Our Rough Life

Really, our life is not rough. It has it's moments, but we also get to do things like spend the afternoon floating in the Dead Sea. So here are some pictures for you all to enjoy. If you come and visit us, you can float in the Dead Sea too.

Sunset and the Jordanian Mountains

Free Mud Baths

Ein Gedi, where we hiked last year, but forgot our camera.

I also added pictures on Facebook of our recent tour of Hebron and our new apartment. You should be able to view the ones of Hebron here and our apartment here, even if you're not my friend.

Fire!

I don't know if any of you noticed this story in the news, but earlier this week someone broke into our church in Jerusalem and tried to burn it down. Fortunately, the damage that was done was relatively minor. A lot of chairs were destroyed, along with the sound system and some musical instruments. No one was hurt and there was no structural damage to the building. In fact, we were able to have our service there this morning.

Even though the walls were still black and the air still smelled like smoke, we had a pretty awesome time of prayer and worship during the middle of the service. The congregation that Sarah and I belong to is actually a Baptist congregation that is pretty buttoned-down. However, during the middle of the singing at the beginning, folks just started shouting out prayers and praises to God, some people started singing and clapping. It was a pretty cool experience, in my opinion anyway. It was one of those moments when God kind of steps in and takes over what was meant to be an orderly and planned out worship service. I think we need a lot more of that and I hope that today will be the beginning of a new practice of listening to and responding to the leading of God, even if it messes up our plans. I know I could do a much better job of that than I do.

In much more disturbing news. I know some of you already know about this, but perhaps not everyone heard, a young Palestinian Christian from Gaza named Rami was killed a few weeks ago on his way home from work. It appears to be the work of Islamic extremists, but we don't really know yet. Please pray for his family and for Gazan Christians. Please also pray for Rami's attackers and for those who attacked the Church. Pray that God will bless them and enrich their lives, and please pray that Jesus will call them to himself.

I should also point out that in both of the above instances, the vast majority of Muslims and Jewish people have been loving and supporting toward those who have been hurt by minority groups within their own religion. Praise God for such love. It has done a lot to maintain peace and prevent the desire for vengeance and retribution. Thank you guys for your prayers.

Jason

we went to the dr. today and got a picture of the ultra-sound. we still don't know if it's a boy or a girl, the dr. said we can tell next month for sure, but he has a guess. only, he wouldn't tell us his guess. but here is our little baby, 14 weeks along.

Allright, finally you all will be graced with glorious pictures of the beautiful land of Palestine. Last weekend, Sarah, Andrew, Eman, Lindsay, and I went hiking through a valley called Wadi Akhratoon. The purpose of this hike was to take pictures and map out a route for an alternative tourism program that we are putting together to raise money for Paidia. Fortunately, we also got to hike through a gorgeous Wadi and spend about an hour or an hour and half caving.

The view at the beginning of the hike

About halfway through, this is what most of landscape looks like.

Inside some old monsastic ruins, which are everywhere along this hike

Fresh and clean before entering the cave

After caving. Apparently Sarah's shirt is dirt-repellent. Mine is not.

tug-of-war and water balloons

since my last entry was about how normal life is here, i thought i'd share about my afternoon yesterday. it's nothing too weird, but just not the go-home-take-a-nap-arabic-lessons afternoon.

so i was sitting at my desk and ala' (one of my co-workers) asked me if i knew about the bbq for lunch. i said no, so he told me that all the students, faculty, staff, and administration were invited to beit alaqa (the house of joy) for a bbq. so i said, hey free lunch, i'll be there.

well, it was not just a bbq. it was a field day. like you have in middle school. or freshman orientation. we did get to eat, which was very good food, and then the games began.

the students at bbc are divided into five groups with teacher sponsors. they're like small groups. so then all the volunteers/internationals/random people from the media department got thrown together on a team. i was going to just eat and run, but andrea, a lady who teaches english classes here and is a new friend, volunteered me for the team. so i played.

our team was pretty dominating. we did tug-of-war, electricity, water balloon toss, peg the sponge at your teammates face (i don't know the real name of it), shaving cream and bamba (peanut butter cheetos), sack race, mummy wrapping. i'm pretty sure we won each event, but we were only against one other team the whole time. i don't know who won overall. by the end i wasn't very concerned about it either.

it was fun for the most part, but then all the water fights made me feel like i was a freshman in college again. and i liked being a freshman in college, but i'm not anymore. also, people were very concerned that i was participating in games like tug-of-war (which i did not really try to hard in), anything that involved running, anything that involved throwing or catching anything, and anything that involved hopping because i'm pregnant. it was funny at first, and then i realized that i have another six months of this ahead of me and it was not quite as funny anymore.

anyway, it was a fun afternoon. it was fun to meet new people and see how the students were getting to know eachother. it was fun to see the teachers enjoying the time with the students. it was fun to make some new friends. it was even fun to try not to be a party-pooper and think that i'm way to old for this kind of stuff.