One month gone!

I’ve been IN Israel now for a month and a few days!! And it’s really starting to gain a home-feel! I am happy to say that while I do miss the community and fellowship I was in back home in Oregon, I am not homesick (Praise the Lord!!). Several other students are dealing with this issue – so keep them in your prayers… I’ve also been slowly picking up little Hebrew phrases, but nothing to get too excited about yet. Just the super basics – hello, yes, no, thank you… etc. Hopefully 8 more months will teach me more!

Today for our Israel Study Tours class (which happens every Monday) we went to Yad Vashem – Jerusalem’s Holocaust Museum. It was certainly a very powerful experience. We were not allowed to take any pictures inside, but it was alright outside – so there will be a few pictures up in the next week… I don’t really know what to say about it honestly. It’s one of those places you have to see for yourself. I do wish we would have had longer to look around; it really could take several days to go through. But since I’ll be here through the December break I expect I’ll go back and make in an ALL day trip. If any of you ever have the chance to go to any such museum it is worth it (I know there is a big one in Washington DC some of you may have been to).

My favorite class has hit a speed bump – and that is our required reading: “All the Messianic Prophesies of the Bible” by Herbert Lockyer. It’s TOUGH to read through. It’s like a very dense text book – the kind filled with so much info on one page that getting through it is like wading through waste-deep mud in the middle of winter. It’s a VERY interesting book – but every time I pick it up it seems like I hit a brick wall after about 10 pages… and we were supposed to read 7 chapters this week = about 125 pages… hmmmm…. haha! Fortunately I know I’m not alone in my wading-through-mud feeling – most all of the other students I’ve talked to feel exactly the same way. It is still my favorite class for its topic… but pray for my diligence in getting through the reading.

Also in the area of school work – I’m working on a report about the Dead Sea Scrolls. We can choose to write about any aspect regarding the scrolls – and so far I’m researching the Copper Scroll… very interesting because it supposedly is a map to hidden temple treasure. But it can’t be found because so many of the sites referenced don’t exist anymore! Funny, eh?! :)

Another bit of news – I may be going on a trip to Jordan this semester! If I go I’ll be a part of a 9-person team of students from our school going to help a church sponsor a medical clinic happening October 3rd-8th. Most likely there wouldn’t be much opportunity for touristy-things (like Petra), but who knows?! Even still, it would be an amazing trip! There are only 9 seats available to go, and already 3 of them are assigned and about 12 more people who want to fill the last 6 seats. Haha! So please just pray that we are sensitive to the Lord’s leading and put together the perfect team that He has planned. Even if I don’t end up going – the team would certainly benefit from more prayer covering! I’ll keep you all posted when I know for sure if I’m going or not – most likely I’ll know by the end of this week…

Love, joy and peace to you all!

School and Travels

Yes – finally a new update!! This blog site isn’t allowing me to upload photos, so I’ve been working on uploading them to my photobucket.com site… so now you can go there anytime you want and look at my “Israel” photos – which are mostly home and Jerusalem photos, and the “Israel Travels” album – which has photos of trips the school has taken…

The link is:
http://s231.photobucket.com/albums/ee15/boldt25/

As for travels… wow! Lots to say!

First of all – a week and a half ago the school took a trip up to the Galilee area. It was a three day trip, and we visited several amazing historical/biblical sites!

The first day (Friday) we started by going up to Mount Carmel and looked over the Plain of Megiddo (where the battle of Armageddon will take place). From there we went down to stay the night in Tiberias.
The second day we stopped first at Nimrod’s Fortress – amazing ancient fortress ruins (lots of pictures of this place), followed by a trip to the temple to Pan (Greek goad god) at Caesarea Philippi in the area of Tel Dan. That day ended with us joining a messianic church service in Tiberias (the pastor is who we were staying with for the weekend), and outreach/worship downtown.

The last day started with an hour of sailing on the Sea of Galilee – VERY fun! The crew brought a bunch of drums and started a drum circle with us out on the water. After sailing we drove up to the top of the Mount of Beattitudes – this was a very interesting place because it is owned by the Roman Catholic Church, and the site is covered by a beautiful church and convent. Next stop that day was the high places at Bethsaida (I don’t remember to what god the high places/alter was built). The last stop that day was the Jordan River, where several people were baptized and we all went for a swim. It was funny because the water was generally only up to our knees… but it was very welcome on such a hot day. And that night we drove back to Jerusalem…

It was a really fun trip! We drove around in rented cars – which we packed to the max. It turned into a great bonding experience for us all too… it was SO HOT up there all weekend we were all sweaty and stinky and packed together into these cars – there was nothing to do but be friendly! I don’t know how, but being just as hot, sweaty and uncomfortable as those around you is great for bonding… haha! J

More recently, the Monday of this week we all went to the Shrine of the Book Museum where many of the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept. For those of you who aren’t completely familiar with why these are special – most of these scrolls are the oldest known copies of historical/biblical texts ever found. One of the most famous is the “Great Isaiah Scroll” which is the most complete of any scroll, as well as the longest scroll (something like 730 cm or just over 24 ft long!). These scrolls were written by the Essenes in Quamran. It’s a really long story to explain who these people were and what they did – so if you want to know more about them I recommend you Google it… it’s a pretty interesting history lesson…

A random funny thing – I’ve learned to eat pomegranates without making a huge mess!

I’m starting to miss a few things from home… it’s not homesickness - it's more like things that are very middle-eastern instead of American that I would change -
For example coffee. I enjoy a good cup of coffee, but it is SO expensive to buy a cup of coffee here! There is no such thing as “house coffee” – the closest is an americano – but the cheapest you can find it is about 12 shekels, equal to about $3.50 (for an americano!). More exciting drinks get into the $5-6 range… so I don’t drink coffee very often (not a huge inconvenience). You might suggest buying coffee grounds, but that is also pretty expensive…

Thank you all so much again for the love and prayers you continue to tell me about! It means a lot to know people are thinking of me back home! J
If any of you want specific prayer requests shoot me an e-mail (h_boldt@hotmail.com) and I’d be happy to give more detail…

Much love to you all!