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!!

Three Valleys and Two Hills...

So, for my class "Land and the Bible", after every field trip we will be writing a report about that day. It doesn't matter what about, it just has to be regarding what we did that day. It can be about what you learned, what you saw, what you liked, what you observed, so its very open and free. So what I thought I would do is post them on the blog so you guys can read what we did that day. This is what I will be turning in to my prof. so without any further delay.... The Old City.

Matt Davis
Land and the Bible
8.28.2007
Field Report #1

Wow, can someone please wake me up? Today was the first time we all went into the Old City Jerusalem. It was amazing. Here’s why: We saw everything from entering the Jaffa gate, touring the Citadel, meeting Shaba, going in to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, exiting out of the Damascus gate, walking around the north eastern corner of the city walking into Stephen’s gate, seeing the pools of Bethesda, sang in Saint Anne’s Church, walked past the Golden gate (or Eastern gate), had a great view of the Mount of Olives, walked back into the city through the Dung gate, walked passed the Dome of the Rock, and viewed the Western Wall, and trekked back to the Jaffa gate. All in one day!!
One of the many blessings while doing this is to have a person who knows all about the land leading you. And that’s all I’ll say about that. Some of the highlights and enlightening moments that happened today were probably being inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, singing in St. Anne’s, and reading scripture looking over the Kidron Valley.
After seeing the Citadel and changing money with Shaban, Bill took us to the Holy Sepulcher and gave us a little bit of background on the site. I learned that this is actually a good candidate for the actual site for the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. But wait, didn’t Jesus die outside the city wall? Yes He did. The why is the Sepulcher inside the city? Well, the Old City should be called the Modern Old City, because the walls that we see today are close to 550 years old. The walls were built by the Turks. And the city when Jesus was alive were not far from Golgotha, but still outside of the city. The reason this is important is because the Jewish thought was that dead bodies were unclean, so you would bury someone outside of the city walls. And another good evidence for thinking this was the actual place was because of a tomb that was found really close that dated to the first century. Thus meaning that it was outside of the city.



While we were leaving I saw something that was a little disheartening, in the entrance there is a slab of rock and there were people kneeling down and kissing it. Not only adults but children as well. And I later found out that that slab of rock was believed to be the place where Jesus fell while He was carrying the cross to Calvary. And I was talking with someone about how sad that was because that is not what God wants, a show or a worship of things because that becomes an idol very quickly. God wants the heart.
We all were walking around the city and Bill took us to where the Pools of Bethesda are and it is on a site where there is a church made all of stone, and when we walked past it the first time I noticed that people were singing in it so I wasn’t sure if it was a Mass going on or some sort of church service so I just glanced inside quickly and moved on to be with the group. So after Bill had us read John 5:10-18, about how Jesus healed a man who was lame for 38 years at the pool of Bethesda, we all went into the church made of stone. After we all had gotten situated sitting down, Bill lead us in a song, conducting us to stop on certain notes to hear the beautiful echo of our voices. We sang “It is well with my soul”, “My stronghold” and another song, and it was just a reminder that as beautiful we all sang, and as good as we thought we sounded, that is only a taste of how glorious praising God will be. After all of us left an Asian tour group went into the church and sang “It is well with my soul” as well, but they sang in there own native tongue. Same song, different language. That was another reminder that God is a God who doesn’t have any limitations. God is a God who has no boundaries, weaknesses, or shortcomings.
The last highlight that really caught my attention and made me think, and what I thought was pretty amazing is when we were standing just outside of the city walls on the east side, looking at the graveyard just opposite of us across the Kidron Valley, and Bill had us read Matthew 23:27 where Jesus pronounces a woe upon the Pharisees for they are like white washed tombs. Before we read it Bill called our attention to the grandeur of some of the tombs. The ones that were extravagant probably thought they were pretty hot stuff or else really rich. Now to think about how big some of those graves were and to think about how important the people inside thought themselves to be and to further think about what was actually in those tombs now was quite the mental picture. And reading this part of scripture, Jesus was probably on the Mount of Olives and the cemetery, or grave yard would be in sight, so the people and the Pharisees would know exactly what Jesus was talking about. It just became so much more real to me because I know what graveyards look like, at least the ones in the States. The ones in the states are green and colorful, and well just a flat piece of marble in the ground neatly manicured. But the ones here in Israel are packed together and all the same color and kind of ugly, but yet pretty in a weird sort of way. Now, I thought I had an idea of what the white washed tombs looked like, but I had no idea. After seeing it, it is like I’m reading a whole different passage.
It was great to spend some time in the Old City, and I know that I will be spending many more hours exploring it and the surrounding areas on my own.

