Just Another Day in Jerusalem.

July 7                      

Another wonderful day in Jerusalem. It’s so surreal that I’m actually here. It literally blows my mind every time I think about it. We got to sleep in a little bit today which was really nice, we didn’t have to leave for Kehila until about 10am. Kehila was really awesome because it was Meno’s kehila who is the son of Zvi! It was really cool to be able to see him.

We talked about how you have to choose to be a slave to righteousness or sin. It cannot be one or the other and it cannot be neither. There are people out there who think they can just do whatever they want and it’s ok… they’re in control of their own lives. But in reality, they’re not. They are a slave to something and I don’t know about you, but I would much rather be a slave to righteousness. Yes, that is the harder one because you can’t just follow of the desires of your flesh, but it is the better one!

After Kehila, we got to have a picture with Meno and then we were off to the next adventure! We got to stop at a point and see Bethlehem which was pretty cool. I mean, to see one of the most important places! It’s a little town, but it is definitely not insignificant! We couldn’t go in because it’s Palestinian territory, but just being able to see it was awesome.

From Bethlehem we went to the Israel Museum and the Shrine of the Book. The Shrine of the Book is where the original Dead Sea Scrolls are. I talked more about the Dead Sea Scrolls in my last blog post, but it was so cool being able to see the originals! In the middle they had an exact copy of the Isaiah scroll. It was so interesting and you just read so much information in these museums that it’s hard to contain all the information in your head!

Right near the Shrine of the Book is the Israel Museum. We didn’t have time to walk around the whole thing so we just walked around the archeological part which was awesome. We got to see the stone that mentions the House of David and we also got to see the originals of other things that we had seen copies of. Another thing the museum had was a model of Jerusalem in AD 68 I believe.  Don’t hold me to that… but it was the year that Josephus described. This was only a few years after Yeshua which means that it was probably almost the same as when Yeshua knew it. It was really interesting being able to see Jerusalem as Yeshua probably saw it!

After the Israel Museum we got to go back to the hotel to hang out. It was a free night so we could either hang around the hotel or a small group of us went back to the Western Wall so that we could wave to our parents over the cameras! It was really fun. We got to embarrass ourselves by looking like huge tourists waving at a camera that you can’t even really see! But I know we were seen because Matt was able to get a hold of his parents and they saw us! Gabby’s parents also said they saw her. I haven’t been able to get on the internet so I don’t know if my dad saw me yet! Anyway, it was fun to just hang out with them and dance and laugh… you know, the usual! It was also really neat being able to see all the Jewish people there still celebrating Shabbott. It was definitely not as crowded as Friday night but there were still people there! The boys went in to pray at the wall again… the girls spied on them and took pictures. Anyway, we were able to have a good conversation with each other and Chris about all kinds of different things about what different people believe about Israel. It’s really interesting to hear about because it just blows my mind when I think about all the people that are against or even just indifferent against Israel. It’s such a huge part of Christianity I just can’t even believe what some people think about Israel sometimes. It’s just a really sad thing.

But yeah, we didn’t get back until a little later and then we walked and got ice cream before bed, nothing too eventful… just spending time with these people as much as I can because the day is coming too soon that I have to leave them! It’s crazy to think that I have seen these people every day for a whole month and now I’ll just talk to them every so often over the internet… ok I can’t talk about this, it’s making me emotional. Good night!