Hello dear friends,
Let me just start off by saying I'm sorry that I suck at writing in my blog regularly. I hope most of you are friends with me on facebook and have been able to see some of the pictures I (and many others) have taken since I've been here. If not, you'll just have to wait for me to come home because for some reason the blog takes 100 years to upload photos. Another reason I"m so awful at this is quite honestly I'd rather be playing in the Old City or hanging out with the people here than write on a blog. Sorry, but that's the truth. I'm sure if you lived here you would feel the same ha ha, but just know that I think of you often and how I wish that I could have you all in my pockets wherever I go.
These past couple of weeks have been crazy with mid-terms, fields trips, playing in the city, and lack of sleep. We all have survived finals...kinda...it has gotten to the point where all of our brains are about to explode from all of the information that is going inside them 24 hrs a day. Right now I can't really recall anything, but I'm sure after hours of pounding it into my head I will be a master of everything I'm learning. Most importantly though are the field trips we have been going on. This past week we went on two AMAZING field trips. 1) The Shfelah (not Shephelah) trip. In the Bible it is spelled as Shephelah, but when you read it that way you pronounce it totally wrong. In order for us to remember how to say it our amazing professor, Bro.Chadwick, made up a spiffy little song. I'll make sure to put it up soon so all of you can enjoy it. During this field trip we were able to go to the ancient cities that were fortified by Rehoboam, son of Solomon, during his reign. The cities we went to were Gath (where Goliath is from!), Beth-Shemesh (story of Samson), Marihah, Azekah, and Lachish; we went to other places but there are foggy in my memory because it was an all day field trip from 7am-6pm, so my mind was mush by the end of the day. Anywho, my favorite was Gath because that is the site where Bro. Chadwick excavates every summer during the month of July. It was an awesome experience to be there where he works and see everything that he has excavated himself! From there we were able to see, or know the direction of, the five major Philistine cities during the Iron Age I/II periods, and see where David stayed for a while when Saul was out to get him. All in all, the day was absolutely amazing and probably one of my favorite field trips thus far.
The next field trip we went on was to the City of David. LOVE LOVE LOVE. The city is right outside my front door, so we took a nice little 15 min walk to the city, which is right outside the modern city walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. There we were able to see where the walls that surrounded the City of David were, built during the time of Melchezidek & Abraham, identify the millo, where David's palace would be, and we got to go through Hezekiah's tunnel...AMAZING! This tunnel was able to provide the people that lived in the city millions of gallons of water everyday. That's right, I was walking through an ancient spring people. By the way, walking through it we needed to have flashlights because if we didn't it was pitch black. Another thing, if you are tall, like myself, you were hunched 80% of the time. This tunnel led out to the pool of Siloam, which in the New Testament is the same pool that Christ healed the man that was born blind. Crazy huh?
Everyday I am just in awe at how amazing this place is and that I'm actually living here. It just reassures me everyday that the Bible is real. The people, places, and history behind everything is real. If you have any doubt that the Bible isn't real than you haven't studied it thoroughly enough. The written word and the archaeology alone will just show how real the book is. Well, I'll get off my soap box now. Enjoy the posts that I have and the pictures on facebook. Love ya'll!
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