Dad and I knew that the second part of this trip (when he was here with me) would be much less organized than the previous half.  The dig was a very scheduled few weeks and when there was free time there was always a group of people organizing something that I was free to join.  So basically I did very little planning.  The only thing I was in charge of planning was my 3rd hike up Mt. Arbel (approx. 4 hours) because I was one of two people who knew the hike that time.

Here is a picture from that hike...you tell me if 4 hours on three occasions in 100 degree heat was worth it...

the answer is yes, in case you didn't know. That is looking out over the Sea of Galilee.  The city on the far right of the photo is Tiberias and the dark patch of woods by the water on the left side of the photo is the Ginnosar Kibbutz where I stayed for the dig.  Amazing.

I really do miss the dig in some ways but this half of the trip has been so much fun.  I have never learned so much on any trip ever.  Nor have I ever had a desire to come back to my hotel and read/study every night.  Ha ha.  Scripture is different when you are reading about where you were walking 2 hours earlier.

Today is our last full day of exploring Jerusalem.  I have been kinda sick the last couple days.  I was able to ignore it the last two days but it finally caught up with me today and I had to come back to the hotel early to rest for a while.  I've been really dizzy for days on end...its kind of comical actually.  At times I walk as though I've had too much to drink.  My sense of balance is way off sometimes. 

Tomorrow Dad and I are going with Mary, a guide that the Truman University group (they were at the dig with me) used, to Bethlehem to see the Church of the Nativity, a refugee camp, shepherd's field, and the surrounding area.  There isn't as many sites to see there as there is important conflict to be aware of.  The danger is not posed to us but to any Israeli who would want to travel with us.  When we go, Mary will enter through a separate part because she is an Israeli citizen.  

Tuesday we are gonna go to Masada, Dead Sea, Ein Gedi.  Then we'll check out of our hotel here and head North to stay one night at the Kibbutz and visit the dig and the sites up that direction (most of which I've already been to).  I think it'll be a great way to end the trip...our last full night by the Sea of Galilee...perfect.  Then our flight leave on Friday morning at 12:40 am.  

Because I didn't blog much this past week (lack of internet access) there are lots of interesting stories that I haven't shared with you.  We'll have to save that for conversations in the States.

Some proof that Dad and I really have been in Jerusalem...

Haley Kate

Dad is finally here!

June 23, 2009
Dad is finally here!
After taking a taxi from the kibbutz to Tiberias, then taking a bus to Jerusalem and finally taking one last taxi to my hotel, I arrived to find out my reservation had been canceled…twice. At least that was what the German receptionist was explaining to me as I stood in the lobby with suitcase and guitar in hand with my full pack on my back. Great…now what?
However, after showing her some paper work and listening to her whisper to her boss about who knows what for about 20 minutes, she finally handed me a key and gave me a room number, 517. So I got on the elevator the size of a small closet and there was no level 5. So I went up as far as this elevator would take me and got off. Then took a flight of stairs up to the 5th floor (my suitcase sounding like I dropped it off a balcony with every step it slammed into as I dragged it up behind me).
Once I got situated in my room I called Ingrid, a friend from the dig who I knew would be staying at Ecce Homo (which is in the Old City) while I am in Jerusalem. She and I met up at the Jaffa Gate (located on the west side of the Old City) and she took me on my inaugural walk through Old Jerusalem. We stopped at the Western Wall to pray—that was surreal—which was a great way to start off my time in Jerusalem.
After walking around for about a couple hours or so we stopped at “Everest Kafeteria” to get a drink. This was one of the funniest experiences I have had yet in Israel. I don’t have time to type out the story now but I can tell you about it when I get home…let’s just say we got fed for free and made friends with Ziad, the store owner?, who I think would marry Ingrid if she consented.
Ingrid and I had a great night talking and enjoying all the free food and drink that Ziad kept bringing out, even though we said “no thank you” repeatedly. Continuing our walkthrough after our episode at the café, we walked past a lot of the well-known sites in the Old City but I didn’t go in because I wanted to wait for Dad. Eventually we ended up back at Jaffa Gate and parted ways. Dad and I are planning to meet up with her for dinner or something one night.
Back at the hotel, I was walking up to the elevator doors when I heard my name and turned to see Dad. He was at the coffee bar, of course. I ran over and gave him a huge hug. We spent the rest of the night chatting in our room and then went out to get some food for Dad.
Monday morning we headed into the Old City. We went to the Church of the Redeemer, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Burnt House Museum, the Western Wall (Dave, I kissed it for you), walked through each of the Jewish, Armenian, Christian and Muslim Quarters, the Temple Mount, (to name a few) and got lost I don’t know how many times. Being lost never lasts long though because it really isn’t that big of a place.
Standing inside the walls of the Temple Mount and walking up to the Dome of the Rock was the strangest feeling. Knowing that we were standing where the Temple had been, where Jesus took a whip and drove the animals out of what had become a “den of thieves”, where countless lives had been lost in battles over the centuries and where so much is yet to happen…words fail to describe.
Jerusalem seems far from the quiet life of the kibbutz and worlds away from Carmel, Indiana. Dad and I are so excited, yet overwhelmed to be here.
Internet now costs us each time we want to use it so you may hear from us less often but we’ll check in when we can. I might write posts a few nights in a row but not be able to put them online until later so who knows.
If you are the praying type, please pray with us that we would be sensitive to what the Lord wants to do in our hearts while we are here, for continued safety, and that we would be willing to learn and to look beyond the protestant, mid-western, American paradigm we have grown up in.
Haley Kate