Here is the Mt. of Olives and the tombs

Yad Hashmona...

So, yes, after many many hours on planes and in airports we have finally made it to the Holy Land. This is the moment so many of us have been waiting for. I have been in Israel for about one full day, and I don't think that it has hit me that I am actually here. We have learned a lot so far. We have definitely "hit the ground running". There is so much planned for us and we have so much to learn and so much to explore. One cool thing that happened is that on the way to the Yad Hashmona, the name of the place where we are staying, which is a Moshav, a town. Bill Schleigal read us Acts 9 where Peter heal a lame man and raise Tabitha from the dead. And on the bus we were driving past where all that happened. Which is awesome to think about how these events actually took place within walking distance from where you are.

Last night we were all pretty tired but we had to stay up as long as possible to combat the affects of jet lag. So John Lafferty and I went to explore the Moshav and got some great pictures. After a restless night of sleep, we got up and had breakfast and had some IBEX orientation and took a formal tour of the Yad Hashmona. After lunch we had class for Land and the Bible, because we are taking our first field trip. We are taking a walking tour of the Old City.

Today we also had a water fight to combat the heat and to wake us up from all the jetlagging.
I'll be posting some pictures of the Old City in the near future. Shalom.

Home Sweet Home

Well, I'm back in America safely! What an awesome trip that I had. I hope that you had a small taste of South Africa from what I have written. This will not be the last of my trips. I have another month before I leave the states again. I will be spending another 3 months in the Holy Land. The Master's College has an extension program called IBEX. Israel Bible EXtension. I will be studying in Israel while taking field trips and interacting with the people there. I hope to keep up my blog and I anticipate many more stories to tell when I get back.

Crocodile Hunter...

Please excuse me for not blogging for a while. So much has happened since last weekend’s rugby game. I did successfully install all 24 heaters into the school in Katlehong. If you would like to see the school, Jesse Rodriguez of Calvary Bible Church in Burbank, made a presentation with footage that Beth Mack has given to him. You can see that video on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNe_yszulrs, this is a very good picture of what is happening at the school. I did get a library card and I have used it! I am starting research for my last paper that needs to be written. And they say that here in South Africa that if you need to get something done, then expect to make at least three trips to the place that you need to go. And I have been actually lucky to not have to make many trips to the places that I needed. But I guess all that time that I have saved in the past was building up for this past week. I believe that it took six trips to the library to actually get the library card that I needed to actually check books out. So that is one thing that I will be doing in this next week.
On Thursday, my sister, Tiffany, and Melissa Briganti (sp?) made it safely to South Africa. After a long flight and many airplane meals, they were ready to jump into things. So I took them for a tour of the Lambano homes, and took them to the worksite to see the work of the Conrad (the mason from Canada). After trying to keep Tiffany awake, we rented a movie and then they crashed. On Friday I took the girls to Katlehong to show them what the situation is there and I think that it was very eye-opening.
I guess there is a tradition here in South Africa at Grace Christian Church, every intern has finished “THE AMERICAN DREAM”. There is a restaurant here named Pano’s and all of the sizes of burgers are named after the comic strip characters from Archie. And the biggest of all is the “Jughead”. This is a 450g piece of meat. And the American Dream is two patties. So we are talking almost 1kg of meat (for those of you who don’t do metric… that’s almost 2.2 lbs of meat!!!). If you eat it in a half hour of less then you can put your name up onto the “Wall of Fame”. Unfortunately, I broke the tradition and surrendered to the American Dream about halfway through. I couldn’t finish it. It was bigger than my face. Sorry to let you down.




