Kabalat Shabbat

My friend Matt Floreen gave me some advice right before I left for IBEX... he told me to either jump right into exploring and going out to visit different places, and to plan trips frequently, or to get ahead in your school work now so you can be free later to do the same thing...explore. So for the last couple of days I have been reading a lot and getting ahead in all my classes so I could go on a hike today. Theo Low, my room mate, Garrett Mendenhall and his fiance Ashley Power, Jackie Fisk, and me all went on a hike to the cave that has been calling my name ever since we set foot on this Moshav. From the vineyards on the grounds, across the valley, on the next mountain face is a man made entrance into a cave. Naturally I wanted to go see what was in it...so thats what we did. I asked Randy about the cave and he told me that it was only about a hundred years old, an infant in this land, and that it was used by Bedouins as an escape from the hot summer Israeli sun. I also asked him about the best way to get to the cave and he said that I might be able to find some goat trails, but the best way is to pretty much bushwhack it. And that's what we did.

It was a pretty steep decline into the valley and a pretty steep incline back up to the cave, but because it was downhill most of the way it did not take us long at all, maybe a half hour. and when we reached our destination I could feel the coolness of the air that has been cooled by the rocks inside, safe from the brutal sun. To my surprise the cave was actually pretty large. Probably 35' deep and 100' long. With flash lights in hand we went to explore. Bats started flying all around us... well maybe just 3-6 of them, but it was still pretty amazing. After a nice group picture we decided to follow the road back up leading eastward towards Jerusalem and to loop around back to Yad Hashmona, because to be honest the view back kup the mountain to the Moshav was pretty depressing.
So we went up the road into Abu Gosh, an Arab town, and stopped to get something to drink and walked back on paved roads to the Moshav. All together it was about 3.66 miles round trip. So my legs are pretty tired.



Also, today is Kabalat Shabbat. Which in Hebrew means the receiving of the Shabbat, or Sabbath. Sabbath day is from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday. Before the Shabbat supper we sing a song in Hebrew that declares the praise of God for His goodness and His mercy on our lives. There is also a song sung for the fruit of the vine, and also the bread of the earth. We also sung Amazing Grace as a group to bring in the Shabbat.

So that was my day today in a nutshell and we are off to go have Chapel as an IBEX group right now.

SHABBAT SHALOM!!