Frolicking in the Meadows of the Shephelah.

Yesterday: 1 day, 2 emotional extremes:
In the morning, I went back to the southern steps of the Temple Mount and meditated on the Psalm of Ascents, singing praises to God, and reflecting on how amazing it would've been to go up each step, getting closer to the presence of God as He dwelt in His temple. It was a refreshing time, and when I got to the top, I felt extreme joy that I was redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and that now I can approach God freely through Jesus Christ as my Mediator.

In the afternoon, we went to Yad ve Shem, which is a museum on the Holocaust. Just walking in and seeing the pictures and videos of so many people who died during this horrible atrocity was heart-wrenching for me. I walked through this museum, and just felt such deep sadness. As I walked, I dialogued with God - lamenting and not understanding why tragedies like this happen.

It's interesting how I can feel such differing emotions in one day.

Today we left Jerusalem and headed southwest for the region of the Shephelah. We went to the cities of Gezer, Beth-Shemesh, Azekah, and Lachish - places where many battles between the Israelites and Philistines took place. Samson's story takes place in this region, and David and Goliath also have their showdown in this region - the Elah valley. It was fun reading these stories and picturing them take place in these hills and valleys right before my eyes. I also had fun re-enacting these stories as I posed as David with the rock. We also took many jumping pictures which was alot of fun.

My favorite part of today was being an explorer and going on an adventure with our tour guide, Todd, to a place which has just been recently excavated - Qeiyata, in between Socoh and Azekah, where the story of David and Goliath could've taken place. We frolicked through green meadows and climbed up steep hills, seeing ancient ruins of gates and towers - a fantastic experience. I love adventures.

I've been trying to upload pictures, but the internet here is not very fast, and disconnects frequently, so I probably won't be able to upload the pictures until I get back, unless I find internet that works better in another hotel.

Please pray for our group - there are many who are sick and not feeling well. I'm also starting to get slightly sick - with a sore throat today. Thanks.

New Year's in Israel.

Happy New Year!

These past few days have been amazing. Yesterday, we spent the morning at the Temple Mount, seeing the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and Herodian architecture. It's so mindblowing to think that this was the place where the Temple once was stood. This was the place where God's Shekainah glory once dwelt - the actual manifestation of His presence. Wow.

Something that really struck me yesterday was reading the Psalm of Ascents while sitting on the steps leading to the Temple Mount. The Psalm of Ascents are found in Psalm 120-134. A worshipper of Yahweh would read one of these psalms as they approached the temple to offer a sacrifice to Yahweh. As he read, sang, and prayed these psalms, he would look up and be reminded of the greatness and mercy of Yahweh, and his own sin in light of God's goodness, and his need of God's mercy. I really love the psalms, and as our tour guide was talking about this process of worshippers preparing their hearts before offering a sacrifice to God, I realized my own need to prepare my heart before gathering for corporate worship.

Often times, I'm thinking about so many things before and during church - thinking about what music we're playing for the service, thinking about what I need to do for choir, thinking about things I need to do in general - that even though I am gathered in corporate worship, my heart is not even in it. I am learning alot about the way the Israelites intentionally prepared their heart for worship, and I need to do the same when I come to God, so that my heart would be focused on Him.

Today, we went to the Central Benjamin Plateau, Samaria, and Jericho seeing the locations of ancient cities where the Patriarchs walked, where the Israelites fought battles against their enemies, where so much Biblical history happened, seeing how God triumphs. Seeing all these different ruins made me think about a song that I actually wrote before going on the trip. Honestly, I wrote this song after Nate and Kyle wrote their song, and I felt inspired to write since they wrote a song. haha. But pretty much, most of the stuff that I'd been meditating on this past semester just spilled out of this song. After studying the prophets and seeing the judgment of God, and being evacuated from fires - the themes of judgment and fires have been in my thoughts. Now that I actually see the ruins of these judgments, it all seems to be coming full circle for me. So I leave you with the lyrics:

Chorus
Run, run from the destruction of the city
'Cause fire consumes both the living and the dead.
Flee, fast, far away from here
The flood will wash us away.

Look outside tonight
The sky shines bright
It blinds my eyes.
Don't stay in tonight.
The creepers will bite
There's no good-byes.

Chorus

Hold on tight
Run with all your might
There's so much to fear.
Don't look back
At the angry attack
Let's get out of here.

Chorus

After the fire is over,
We'll go back and see
The land that's laid to waste.
We'll dance in the moonlight
In the remains of the ruins
Of a faraway place.

