Life in Bloom

Hello from Israel!  We made it!

We arrived as the sun was setting over the Mediterranean Sea.  The waves were crashing over the sand and it was absolutely beautiful.  It was hard to get a picture from the van, but hopefully this one gives you an idea:

Yesterday was a crazy day of traveling.  My friend Elizabeth was a lifesaver helping me get to the Atlanta airport in the morning, and we managed to avoid traffic and make it on time.  We then had a 5 hour layover in New York City before our 13 hour flight to Tel-Aviv.

I was hoping to sleep on the plane (I even took a sleeping pill), but I wasn’t feeling so hot and didn’t get much sleep.  Plus it’s always awkward when you’re trying to sleep in the middle seat and then you wake up and realize your head has turned to the side and is suddenly 4 inches from the stranger in the seat next to you.  I did manage to see 3 of the 4 movies on the flight: Moneyball, Larry Crowne, and parts of Jane Eyre.  The other movie was Crazy, Stupid, Love, which I had already seen and thought was mostly the middle word in the title.

We finally arrived in Tel-Aviv and it is undoubtedly the most beautiful airport I’ve ever been to.  It’s sleek, modern, stylish, clean, and surprisingly quiet.  We then drove through Tel-Aviv to a smaller town 20 minutes outside of the city where we’ll be staying the next few days (I have no idea what the name of this town is…whoops!).  It’s funny–when we got to our hotel, we were quickly reminded that Israel is indeed in Asia.  The room is minimalist, modern, and tiny!  Even our beds are super small–I’m only 5’3 and the mattress is almost too short for me!

We ended our first night in Israel with a short time for Scripture, prayer, and some introductions.  There are 19 students from 3 different seminaries in our group (the actual conference with people from all over the world doesn’t start for a few days–we’re just doing some touring before it begins!).  It was great to learn from everyone and learn about their seminaries, too.  Our tour guide joined us, which was awesome.  He told us about how he got involved in tourism.  His name is Wisam and he’s a Palestinian and a Christian.  He has a degree in social work and everyone in his family works on art carvings, so he didn’t get involved in tourism for business or the money.  He wanted to meet people and share his faith.  He said groups would tour his hometown (Bethlehem), and tourists would ask him when he converted to Christianity.  He quickly told us to always remember that Christianity is this area’s biggest export to the West–after all, this is where it all began!

And, Wisam has a pretty interesting Duke Divinity connection that my classmates might appreciate.  That beautiful mother of pearl carving of Jerusalem in the Terrace Room?  Wisam and his family made that!

So all in all, day 1 in Israel was brief but very good.  It’s so strange having internet access and being able to update this as we go.  I always disconnect from the world when I travel, but since this trip and the seminar are for one of my courses this spring semester, we all needed to bring our computers.  I’m not sure what the internet connection will be like in Jerusalem, but we’re trying to figure out a way to watch the national championship game on Monday (it will be on at 3am on Tuesday here!).  As for the Steelers, it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to watch the playoff games, but I’m still sporting the black and gold here.  Tomorrow includes tours of Caesarea, Nazareth, and 2 other places tomorrow.  Goodnight!!