Best Job Ever!

June 19

Shalom, shalom! Yet another great day here in Israel. We woke up bright and early to go to the hospital. Good thing I’m so used to not sleeping that much in college because I love staying up to get all my thoughts together and reflect on the day.

I’m having some trouble trying to remember everything that happened! I got to clean the air conditioners on the 4^th floor today with the babies! So cute. It was kinda funny because we ended up waiting for Chris a while because we didn’t know how to clean the different types of air conditioners. So, we entertained ourselves by making a bunch of videos and just having fun. We finally, after some confusion and getting a little bit lost, found Beibier and he taught us until we went to lunch and found Chris again! So, it was a good day for the air conditioning crew! I love getting to talk to all kinds of different people. We got to talk to several women today just getting to know them. One woman had just had twins that morning! Everyone is so kind and they are just in awe that we came here just because of our love for Israel. It’s truly amazing. 

We also got interviewed for the Jerusalem Post today which was pretty cool. I mean, it's an international newspaper! But the stories of some people on my team are so awesome. One of the girls on my team is actually getting married in September and she gave up a month of her summer of wedding planning to serve in Israel. I believe we have four birthdays here in Israel. And there's one girl who's mom gave up going on a nursing trip to Ecuador so that her daughter could go to Israel to serve. The hearts of this team is absolutely inspiring. They are wonderful! 

Oh, and the tomatoes here are so good. They have so much flavor! Haha, sorry. That was random.

Anyway, other members of the team are building great relationships. Some of them were even invited to Shabbot to their homes on Friday! It’s so cool. We’ve been learning to speak their language. Not necessarily Hebrew, but to speak in terminology that they understand. And they are listening! They are watching everything we do. I always try and have a smile on my face which isn’t hard because I really enjoy what I do. They love it.

It just makes me realize how much joy I get from serving the Lord. I am always the most happy when I am doing some kind of service. I mean, who knows what God has for me in the future but I am truly willing to serve and to follow what He has for me.

We talked about Philippians again tonight during devotions and we talked about how Paul writes to them and thanks them over and over for partnering with him. Their support meant everything to him. It just reminds me how important the people are who work for the Lord and how impactful people like us can be to them. In some way, whether I end up being a worker for the Lord myself, or if I end up serving Him elsewhere, I will support someone in the ministry. We can’t take them for granted. They need us just as we need them. This is what God has called us to do. 1 Thessalonians says, “Rejoice always, pray continually; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Sometimes, it’s not exactly clear what God’s will is, but THIS is God’s will. Rejoice and pray. This is what life is about!

The girls also got the chance to go to Kehila tonight for a ladies Bible study which was really interesting. We talked about how God created each gender with different characteristics which you can basically learn from the book of Genesis! When they eat the forbidden fruit and they are cursed, they are cursed with certain characteristics. Woman, childbearing, mothering, love and affection… it all includes emotion. Men, hard work. They need strength and patience which requires them to think logically and rationally. Women are more based on emotion which is why they're more easily deceived. In God's Word, it says that only the woman was deceived. That's because when Adam ate the fruit it was a deliberate CHOICE. When he realized that Eve ate the fruit, he had a decision to make. He knew that something bad was going to happen to her, so his choice was to obey God but then live a life without his beautiful wife, or to follow his wife into death. He chose to go with his wife because he could not imagine a life without her. This is why it says for women not to teach in the church. They are more easily deceived. Not meaning that men are never deceived, of course they are. But they are more logical and rational because that's the way God created for them to be. They are complimentary to each other. They fit together. It's not a good or bad thing that each one is created this way, it just the way the world works.Man, I can’t even remember all the stuff we talked about at the moment. We talked for about two hours (of course we had to pause for the Hebrew translation as well) but our speaker is so intelligent and wise and I respect him a lot. And of course they fed us ice cream. I LOVE ice cream. I could eat it all day. They have these things called Magnum bars. DELICIOUS. I could eat all of them. Seriously. The people in the Kehila are just amazing people as well. I’m so excited to get to know them more and more. They have so many questions and they have such a zeal for God.

When we got back we were able to just laugh and hang out with the guys and watch funny videos. And before we knew it it was midnight! We’ll see how I feel tomorrow, but hey. Six hours is plenty for me!

I love relationships. I love getting to know the Jewish culture and all about the people that live here. I also love getting to know my team. I thrive off of relationships so I am absolutely loving this experience.