I get very distracted when I come to the museum to check internet stuff cause i keep finding family online to video chat with.  It is such a different experience of communication internationally than other experiences I've had abroad.  It seems too easy to get online and see my dad's face as we talk about his upcoming arrival.  It is so convenient but some of the mystery of being abroad seems to fade a bit.  But I'm grateful.

So I'm sitting on the back of the museum here at the Ginnosar Kibbutz and it is a really windy day.  There are a handful of people out windsurfing on the Galilee.  I keep laughing out loud when ever one of them is gracefully gliding across the water and BAM!  They totally bite it and face plant into the sea...oh it's good times.  :)

Ok, so they are falling so much that I've decided to put in an * whenever I see a windsurfer bite it.  

* no but really...

Tomorrow is my last day at the dig.  I really will be sad to leave.  Shai, a volunteer at the site who has lived at the kibbutz for over half his life, ask me this question: What is the difference between a volunteer and a slave?   Answer: a slave gets paid.   Yeah, we are pretty much paying to do slave labor in some ways.  We spend a significant amount of time digging, hauling dirt, moving rocks and attempting to move boulders.    However, he does exclude the fact that another difference is that volunteers (some) actually like to do that.  I am one of them.  All of that * hard work seems to fade from memory when we are passing around a roman ax from the 1st century, as we did yesterday afternoon.  

I have learned a LOT about archaeology by being on the dig site.   I was talking to my dad yesterday and I told him that I will never be able to look at pottery in a museum the same way again.  When they are on display at an exhibit, the all look similar and quite boring really.  But now that I know what it takes to get them, how exciting it is to excavate them and the ** significance of even miniscule pieces of pottery, it makes the museum experience more exciting.   Wow, that sounds so nerdy.  It's ok.  I'll own it.

My experience here at the Ginnosar Kibbutz and at the dig has been irreplaceable.  I have absolutely loved it.  History has become much more tangible and exciting for me.  I am also absolutely humbled by how much I don't know.  I have learned an incredible amount about archaeology that I really don't think I ever would have understood in this way had I just been reading about it.  Plus I've had the amazing privilege of intersecting with so many great people who have come and gone to volunteer at the dig.

