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!

Schedules and Other Daily Activities

It is Monday evening, and most of today was filled with multiple teachers introducing themselves and a little about their topic, or some of them giving words of encouragement or introduction to the school without saying much about class itself.
The set-up feels so funny because we only have one classroom, and all of the teachers/pastors just come to us and go to the front of the room to present.
I will admit - this was not a very exciting day.
We're all working pretty consistently on school work already so, now that orientation is over, it's just a matter of establishing a weekly routine.

Several people have been asking about my class schedule, and as far as I know this is what my class-week will look like:
Mondays:
Study Tour of Israel (we'll be going everywhere worth going to in Israel) all day
8:00PM - women's discipleship

Tuesdays:
9:30 - 11:30am : Christ in Prophesy
2:30 -4:30pm : Lectures in Ministry and Theology (various pastors from around Israel come and give lessons)
6:30 - 8:30pm : A required class for 1st semester students

Wednesday:
9:30am - 12:30pm : Revelation
7:00 - 9:00pm : Church History

Thursday:
I don't have any classes

Friday:
10:00 - noon : Daniel

Other classes include a Practical Ministry class which includes doing work around the school like help prepare meals, general cleaning, and helping lead worship.
Also every Tuesday - Friday morning from 8:30 - 9:15 the whole school (all 25 of us) gather for Public Devotional Speaking, which is basically group devotional/worship time.
Other required work is "Chuck Tracks" - which means listening to sermons by Chuck Smith as he goes through the whole bible (he began a loooooooong time ago! Several sermons make references to former presidents like Reagan or Nixon... yeah.). We are required to listen to them, take notes and write a bit of personal application - minimum 1/2 page of writing per sermon, so not hard at all.

On paper it looks like I'm going to be pretty busy... and I might be, but I think Tuesday may turn out to be the only really full day. And I'm told the homework load here isn't bad at all, so I think I will be just fine and dandy when it comes to getting all homework done.

Other news in daily living...
Even though I had to leave my guitar at home there are still opportunities to play music with others at the school. There are 3 guitars among us and a nice keyboard/piano. Out of the 25 students there are about 10 musicians (piano/guitar and/or drums)... so it's a very musical group :)

Jerusalem is a pretty normal big city. One of the most noticeable differences between here and the US is the colors - over here everything is sandy colored, instead of the cement or bricks in America. Also it smells pretty bad here... it's not a very clean city.
A pretty funny difference is the driving! Over here the lines dividing the lanes seem to be more like suggestions instead of actual rules... and as long as you don't hit anything it seems that anything goes - even sidewalk parking where there is room. Drivers here honk at EVERYTHING! ...people, other cars, animals... if they don't like it they honk until it changes. Even street lights sometimes. The drivers are VERY aggressive. From the looks of it, I think that drivers just keep a look out for anything around them and honk a warning - pedestrians keep an eye out for enough space to get across the street - and somehow no one is hit.

The apartment I live at is on Hillel St. right around the block from Ben Yhuda St (the big tourist attraction) - I walk down it everyday to get to the school. :)
The only time I've ever seen that street empty is on Sabbath (pronounced Shu-bot) - the town seems to disappear that day until party breaks out around 9:00pm. All the shops that were closed re-open for a few hours and the whole town seems to come back out from hiding and celebrate.

Tonight was one of the best nights because one of the girls here - Hannah - make scones. mmmmmmm :)
and they are amazing... I'm eating one right now... and for some reason it reminds me of hours I spent at the Bean in Corvallis drinking tea and doing homework.

One other very exciting bit of information! We're going on a trip up to the Galilee this weekend!! The 29th - 31st. It's going to be amazing. oh, yes.
...and yes they call "the Galilee" not just Galilee, for some reason.

Love, joy and peace to you all!!

ps - I'm sorry it's taking so long to get pictures loaded up, but they're coming! I promise!!

The first words from Israel...

I'm HERE!! I arrived in Tel Aviv yesterday afternoon, and have been here now almost 24 hours...

