Life

Eid

2009-09-25T20:02:00.007+03:00

Eid (pronounced like ede and aid mixed together)This Saturday the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan, ended. The Muslims spend an entire month fasting from any food or drink during daylight hours (and from a number of other things during both daylight and nighttime hours, as well). Their month ends with four days of celebration (eating, drinking, meeting with family, having get togethers into the

A busy new life

2009-08-25T18:43:00.007+03:00

For the ADD:I am here! I was sick, but I'm almost better. I was without a home, but now I have one. Classes started yesterday: I am neither a terrible teacher nor am I as good a teacher as I hoped to be from the get go. I am teaching English Literature to grades 7-9 and Bible to grade 12. Another teacher hasn't yet arrived, so I have taken over teaching some of his classes as well (putting me at

The Second Go Round in Israel

2009-05-26T09:10:00.006+03:00

When I came to Israel two and a half years ago, my mind was almost always in a state of shock over the foreign world around me (full of bizarre foods, strange languages, and the occasional religious zealot walking around in priestly robes and prophesying over the city and those in it) and amazement that I was living in the very lands where God had worked out His redemptive history. Every aspect

Wadi Kelt

2009-05-21T08:52:00.005+03:00

While studying at JUC we did a hike down the Ascent of Adumim, the road Jesus talks about in his parable of the good Samaritan. That hike was enormously insightful into how the robber could have been lying in wait for the man, as well as what it would mean for the others to pass by on “the other side of the

Israel with the Pope

2009-05-12T19:49:00.004+03:00

Two days ago I saw the Pope ('s car... I think). Because I so badly wanted to see the Pope, I sat on a rooftop overlooking the Jaffa gate for three hours without sunscreen (airport security confiscated it for being too large of a quantity - something about "if there's a difference between weight ounces and fluid ounces, we don't care. You only get 3 fluid ounces, so you only get 3 weight

Flashback

2006-12-18T09:13:00.000+02:00

During the four or five weeks of my slacking non-blogging era there was one particular event that deserves being recorded, although it is almost entirely unrelated to the land of Israel or the Bible. That event is Thanksgiving dinner. Now, by Thanksgiving dinner I of course mean the true Thanksgiving dinner. You see, every Friday night our school did a Shabbath - Sabbath - dinner where everyone

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem...

2006-12-14T06:35:00.000+02:00

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

On Jordan's "stormy" banks I stood

2006-11-10T00:18:00.000+02:00

A long Explanation of a short matter like a true Bullock: A few days ago, Saturday morning to be exact, I woke up at 4:30am in order to accomplish my various morning activities in time to catch our bus to Jordan, which was leaving at 6:00am. Getting up around that time wouldn't have been a problem had it not been a Saturday morning and had my roomate not suggested at 10:30 the night before

It's official, I am a slacker

2006-11-03T21:26:00.000+02:00

I realize that I haven't blogged in over a week, despite the fact that I went on a four day exibition with my class to the Galillee. What's more, I'm leaving tomorrow morning at 6:00 am - which is 11:00pm today for ya'll - on a four day trip into the Jordan where i will not have internet access. That means that the earliest i could possibly post anything else here would be next Wednesday, unless

The Guys in Galilee

2006-10-24T20:36:00.000+02:00

Last weekend, four of us guys took a trip up to the Galilee. Ben, Benaiah, John, and myself realized sometime around wednesday night that we had a free weekend coming up, which doesn't happen often, and decided to head up to the Galilee. Rather than plan out the entire weekend, we opted to just head north and see what happened. So it was that Friday afternoon we hopped in a car the size of my

Domari Gypsy community center

2006-10-19T13:44:00.000+02:00

Twice a week I go to the Domari school to teach english to a few kids. It's a community center run by a gyspy lady, Amoun, who is trying to help the gyspy people become better advanced in society. Pretty much anywhere they are the gyspies are considered outcasts; the jews consider them arab muslims, but the arab muslims consider them social untouchables. In schools they get a poorer education,

Lessons from Israel

2006-10-16T21:28:00.000+02:00

Here are a few things i've learned over here in Israel: ~ "coffee" apparently doesn't mean coffee, it means cappicino and you'll pay about five dollars for a small cup ~ eveyone here speaks more languages than you do, just get used to the fact that you're an arogant american who thinks he's educated but can still barely even speak english ~ any price a shopkeeper gives you is just a little

I feel so postmodern keeping up a blog site...