*** (those are the one's I forgot to include cause I was in the middle of typing.)

There really is SO much I could share about but I have to get to pottery reading--our last one :(

If i get a chance to write some tomorrow I will otherwise I probably wont have a chance to until I get into Jerusalem this weekend.

so grateful,

Haley

Dad's arrival: 3 days and counting (yes it will be on Father's Day)

my sabbath

Its Sunday afternoon and I have not stepped off the kibbutz all day but it has been great.  I'm taking today as a sabbath day to relax, read, write and talk with strangers on the kibbutz.  The group traveling around today is going to the same places I went last weekend so I decided to hang out here since I'll be revisiting those sites with dad in a couple weeks anyway.

Today had been amazing. I got up and took a book to breakfast.  Then I made my way down to the sea to sit under a shade awning where I continued reading, journaling, and observing all the tourists who were taking the "Jesus Boat" tour around the lake.  The  boat has this funny ritual and I am becoming quite cultured because of it.  Whenever a new tour group gets on the boat, the crew plays the national anthem of whatever country the group is from as it raises their flag on a pole on the little boat.  I was sitting about 200 yds from the dock they were leaving from so I heard the North Korean, German, American, Hungarian, German again, and French national anthems.  It was a good way to start the morning.  

The last few evenings of "Seaside Philosophy" (by the way, my name caught on and its great) have been really rich.  Thursday evening was the last night for one of the groups who have been on the dig with me.  It started as a small group and grew as the night went on.  The Lord orchestrated an incredible evening discussion that I could not have planned if I wanted to.  Lets just say that it ended with the Gospel and even the drunk friends in the circle seemed sober for a while.  (I can tell you more about that evening in person if you ask but there are too many details to write about).  Oh and then we all sang one more song together very loudly and really never on key, at the request of one of our more hydrated friends. 

Last night it ended up just being me, Justin, and Jordan.  We brought the guitar and a mellon that the boys had taken from a local field.  Apparently they had no idea how to pick out a good mellon because when they handed it to me and I literally felt it squish through the rind, I knew we would not be partaking of any mellon that evening.  Justin served in Iraq for a while and had been to Israel on this same trip before.  Jordan is a political science major from Truman State U and he is on his first trip to Israel as I am.  The three of us talked for about an hour and a half. Some of what we talked about lead me to these conclusions:

Being here makes me feel really small--I love it.  I have met so many people from so many very different walks of life here.  Believers and nonbelievers, nationals and ex-pats, old and young, those who support the palestinians and those who support the Israelis and those who are indifferent, some who have traveled the world and some who have never left their home town (or kibbutz)...the list goes on.  It is absolutely beautiful.  Being in Israel is causing my life to intersect with so many people who I would have never had the privilege of knowing or seeing otherwise.  The diversity of these people adds to my awareness of how small I am.

Standing on top of Megiddo--a place with thousands of years of history and ruins of civilization on top of civilization is such a different experience with history than standing in a 150 year old house at a historic site in the States.  When I look out over the Jezreel Valley, I know I'm being amazed at a view that has amazed people long before Christ walked the earth.  Pulling something out of the earth that has been covered for centuries is an intimate moment with the past.  The history of these places adds to my awareness of how small I am.

And yet, the God of all of these places, the God who wants to be in the lives of all of these people, steps in to love me more intimately than I could ever ask or imagine.  He uses the simplicity of the humble to challenge the proud (I've definitely seen that happen in our group).  He uses the love of those with less to dumbfound the incompleteness of those with much.  It is a beautiful thing.

shrinking,

Haley Kate

living seaside (even though its a lake)

On dig days, our evening ritual is to get something cold to drink and head down to the shore for a bit of "Seaside Philosophy" (I just made that term up...I'll have to share it with the group).  Mostly we just talk about whatever comes to mind and usually its just light-hearted but we have had a lot of fun.  Some nights the conversations turns serious, some night ridiculous, and some nights its just all laughs.  On occasion people want to go to the local pub or drive into Tiberius or something.  I have turned down those offers repeatedly because I just LOVE sitting by the lake at night and watching the moonrise.   It's not that I wouldn't enjoy the other options but I just feel incredibly at peace when sitting there and that is not a feeling I have had too often recently.

