, she likes to listen to him. “I like to learn things from what he says.” My sister replies, “he’s a good person to learn from.” A few minutes later, the woman leaves; and we ponder the conversation on the way home.

Day Three: Working with an old friend that I haven’t seen since college, he suddenly tells me that he’s stopped drinking. “I gave that all up–the girls, the drinking, the partying.” Trying very hard to appear nonchalant, I ask him why. “Well, I became a Christian,” he confesses. Excited, I ask him when, where and why. He tells me that his who family has recently joined a church, and he just returned from an exhilerating spiritual retreat. I listen for phoniness or some sign of display, but don’t find any. I hear him stumble for the vocabulary and struggle with what being a Christian means, but I think he’s met Jesus.

There have been other days, and I think I may have had some sort of spiritual conversation with everyone I work with in the past three weeks. It’s crazy, but exciting at the same time. Is God moving? Of course. Once again, I’m reminded that the Church in Orlando is not a large plant dying, but a small plant growing. Unfortunately, this is the seed that fell among thorns–just two days ago I was explaining to a new friend from Nigera why it is impossible to have a job in this area without working on Sundays, and we mourned that fact that our tourist economy makes it hard to worship God. If my task is to guard the seed, well, I am completely unqualified. Pray for us, friends.

I’m learning from my maps that Israel’s economy, similar to ours, rested completly on commerce and not natural resources, resulting in an unstable, constanly fluctuating state of affairs. The limited resources and uncertainty of a rapidly changing setting made it a testing ground for God’s people. Any good could only come from God; any military power or wealth was almost impossible for a little nation in the middle of hilly, unfertile highways, yet both were Israel’s when they were following God. O, that it might be the same for us.

We need more rain.

KT

We’ve moved!

Basically, Flickr wasn’t going to give me enough space for my photos from Israel. So I’ve moved my photos to Picasa. It won’t have a handy-dandy sidebar, but here’s the link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/EowynGrace

Happy viewing.