2006-10-10T00:52:00.000+02:00

This weekend, meaning last weekend because i haven't gotten a chance to spend any extensive time online in the past week, was incredible. For my physical settings of the Bible class we spent three day wandering around the southern half of Israel. Some highlights: we visited the sorek valley, which is where Samson grew up and defended Israel for 20 years; we also went into the Elah valley, where

Back to last monday - the search for Keriath-yearim

2006-10-01T19:18:00.000+02:00

In the past six days i have seen and done far more than i could hope to record in any size less than a small book, so i'll keep the stories abbreviated and selective. The next three or four days i'll likely post every day about the three day long field study we just got back from last night, so i'll tell the stories day by day. Jumping back to sunday, the school was quiet and the two of us, Ben

Conviction

2006-09-27T11:16:00.000+03:00

This morning I began reading The Heavenly Man which about a chinese believer, brother Yun. I want to let you read part of the second chapter I read this morning about his first years as a christian, because these five pages broke my heart today. Background: brother Yun's mother became a christian when she was young but she drifted away shortly after all the Christians were heavily persecuited

What to blog about?

2006-09-25T19:06:00.000+03:00

So much has happened the past few days I hardly have time to blog about it. Today is Monday. Hmmm.... well, my last blog was on Tuesday writing about last Sunday. Phew. Well, most weekends we have a field study trip on either Saturday or Sunday; however, this weekend was one of our few weekends off, so three quarters of the school disappeared from campus. The 12 of us who were left spent a

Benjamin

2006-09-20T17:51:00.000+03:00

Did you know...somewhere around sixty percent of all Bible stories that can be places on a map took place in the land given to the tribe of Benjamin? Which happens to be where we went for our field study this Sunday after our expidition around Eilat. Other than being completely exhausted, the day was incredible. And aparently we picked a good weekend for Eilat because this upcoming weekend starts

Thursday - Saturday : Eilat

2006-09-18T17:47:00.000+03:00

Apart from running around constantly trying to get seventy million things, I didn't do a whole lot last week. This weekend a group of us went down to Eilat, which took a great deal of planning and insanity on my part. Since Wednesday morning, today is the first time I've had time to sit back and chill for a while. Thursday afternoon we left class early so we could get to the bus station on time

The "Citadel of David" and the "Tomb of Solomon"

2006-09-09T19:50:00.000+03:00

Other than attending classes for eight and a half hours this Tuesday, I also took it upon myself to explore two new locations: "David's Citadel" and "Solomon's Tomb." They're both in quotations because David didn't build his citadel nor was he alive anywhere near the time it was built, and becuase Solomon isn't buried in his tomb, or this one at least, and neither is anyone else, which makes it a

Trekin through the Old City lookin at walls

2006-09-08T21:15:00.000+03:00

These pictures are from the field study we did on this previous Sunday. Basically we walked around the Old City looking at walls and old archealogy sites with parts of walls. Although the topic sounds incredibly boring, which it did to me at the time as well, we had a blast running around the city trying to identify how many thousands of years this or that stone block has been around. Since

Garden, Hinnom, and into the night

2006-09-06T03:20:00.000+03:00

Of course I am a "few" days behind in my posts, but it is hard to sit down for any extended period of time here. You see, I am faced hourly with at least two options: I can sit down on a computer or read a book or do some research, or I can explore the old city of Jerusalem and see all the things that it has to offer. I do not often choose the former. This Sunday we spent the entire day doing a

The Mount of Olives

2006-09-02T20:21:00.000+03:00

Wednesday, August 30Ben and I walked the fourty-five mintute hike up - more up than we at first expected - to the top of the mount of olives. The place was entirely amazing, as well as entirely not what we expected. The side of the Mount of Olives facing Jerusalem is covered with graves. Thousands of white graves fill the mountain side, which is quite a surprising sight when you're expecting a

Monday Outing

2006-08-30T10:51:00.001+03:00

Pictures from Monday's outing:The Dome of the Rock by the Western Wall- this entire area is the muslim quarter of the Old CityWe were walking along the wall, the city wall around Jerusalem, when the muslim call to prayer started going and went on for about three or four minutes. The call is played through these loud speakers so that is spreads throughout the entire city. If i am correct, these

Welcome to Israel

2006-08-28T12:33:00.000+03:00

........My First Sunset from Mount Zion........This is our third day here in Israel, though it feels like we've been here weeks. I have actually lost track of time so much that I caught myself going to call my mom twice in the same day, thinking it was a few days later and about time to give her a call. The city is incredible! My school sits right on top of Mount Zion overlooking the valley of