From where I sit on the pier at the kibbutz (where I'm staying) I can point in all different directions to so many different locations of biblical stories.  I think I could spend an indefinite amount of time here.   Each time I learn more about Bethsaida, or visit a new site, or talk about some bible story that I can now say "I've been there" I mourn the fact that I have to leave this place soon.  I hope that the passion for biblical study that being here is igniting within me is something that I can really keep on top of.  

It would be deceitful to say that this trip has been nothing but a great experience.  It has been hard as well.  I am processing a lot and there is no one here that actually knows what I'm trying to think through.  Standing on the Mount of Beatitudes and hearing the words "blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted" is an experience I'll never forget.  On a lighter note, it has also been hard to be in a place of such signifiant biblical history and hear complaints about petty things.  When I was being rushed out of Caerea Philipi I was a bit frustrated when people were so relieved to leave and get back to the AC.  It does make me laugh at times though.  

I know this note is a bit scattered, I think that will be a common trait.  I am learning so much on a daily basis here that it is hard to have any brain power left to sit and write about it.  But I will continue to do so.  A lot of what I learn I feel would bore the socks off of most of you so I'll save that til I have you cornered at some coffee shop back in the states. :)

Weekend Adventures

[written June 7]

 There is a strong possibility I am going to sound rather redundant on every post I put on this site.  Israel continues to amaze me.  On the weekends we have no responsibilities at the dig site so they are totally up to us.  I have been traveling this weekend with a group that came with Dr. McNamer.  We went all over the place this weekend and I cannot even begin to process all that I have seen and experienced.  We about died of a heat stroke yesterday trekking through the desert heat in Megiddo,
















Nazareth (you should know what that is),

Sepphoris (notice the ruts in the road made by chariots),

















and

Caesarea Maritima.

We have been a bit rushed through some of the sites we've been to so I hope to revisit some with Dad (he meets me in Jerusalem June 21st).
Sunday morning was one of my favorites days so far. We started of visiting the Mt. of the Beatitudes. There is a beautiful church atop of it which is taken care of by the most precious Italian nuns. The view is breathtaking. Beside the church, one of the guys read aloud the beatitudes. We just stood there in silence and let them sink in. We didn't get to reflect nearly as long as we wanted but we had to make it to mass on time.
Next we drove down to a benedictine monastery in Tagbha. Facing the sea, we enjoyed a mass in german. I didn't know what they were saying but it was one of the most memorable church services ever. The simplicity and beauty of it felt like worship in and of itself. From there we visited Capernaum and Caesarea Philipi. Looking at the gates of hell (a huge cave that a temple to Zeus was built in front of) and the ruins of the temple of Pan was quite the setting as we read the passage in Matthew 16:13-20. To tell Peter that he was the rock on which Christ would build his church means a bit more when looking at the massive rock temples that had been errected to other gods.
There is no way to give an account of this trip that would even begin to explain what it feels like to be here.  It is an irreplaceable experience.  Can't wait for you to get here, Dad!  See you in 2 weeks :)

Ok now I love it even more...

Today reassured me that I am going to be able to do this for two more weeks.  The first day was really tedious work and I didn't find much at all but today was great.  As I am getting to know the site better and to learn the history of it more completely, I find myself in awe of this opportunity.  Today myself, Vanessa and Amy worked primarily excavating two Roman vessels (vessels refers to any sort of pottery)  from the 1st century.  The two eventually uncovered about 5.  At least 2 of these pots are the first pots that are whole (though broken) enough to do restoration on that have been found there in years.  That's really cool that I got to work on excavating them. 
It was absolutely incredible to be gently uncovering these.  There was ash underneath them (several were cooking pots) and there was even black burned onto the bottom from where they had been place over an open flame.  Knowing that I was the first person to touch these pots in almost 2000 yrs was a pretty incredible thought.  I just sat and let that sink in for a few minutes.  

