Dreams for me can sometimes be so real that I cannot destinguish between dreams and reality. I wake up in an odd daze not entirely sure where I am or what is actually happening. The intensity of the feeling typically lasts about thirty seconds and then fades off during the next hour or two.
I am on the fourth day of those thirty seconds, and yet likely less than half way through. The down side of living in Jerusalem is the strange imprint it leaves on your mind when you leave to go home. Somehow it claims a piece of your grasp on reality for itself, utterly refusing to let go. I finally got home this Monday around two o'clock after traveling for to many days back to back. I realize, of course, I haven't written anything for a month now, and I apologize. I have spent the past few weeks finishing papers, taking in the last breaths of Israel I might ever have, and traveling the breath of Egypt, hence the pictures below : )
I am glad to be home again; I've been gone for quite some time now. Still, I cannot grasp the dreaming/waking sensation. I expected that on coming home my mind would be full of rapid fire thoughts and that the difficult part would be sorting through all of them. Instead, I have been left with a daze I don't understand and a strange feeling that something inside me is changing that I won't understand until it is done. As a result I feel as though I have little to say right now. My only consistent thought is that God is good, truly good. I am deeply grateful for how generous He has been to me the past few months. I have been allowed to see what most westerners will never see in their lifetime. I have travelled the land of the Bible at such a young age, and now I have the rest of my life to reap the benefit of seeing the Bible in this new light. I cannot possibly hope to express how drastically differently I see the Bible now that I have been there. If you ever get a chance to go, go. Ignore the media; they're lying. Just go. JUC offers short term groups. Go to their websight right now and sign up before they fill. Oh yeah, and take me with you if you decide to go. I would have no hesitation going again.
Enough of my rambling. Here are some pictures of Egypt:
Ahhh... the age old symbols of egypt, the pyramids. Yup, they're pretty small : )
Ok, so maybe their not that small. This is, of course, myself, Jess, and Ben. We're like three peas in a pod. Ben a great friend and Jess is my twin.
How about that? Riding camels in the Egyptian wilderness!
Ben and I paid off the camel guys - a total of five dollars - and they let us ride solo while everyone else was paired up in doubles. We then proceeded to kick our camels as hard as we could to race them past everyone...
Interesting note: have you ever noticed how arabic music seems to follow a strange rythm? It is patterned after the steps of a camel.
And you thought Napoleon was the one who took off the nose. Ha!
The highlight of our Egypt trip was climbing Mount Sinai at 2am in order to be at the top by 5am when the sun rose. This is a few of us attempting to stay warm shortly after the sun came up. I love these girls. They're basically family! From left right: Karen, Jess, myself, and Meredith.
We gathered as a group after the sun rose and Ben Post quoted Exodus 13 - moses' encounter with the burning bush-, Ben Zipf quoted Exodus 19 - at the foot of Mount Sinai -, and I quoted Exodus 20 - the giving of the Ten Commandments. What an honor to speak the Law of God at the place where the Law was given! Like I said, God is good.
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