Marhaba!

Well I wrote this a day and a half ago but didn't get it posted.

Hello! I'm sorry I haven't written in so long/kept in any sort of contact with anyone. Again, a lot has happened since I last wrote, so I'll have to hit only a few things.
The weather here is nuts! It snowed two days ago and now its 60's and gorgeous. I'm sitting outside on the deck at Café Joe, a little coffee shop on King David St. in the New City. It’s a little chilly so I might need to move inside. I'm learning to enjoy tea; they drink a lot of it here. Unfortunately even the tea is ridiculously expensive in Jerusalem. If you think coffee and espresso drinks are overpriced at Starbucks try coming to Jerusalem! Last night I paid the same for a small chia as I did for a nice meal (soup, salad, and a grilled Asian chicken sandwich) in Bethlehem. I just like getting out into the city.
Since I wrote a couple of weeks ago I've gone on multiple field trips. For physical settings we studied the land of Benjamin. We started in Bethlehem and drove up to Jericho. We stopped on the way to look into the dessert and the wadi (Qilt I think). It was the same desert Jesus walked across to get to Jerusalem. Dr. Wright talked about wilderness and what it meant to people during Bible times. It was interesting; I've always viewed nature as something beautiful and awesome and just a part of God's creation I'd like to be in as much as possible. And while it is all of those things, its actually very dangerous and terrible to the people in the Bible who have to live in it or just travel through it. Looking out into it I could understand that; it’s really a harsh land. It was the land David referred to as the "valley of the shadow of death". Not that nature and wilderness was always a negative thing in the Bible, but it was definitely looked at differently than how I view it. A friend and I want to hike across this wilderness to Jericho sometime soon. The Bible says it’s only a day’s journey. We should probably research it first though so we don't get stuck for three days in the middle of the dessert. =) While we were there a bunch of Bedouins came and tried to sell us things. The kids were just begging for money or anything we would give them. I've started carrying gum around with me to give to the children. They're cute but trouble. The first boy I gave a piece of gum to grabbed the whole pack from my hand and ran! Haha, then he continued to stuff all that was left in the pack into his mouth at once. He was a little too cute to be angry with.
I really liked Jericho. It’s interesting because its Palestinian land now but there’s a Palestinian refugee came right there that they wont accept. One side is the town is gorgeous and fairly wealthy, but if you look north into the refugee camp it’s a totally different story. In the more recent years the camp has improved considerably in its economy and has schools and all that. But it’s sad to see a whole town of people get stuck in between political disputes. From what I can gather, the people there lived around Tel Aviv but fled during the British mandate to what was Jordanian territory. The Jordanian government didn't accept them as citizens because they didn't want people fleeing Israel, which would be recognizing the state of Israel. The land was then taken back by Israel in the war, and again the people were not recognized because they were Palestinians. Then Jericho was given to Palestine, and the Palestinians won't accept their own people for the same reason as the Jordanians. It's lame and it really ticks me off. Palestine is always playing the sympathy card, emphasizing how much pain their people are in. At the same time they aren't in any way taking care of their own people. Their killing them and leaving them trapped in refugee camps. Again, I'd like to repeat what I've said in previous entries, I'm not trying to make a political statement about what "side" I'm on. There’s problems in every direction.
From there we made our way west through Benjamin. We followed multiple Bible stories, but my favorite was the story of Joshua. It illustrated the land so well. We studied why he went in at Jericho and moved into the Benjamin plateau, first taking Ai, and then moving to Gibeon. He had a great military and political strategy based on the land and the routes through the land. I'm learning to read the Bible in a completely different way. Before the events or order of the events didn't connect or make any sense. When studying on our field studies we get to see the reason for characters’ actions. They actually have reasons for what they do!
There was a lot more of the trip I could talk about, but that was only one day. I've had other field studies in the last week as well. I had field studies for Historical and Social Settings of Modern Israel. These were very interesting as well. We went to a whole bunch of military sites and battle grounds, as well as the Holocaust museum, and a really great town called Abu Rosh. I'd like to talk about it all in more detail, so I probably shouldn't even start now with the time I have.
On Wednesday we fought the weather and snow and made it to a Synagogue for my Jewish Thought and Practice class. We looked at some of the things that we've been studying in class and the professor, Rabi Moshe, explained the practices of different services. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn't been wet and cold, but it was very interesting.