There is also a ton of hard labor to be done.  We are basically moving dirt layer by layer. I cannot even begin to count how many buckets of rocks and dirt I moved and sifted through today.  We all come back disgustingly dirty every day.  Its great.

I am definitely turing into a nerd while I'm here.  I think I take notes more than anyone else I see at the site (aside from those running the site).  I just want to remember all that I'm hearing and get to know this place even better.  If I could take you all on a tour here you would probably roll your eyes at me because I get so excited about the littlest stuff.  Even some of my co-diggers have made fun of me a few times. :)

In a couple hours a small group of us is going to climb a neighboring mountain to get  a great view of the Sea of Galilee.  Then we will be dressing up for dinner because tonight starts Shabbat (from friday sundown to saturday sundown--the jewish day of rest).  

I have lots of pics but haven't been able to upload them yet.  i promise to do so soon.  I am sorry if this is a bit scattered but I am in a hurry today.  this weekend I'm traveling to Nazareth and some surrounding areas...that is just weird to say.  I am going with Dr. Elizabeth McNamer--a 72 yr old british professor from Montana--the most fun personality I think I've ever met.  Quirky, genius, and one heck of a tour guide.  I'm sure we'll have stories from the weekend. 

-Haley Kate

Day 1 (June 4)

[writtenJune 4, 2009  3:03pm Israel]

 

Things I did for the first time ever today:

1.     Walked around an active archaeological dig site

2.     Saw Bethsaida

3.     Excavated shards of pottery from the 2^nd and 3^rd century BCE and from the Greco-Roman era

4.     Saw the sea of Galilee

5.     Swam in the sea of Galilee

6.     Walked on water at the sea of Galilee

7.     Lied about walking on water.  I might have lied about that before.

Today was a great first day here at the Bethsaida excavation project.  We awoke at 5:00am to get ready and head to the dig.  I haven’t woken up that early to work in a good while.  It made the day feel really long.  We worked at the dig site from 6am to 12:30pm.  I’m glad it stopped when it did cause it was already really hot.  The site is incredible.  I walked up the paved road way (rocks placed down around the outer wall centuries ago).  There is an outer and inner wall around Bethsaida.  The  “L” shaped entrance prevented attacks at full speed to the front gate.  We were working just inside the main gate excavating some sort of room (we are still trying to figure out the purpose of this room).  There are so many interesting personalities here.  I have loved getting to know them.  Just observing them is quite entertaining in and of itself. 

I think these first few weeks here at the site are really going to be about developing relationships with people here (and falling in love with getting to work with history this closely).   There are a lot of believers in the group, more than I was expecting.  I have already gotten to meet some pretty great people.  People are here for so many different reasons so it is a diverse group.

One thing’s for sure, this feels worlds apart from Indiana.  The oldest things I’ve seen in the States were trees.  Here I am actually touching, walking on and excavating things that are much older than anything I’ve ever even seen before.  I LOVE it. 

Swimming in the Sea of Galilee was a pretty surreal experience.  I image there are many more such experiences here to come.  I just sort of walked on in like it was any other body of water and then while I was swimming out a way, I stopped to look around and remembered where I was.  It was a cool moment.  Then I though about how in Mark there is a scene describe when a crowd is with Jesus on one side of the lake and then he gets in a boat to cross to the other side. 

People watching at ATL Airport

I haven't had internet for a few days so here are some old posts that I was unable to put up...

[Written June 2, 2009   ATL International Airport.  8:38pm]

I will be boarding my last flight to Israel in about two hours from now.  I am really excited to leave but I can’t wait to be settled at the kibbutz.  Approximately 13 hours of travel and two hours of waiting lie in between that time and now.  I’m already tired but I am going to try not to sleep very much on the plane because although I’m leaving at 10:35pm, I’m arriving at 5:35pm in Israel so I’ll have to try and sleep again not long after I arrive there.

