The Second Go Round in Israel

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 of life was strange to my senses: ancient roman ruins lying about unnoticed; arab pizza made with goat cheese, goat cheese, and topped with a few eggs; devout followers of the three major monotheistic religions; radically different geography; a blur of unknown languages constanstly buzzing around me; and all in the backdrop of the city and streets where Jesus walked 2,000 years ago. Everything seemed to possess a strange mystical beauty - as though at any moment the supernatural might just show up in the middle of the day... and that such a thing would be perfectly normal.

Now that I am back, the sense of the strangeness of the world around me has faded as quickly as it came, and I am left sitting in a world rather unlike the world I first visited. A few days ago I thinking about the house in which I grew up. As a child, our house seemed like an enormous maze, full of endless nooks to explore and hide in. I have a distinct memory of going often into our backyard WAY back into the woods, across a wide river (over which we built a small bridge out of branches), and around a thorn bush wall into a secret hideout that no one else knew about. Six years ago my brother and I drove back to see the house again, after being gone for ten years. The house was exactly the same as they were before, as were the woods, but now they seemed less imposing and overwhelming, less of a world to get lost in. The woods (much to my dismay) did not go on endlessly into a wild world, nor was my secret hideout remotely invisible from the house (my mom could have stood by the window and watched every move that I thought was so well hidden. The experience was strange to me because everything was exactly the same as I remembered it to be, but I had changed in such a way that it was all completely different. Now in Israel the streets are the same streets and I can still see all those things I remember, but they are less overwhelming and shocking. The world I left was foreign and mysterious; the world I have returned to is familiar and close. It is natural for me to be here. I talk with arabs and israelis and bedouins, with muslims and jews and christians, and it all seems strangely normal.

In coming here for these five weeks I subconsciously expected the awe and wonder I previously felt in seeing the Holy Land. Instead, I have found myself returning to the home of an old friend, who welcomes me briefly and then immediately begins to pick up right where we left off. I love being here.

Partially because of this and partially because I think the anxiousness I have felt the past year to move overseas and live in an arab muslim community is an anxiousness from God (and possibly a means of moving me into a different stage of life), I am considering an opportunity to volunteer as a teacher at a school here in Bet Jalla (a town in the West Bank next to Bethlehem). If the opportunity works out, I'll be sending out support letters with more details about the school and my position, as well as about the local community in Bet Jalla. If you're interested in receiving a letter, send me an email or leave a comment below so I can be sure to include you.