My journey there has been full of excitement and stress. At PDX I almost didn’t get to board the plane because of visa problems (which were solved by an amazing United Airline staff member, by the grace of God!). What happened was - because I'm here on a "short-term" visa, 3-months at a time that I renew by leaving/returning to the country, I didn't need to get a long-term visa before leaving. However I didn't have any proof with me at the airport that I would be leaving withing 3 months. In fact, my tickets said that I would be there for 9 months! So there I was at the counter with tickets and passport, and the lady telling me that I would get to Israel and they wouldn't let me in, and that they couldn't do anything to change my tickets because I bought them through an on-line company... etc.
I nearly had a heart attack.
But then the solution/loop-hole came (Praise God!!). We bought and then immediately cancelled tickets that would have me leaving Israel in 3 months - they are/were real tickets, but I would never be using them. I'll be leaving the country at another time, going someplace else through the school.
The next big issue was a HUGE fee for an extra bag. Because I was flying with several different airlines, they would each charge me for the extra bag - and the total cost was way out of the question. So, very sadly, the bag did not come with me. I didn't bring my guitar either (also very sadly) but in the end I'm glad because it would have been very expensive, stressful and hard to travel with.
From Portland I flew to Chicago. That was interesting because I left the west coast around 10:00 in the morning, and arrived over there in the evening. That was when I really began to loose track of all time.
That airport is HUGE!! And they have a train!
It was fun but frustrating because I entered at Terminal 1 at one end of the airport, but needed to get to Terminal 5 at the exact opposite end, and all the staff kept telling me "just take the train." Which didn't mean much to me because I couldn't find the train, and the directions I was given were super confusing. It all worked out though, I found it and made it to the Terminal with a few minutes to spare, and from there I was on my way to Warsaw.
That was the longest plane ride - about 9 hours I think. They served 2 meals (dinner and breakfast), and I was impressed that the food was not rubbery or un-recognizable. In fact is was pretty good. I was blessed to have no one sitting next to me, so I was able to stretch out a bit and sleep a few hours.
I arrived in Warsaw (in Polish spelled Warszawa) around 2:00pm. Again, I had no sense of time, and had no idea if I was supposed to be tired or not. I would have gotten on-line if I could, but internet wasn't free, and I couldn't figure out how to pay for just a few hours of time... and then my computer battery was dying and I just figured I would update everyone from Israel...
Those 21 hours were fun but tough. I didn't mind being by myself, but it was hard not understanding much of anything around me - and English isn't a popular language to learn over there. I enjoyed the country though, and the people were really nice - even if they didn't speak English. I slept for as long as I could on a bench, with my luggage all locked together around me. I wasn't really tired though, so I didn't sleep very long, or very well (probably about 4 hours total that night). The next morning I was able to get in line to check in for my Tel Aviv flight at 7:00. That is when more excitement came...
I was one of the first of 4 people to be searched and have all of my bags opened, emptied, and gone through. I was a bit freaked out at first just because was my first time every being stopped and searched at an airport. I wasn't sure how it all worked or what was going to happen. But in the end it was a round-about blessing because 2 of the other people were girls headed to the same school as me!! Yay, God! It turned out that one of them, Sara, had been on the same flight from Chicago and spent the night in the airport too. But there we all were, bonding while our stuff was rifled through and taken out and tossed around and questioned... I'm not sure why security stopped all 3 of us, but they knew we were all going to the same place. It was tough to be vague as we answered the questions, but still direct and completely honest.
While they were searching the stuff, the whole terminal we were in had a black-out. It wasn't a huge deal because it was a bright morning outside, but it caused some time delay for the security and most flights. It was stressful, but really no harm was done, and I feel like a seasoned traveler.
When they were finally satisfied we were escorted to the the flight just as the last passengers were boarding (they wouldn't have been allowed to leave without us though, so there was no concern about missing the flight). That flight was about 3 and 1/2 hours long - and also had pretty good food. I realized that because of my lack of time-zone, and my extra time being stolen by the search, I hadn't been eating... so I was hungry and the food was very welcome.
Getting into Israel was amazingly easy at the passport gate for all three of us girls now traveling together. They looked at the passport, looked at me, and stamped in my 3 month visa and we were on our way. The nasher to Jerusalem wasn't hard to find either, and we arrived at the apartment around 5:00pm.
We walked around the area last night, and I'm confident getting around the area immediately surrounding the school and apartment (I'll be posting pictures soon!).
The apartment is a small flat a few blocks from where the school is. There are 11 girls sharing 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, kitchen and living space. It's very cozy, but I think it will be fine. I love the girls already - every one of them is very sweet and fun, and laid back enough to not worry about space/privacy.
The school is located on the second floor in a building a few blocks away. It's basically in a business/office kind of flat. There is enough room for a small little library/study area, and a multi-purpose room that is used as the classroom/cafeteria/meeting room depending on the time of day. Again, pictures will be posted soon!
This is a HUGE long blog story... sorry! I hope you've enjoyed it. More will be coming soon... most likely after orientation or possibly after classes start on Monday.

If you have any questions feel free to comment, or e-mail!
Love, joy and peace to you all!

Heather

...Posting Comments...

Sorry for any confusion, but I found out that in order to post a comment you'll be required to create a Google account... I didn't realize this to begin with! It's super easy though, and free - all it requires is a valid e-mail address and whatever password you want to make up... there are no other strings attached.
To do this, click on the "Comments" listed at the bottom of the blog page, and it will show you what other people have written, as well as give you the option to post your own comment. Bellow the comment writing box are a few options saying Sign In (or something close to it) - and somewhere in that area will be the option to create an ID or account. Then it takes you through a step-by-step to establish your user ID and name, etc... very easy - and like I said - Free! :)

Yay! You Found Me!

This is the site that will tell you how I'm doing while at school in Jerusalem!
A reminder - I'll be attending the Calvary Chapel Bible College of Jerusalem (located in downtown Jerusalem, about a 10 minute walk from the old city).

Current Stats...
My flight leaves the Portland airport on Monday, August 18th around 2:00pm, and I'll arrive in Tel Aviv mid-day on Wednesday. From there I'll be taking a Nasser (a taxi/bus combo) to the front door of the school. Then comes a few days of orientation, and then classes begin! :)

And just so you know...
You will always be allowed to comment on my posts - an easy way to stay in touch and ask questions as I'm writing - and I'll do my best to respond to all the questions!
I would love to know who all is reading, so if you would comment the first time you view the blog here I would appreciate it! (yes - that means now! haha!)

If you want to get in touch with me before I leave you can call me at 503-949-6439, or e-mail me at h_boldt@hotmail.com

love and grace to you all!