I’m sitting in the gate across from my gate at the airport so I can just watch everyone I’m about to be on a plane with for 11 hours.  There are many beautiful people across the way right now.  There is a young mother and her two little boys who have way too much energy to be on a plane for that long.  Hopefully they’ll get tired soon.  As I watch all of these people I am trying to figure out where they are from—Israel or the states.  II have a lot of learning to do as far as telling who is Israeli and who is Palestinian, the States, or elsewhere.    Some of my soon-to-be plane neighbors are dark haired, have a darker complexion and obviously speak Hebrew.  There are a few Orthodox Jews with hats, shawls, and curls.  (I’ll have to look up what all of that is called once I have internet.  I sound a bit ignorant at the moment so forgive me.)  Others have lighter hair, often a generously proportioned nose, and striking eyes.  As I watch I wonder if they can figure out where I am from.  Then I remember that I have blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin.  I don’t think that leaves them guessing much.

Then there are the tour groups.  Oh they are fun to watch.  Almost all of them look to be aged 50-80 and are likely carrying one of those really fashionable passport necklaces, which come in black or tan—although there are at least two high school aged girls whom I’ve heard introduced as grandkids. They also speak much louder than any other group of people in the crowd.

Ooh…my favorite guy just walked up.  He’s got a collared shirt on, khaki pants, a backpack, and an almost Indiana Jones looking hat on.   And yes, it never fails, a fanny pack.   Yep, he wins…”best dressed tourist” award goes to him.

Overall it looks like there are more tourists than nationals on this flight.  Or maybe the tourists are just so overpowering that I am not able to get a realistic head-count on the nationals. 

I'm off to play in the dirt.

I leave in about 8 hours to begin flying out to Israel.  I have been explaining this trip to people a lot recently and the more I say it out loud the more I have to remind myself of what I'm actually saying.  It is easy to simply say, "I'm going to Israel for a month."  I can say it just like I would say I went to Chicago last weekend.   I know that this isn't just another vacation though. I do not want to glorify this trip to be more than it is but when I think about how this all came about I know that this beyond me.  

During the fall semester of this past school year, I took a class called Archaeology of the Ancient Near East which was my first academic study of archaeology.  Studying the Bible in that way really challenged and expanded the way I teach and study the Bible.  So I applied in February (two days after the application deadline, mind you) for a scholarship that would allow me to go participate on an archaeological dig somewhere in the Mediterranean Basin.  I put a lot of work into the application but was not expecting much because I had never heard of an undergraduate student receiving this scholarship.  Plus, I knew I am not planning to be an archaeologist, I just want to learn how to teach the Bible better from this important historical perspective.  

A few weeks later, I was down in the mail room at school with a couple friends and I found a letter in my box with the scholarship title on it.  I opened it and started freaking out as I read the first word, "Congratulations!"  Brant was standing right in front of me so I handed him the letter to explain my excitement.  As he was reading over it, I was realizing that there was a lot in the way of actually getting to go on this trip.  Through tears I told him that I was really excited but I did not know what this would mean in light of mom being sick at the time.  He reminded me that it was not for me to worry about and helped me to enjoy the moment for what it was.  

Over the next few months I continued to plan for this trip but with a constant question of whether I would actually get to go this summer or not depending on mom's health.  All of my summer plans were waiting in that balance but this one would require the most work so it seemed the heaviest to plan. 

You may know the rest of the story.  Since Mom's passing I have decided to go ahead and go on this trip.  There were a lot of thoughts, feelings, and prayers that went into that decision but that's a whole other conversation.  When I received this scholarship I told mom, secretly, that I planned to invite Dad to join me for the second part of the trip when I would be touring around the country.  I finally got to invite him officially about two months ago and the Lord has graciously provided a way for him to come out from June 21-July 3rd to join me in Jerusalem.  God's provision throughout this whole process has been evidence of the grace that he so generously gives.  

Reflecting on how all of this has come together, I cannot deny God's work in it.  I do not know His purpose in this trip but I eagerly anticipate the process of that discovery.  I look forward to sharing stories, experiences, and maybe even some history with you.

  

-Haley Kate