Let's waltz on the rooftop,
Let's swing on the doorstep
That's no longer here.
There's no picket fences,
No nicely-trimmed lawns,
Only memories we held dear.

Chorus

I recorded a rough version of this, but Team Glasses will be coming out with a real demo after I get back from Israel. Ask me for it if you're interested.

Thanks for reading! Love you all!

Old City Jerusalem

Day 2 - Old City Jerusalem

Yesterday we went around Old City Jerusalem, looking at the different main roads, walls, and gates - with great views of the city and the Mt. of Olives, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - where tradition says Jesus was crucified and was buried. My favorite part of the tour was going to the ruins of the Pools of Bethesda - where Jesus healed the lame man in John 5. We sang in the chapel there called St. Anne's Chapel and it had such sweet acoustics. We sang "It Is Well" and "When I Survey" and I just got goosebumps listening to the beautiful sound of only our voices. I was so inspired I wrote a poem right there:

A beautiful melody rings in the chapel
Built on the ruins of the pools
Where the angel stirred the waters
A song of Shalom
Lines the marble walls
The Simple Cross says it all
Here there's healing
Where the lame man jumped for joy
When Yeshua said, "Rise up and walk."
There's healing here.
In the palms of His hands.
In the nail-scarred hands
Where Beauty lies.
Simplicity.
Simple Melody.
Shalom.

P.S. I love our group and my roommate Lauren. Such great fellowship with other seminary students.

Safely Arrived!

Hi all!

We arrived in Tel Aviv yesterday around 3 pm. Right now, I'm sitting in the lobby of our hotel in Jerusalem, called the Gloria Hotel. After a crazy day at the airport with intense security, and a 15 hr. plane ride, we finally made it here and I'm so excited! Last night, we went to see the Wailing Wall at Herod's Temple Mount. It's so crazy that we were at the place where Jesus had his last discourse in John 14-17. Being there seeing all the people praying to the wall was a really interesting experience. I'm still trying to process it all, and honestly I probably won't really have time to process it until after the trip.

I slept pretty well last night, so now I'm ready to go!

P.S. Please pray for one of my group mates, Jen. The airline security didn't let her ride with us yesterday, but she will be coming today. Please pray for her safety.

Thanks all! Love you!

The Best Christmas EVER!

I had the best Christmas/Christmas week EVER! Reasons why:

-The BEST Christmas gift EVER from my brother and sister-in-law! A Kitchen-Aid standmixer! Thanks Bon and Joses! If you know me at all, you would understand just how much I've wanted one of these for a very long time. And it's just exciting spending Christmas with the newlyweds. I loved having bonding times this past week with Bon at their new apartment. Thanks for letting me bake and hang out there!

-Spending Christmas with all my family at my house, and having the youth party at church, building graham cracker houses. good times :)

-Breakfast with Joanna and Joy on Christmas Eve. Thanks Joanna for the Snuggie! It's so warm! And I especially need it right now that my heater is broken at my house. I love it! And thanks for all the sweater! I think sweaters are my favorite article of clothing.

- Feeling accomplished with Team Glasses (a.k.a. Kyle and the Amazing Crisostomos) after recording a demo of an original song by Nate and Kyle. Good job, guys. I'm proud of you.

- Turning in my final paper on Monday and being DONE with the semester! Then regressing with Yen and Easter to watch, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." So fun! I love being a kid.

- Taking a personal retreat...really refreshing and needed that time with God.

- Waking up on Christmas morning, thinking to myself, "Wow! I'm going to be in the place where Jesus lived! The Christmas story will take on a new dimension this year for me!"

-Woot! Leaving for Israel tomorrow! I am so excited! I woke up this morning thinking about this fact and I felt like I was going to explode from excitement!

Now I gotta finish packing...

The Half-Way Point.

Whoo! This semester has been a whirlwind! Starting my semester off with evacuating my house due to fires, then taking two languages at once (which was not the wisest decision), preparing for my brother's wedding, and preparing for the Christmas concert at church...craziness...I know that it was truly only by God's grace that I got through it all. And I am so grateful! Now I have the opportunity to look forward to Israel! Wow, I can't believe we're leaving this Sunday!

And it's Christmas in a little more than 24 hrs. Crazy. Where did the time go?

I'm halfway done with my M.A. program at Talbot. Wow, I can't believe that either. God has been so good to me through it all.

I will be keeping my blog updated while I'm in Israel, so check back often!

Non-Productivity.

I just read this today from the DesiringGod blog, and it was such a good reminder, especially as I am tempted to forget my Sabbath today and have a desire to do something productive-

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2116_you_dont_have_to_be_productive/