Now it’s Friday and I'm looking at three field studies over the weekend. Tonight we are going back to Rabbi Moshe's synagogue and attending a Shabbat evening service. Then we will have Shabbat dinner there. I hope I don't do anything to offend anyone, it’s easy to do in such a different culture than what I'm used to. Tomorrow I am going to Jericho for a field study for Church in the East. Then on Sunday I have a field study for Physical Settings, in which we are studying Samaria. You know it’s busy when you look forward to the week days for a break!
Those are most of the recent field studies. Other than that I'm trying not to drown in my classes and homework. I've been a little bit stressed out lately with how much I have to do and how far I'm getting behind, but I think I'm just going to have to accept that I'm not going to be able to do all the work. The kids here are really great and I've really enjoyed getting to know them. We have a good time together. Yeah, I don't know what else to say about them. They're just all very genuine and cool people.
I'm in a Bible study with a few other undergrad women and I really enjoy it. We are reading through Matthew and just spending time to share with each other our own stories. Its more relationship focused than deep Biblical studies, which is what I think we all really need. This week we met at Christi and Tim's apartment in the Old City and made potato soup and tortillas. It was so great to cook again. Tim is a grad student and Christi is our small group leader. They both graduated from Taylor a few years ago. I'm excited to get to know Christi better.
I think I've mentioned this in past entries, but Wednesday I volunteer at Bet Jalla School in Bethlehem. This week was more of just an orientation and observation to what I'll be doing. The principle gave us a few ideas of some special needs they have and how we can help. One was algebra and since that was probably one of my favorite subjects in high school I took it. The plan is to help the 12th grade Advanced Algebra class and the 11th grade Algebra SAT prep class. The school was completely out of control! Haha, I'm not sure how to describe it but if I had one word it would be chaos! I'm pretty sure they 12th graders didn't listen to a word the teacher said and I feel like my being there was more of a distraction than anything so I'll probably tell the principle that I may better use elsewhere. I think I may be more help in the 11th grade prep class, but even in that class we didn't do anything. Hopefully it will get better. At the end of the school day I was in the hall talking to the math teacher and Miss Grace, the elementary principle ran up to me and told me they needed someone to watch the 6th graders because the teacher left. Again, chaos! So I taught them heads up seven up and they taught me some Arabic.
Here's a list of what they taught me:
Marhaba = hello
kefak/kefek= how are you (masculine/feminine)
zalameh = man
mara = women
benet = girl
walad = boy
Mabsoota = fine
madrise = school
Jamaa= university
Shokran = thank you
Afwan = you're welcome
saf = class
Bede Aran = I want to go
So you if you say "I want to go to class", you say "Bede Aran ala saf". That's the only sentence I know, and I don't think I've ever even used it in English, but at least its a start.
After school Craig and Ben headed back to Jerusalem, and JE and I stuck around. We walked around and got a little bit lost (that’s the best way to learn the area), then headed up to Manager Square. We stopped at Adnan's shop. I talked about Adnan in my first entry about Jerusalem. He's really cool and whenever I go to Bethlehem I try to stop by. He'll always by me and whoever I'm with tea and chat with us. I found out he's got a degree from Bethlehem University in Psychology and Social Work, exactly what I'm studying! He can't get a job though because there aren't any available in Jerusalem, so he's got his shop. He showed us a picture of his four kids and told us about his family. He hasn't left Bethlehem in 7 years, except for some of the close neighboring Arab towns. He said he really needs to be able to get to Jerusalem in order to get a job. It’s so strange that he lives there and hasn't been able to make the 10 minute trip into Jerusalem which we make multiple times a week. After his shop we wandered some more and checked out Bethlehem University. The guard let us in even though it was closed and we looked around until another guard kicked us out. It's a small and beautiful campus. We met a few students from Norway who are touring the area for cross-cultural studies for their university in Norway. It was fun talking to them; they've seen a lot in the short time they were here. Then JE and I went and ordered dinner at a cafe close to the bus stop. It was really nice inside and the food was great. It was also extremely inexpensive compared to Jerusalem. And that was pretty much my Bethlehem trip for the week. I really love going there.
Well, I should head out. I need to get the mail from the post office and its Shabbat so it closes in an hour at noon. Like last time, sorry this was so extremely scattered and without direction. I just kind of let thoughts and events from the last week or two spill out.
Shabbat Shalom!