But we bounced back wonderfully the next morning after eating all that beef. We went up to Irene craft market, where it is basically a flea market, where you can buy anything you could imagine. Contrary to how Brian describes it as a “chick” market, it wasn’t half bad. It was a nice relaxing walk around with friends and family. The place did have excellent food.
After going to the flea market, Tiffany and I decided to go to Croc City Crocodile Farm. I was on a mission because a close friend, who supported me on both of my trips here to South Africa, wanted a crocodile skull or teeth. So I google searched and found this crocodile farm not to far from where we are staying. So we went on the tour and I got to hold a baby croc. We were also successful in getting the skulls. But one funny thing did happen to us while we were there. I didn’t take out my camera right at the beginning of the tour for whatever reason. So I told Tiffany that when the tour finishes, I’ll get my camera out and go back to the ponds and take pictures. So, standing on this bridge I get my camera out of Tiff’s backpack. As I am holding the camera with my right hand, I take off the lens cap with my left hand. And right at that moment my head started itching, so I reach up with my left hand to adjust my cap, and what do you know, my lens cap falls out of my hand to land only a few feet away from this huge crocodile. It seemed like everything went in slow motion right when I dropped it. And of course there is no getting near that thing to get it. So, someone will have a nice lens cap to a Nikkon camera, if they don’t get eaten trying to get to it.
I hope to finish my paper by next Friday before we leave to Pilansburg, the game park, with friends. And a week from this Wednesday I’ll be boarding the plane to come home! Cant wait to see all of you!

Blou Bulls for the win

Before I came here to South Africa, I asked two interns if they had any advice for me, because they had spent a year each in Johannesburg. Matt O'brien had this to say: "hmm...tips...well don't die...that's important. that's #1. Drive on the correct side of the ride. That's a corolary to not dying. If you go over fisher's hill, before you get to the freeway, there's a 24-hour pizza place on the right. Check it out. Oh, and check the expiration date on the bottle of ketchup in the church kitchen cupboard. It's been there for a while. I think Conrad has the key to the room." So I haven't died so that has been good, and I have been to the Fisher's Hill, but need to find the pizza joint. The only problem that I've had driving here is in parking lots. I find that the one place where I find myself wanting to be on the right side of the road.
And Matt Floreen, one of the other interns had this to say: "I'm with Matty-O... don't die. Tip #2 is when people say "We must have you come to a rugby match sometime," hold them to it. People told me that for a year and never took me. Pick a couple people to really, really invest in. Buy cheap clothes at Mr. Price, not PEP. Encourage random people by SMS. Commission a craftsman at Bruma to make you a one-of-a-kind carving. Learn a song in Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, and Sotho. Teach the Lambano kids some good games. Learn the proper way to braai. Make sure the young adults remember how to make s'mores. Always ask your host if you can bring something. Learn how to use a fork and knife together. Offer visitors tea, and make it the right way (Rooibos steeps way longer than Five Roses.) Learn Vuyo's skunk poem. Tip the car guards 2 rand. If you buy stuff to take home, keep the receipt and get the VAT refund at the airport. Always walk people out to the gate. The standard response to "howzit?" is "Fine and you." You'll do great."
It seems like not dying is pretty important, and with all the crime here it's good advice. In the last week there have been two hijackings on the street that I'm living on. And Beth Mack was in a restaraunt a week ago and it was held up by some armed robbers. God was good in protecting her and her family, but crime is real here.
I have learned a song in a different language, I haven't needed to buy clothes, braai-ing (bbq-ing) is a breeze, and I have commissioned a craftsman.
The one thing that I was pretty excited about was the rugby game that i needed to go to. And that hope came to fruition yesterday. Lonngren, Eddy, and Garth took me to a Johannesburg Lions vs. Pretoria Blou Bulls game. And after, Lonngren's mom made a meal for a king. It was a traditional Afrikaans meal and it was so good. We were chearing for the Lions, but they got beat by the Bulls.
So here are some pics of the game.

Three weeks left

Well, I only have three and a half more weeks here in South Africa and its kind of a bummer. I feel like this trip has flown by faster than anything I have ever experienced. Although I know that there are still things to be done while I’m here I am thinking about coming home. For example, this week I am installing some heaters for the school in Katlehong. I am almost done with my paper on how to start an orphanage, it has been going really smoothly and I think that is because that is what I’m most passionate about. It has been a learning experience for me writing this paper and reading the books for Dr. Tatlock. I have learned how little compassion I really have and how I need to be depending on Christ to give me compassion like Him. Reading in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry we see that He just did not feel bad for the people who were outcast but He sought them out. In one of the books I read it gave the definition of Pity and Compassion. Pity is defined as a feeling of sorrow for another person’s sorrow. And compassion as a feeling of pity that makes one want to help or show mercy. Pity looks, sees, and feels but stops there. Compassion looks sees, feels, and then does something. Matthew 20:34 illustrates this idea: “So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes” Pity sees; compassion touches.
I have seen so much while I have been here and I would not change anything about my trip. God is good and is faithful to convict me of sin and grow me into what He wants. I cannot wait to show all of you all of my pictures and stories to go along with them. I’ll see you in less than a month!