Beautiful Winter-time Song

Shalom to all,
Things are busy and time is flying by. Tomorrow we are making Christmas cookies! It doesn't really feel like Christmas right now without the snow. We have the tree and lights in the living room so that helps. Last night I bought a bunch of Christmas songs from Amazon. I bought this one from Sara Bareilles and I love it!

youtube blog

You can check out some funny videos of my and the other students at youtube:

drcolston

They are very funny!

Christmas time is here!

Hello all,

My mom and aunt Karen are coming to Israel very soon! Things are quieting down and I don't much care for it. The Johnson's are leaving- they will return in 3 months, but are going to be missed very much. Jeanne and Elyn left yesterday. I'm going to miss them too! It was so nice coming home to two older ladies in the house to make things more interesting. I don't have a lot to say right now.

Ray Lamontagne has a new cd that I'm barely containing my desire to hear it. I found this video with him and Damien Rice. I don't care for how Damien sings "you". I think the BeeGees sang this originally way back in the beginning of them.

Bummer...

Today my Zen died. I dropped it two weeks ago and it was acting funny. But today it froze up. I pushed the reset button and waited. After a while I turned it on to only find 6 albums that I don't really care for on it. Bummer! So now I'll save some cash money and maybe get a Ipod instead of a Zen.

This song is new from She and Him and I found it on youtube. I love it! Their voices are perfect for chillaxing.

Answer to the pole

The answer to the pole I had on the side of the blog was:

"To be in a soundproof room with a drum set. "

This pole adding thing was kind of dumb because I couldn't see who voted what. I'm thinking that Rachel and Casi are the only two voters. I think that Rachel voted correct because I had told her this before. Casi I think voted for the feet in the jello because I don't think she was there when I told Rachel about the drum thing.

Today we are decorating the house for Christmas!



This picture is when I was home for Christmas from West Virginia last year. It snowed like crazy!! I'm going to miss the snow a little bit. If I could have it my way I would have a week of really bad snow so that you were stuck and could play games and watch movies with the family!

Israeli culture

Interesting Fact about Israeli food:

Breakfast: 9:30, usually you eat breakfast at work
Lunch: 2 or 2:30
Dinner: 7:30 or 8

Israel salad never has lettuce. A salad in Israel is cucumbers and tomatoes as the base with whatever else, palm hearts, baby corn, chickpeas, cabbage, pomegranate seeds, etc.

The Covenant

Monday we went to Jerusalem to shop and to see a play. The play was amazing! The appearance of the play was as good as Wicked. They had a small stage, with little props, but the costumes were immaculate! The Covenant is about the entire history of the Jewish people. Starting with Abraham and finishing with the declaration of the
state of Israel. The night we were there they were recording for a new DVD. I bought the music soundtrack because it was so good.

I'm back and busy

I have never seen before what I had seen in Eilat and on the way there...

We loaded at 5 am and left around 5:30. It started to get light pretty soon after we left, so I got to see the sunrise on the way down. It was beautiful! We had to drive through the Palestinian-controlled West Bank on the way down. I think it's like a novelty to say that we drove through a hostile part of the country but really it did not look like you would imagine. I think people think DANGER, when really it looks like any other settled area in the country, it was safe feeling.

It later rained. We were coming up to the Dead Sea. And the mountains surrounding the sea had muddy water coming down them (water the comes down from Jerusalem) and it was flooding out the road. We drove through some water, but (we didn't know it at the time) were ahead of the "flash flood" and had stopped to take a pictures of the muddy water falls along the MT range. We can see how God was protecting us that time because we pulled over at one spot but decided to pull up to another point ahead on the road. After taking some pictures we looked back and saw a huge flash flood coming and trap a small car against the railing. Crazy!The Dead Sea is super long! I mean it makes sense looking on the map, but I was getting used to how small the country is and how things are really not that far apart. It only takes 6 hours to drive from the Kinneret (which is very close to the top) to Eilat, that southern most tip. It was a beautiful blue-green color.We stopped at Timna Park on the way down. They have activities for the groups that come to do. So we paddled-boat raced in a little pond, made sand bottle art from the natural rock (ground up into sand) in the park. Four colors: White, Black, Red, & Yellow. We did some hiking. I have never seen rocky sandstone mountains like this before, it looks like pictures of Petra, or like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he goes for the holy grale. We climbed on the rocks, and through the rocks, and around the rocks. So amazing! There are carvings on some of the walls of the mountains. There are Egpytian as well as other people groups that carved. There are pictures of chariots, ostrages, and ibex. At Timna Park there are also ancient copper mines of Solomon. They would dig the holes big enough for a person and then notch foot holds along each side so you could get to the bottom. Also at the Park a Believer group had set up a replica of the Tabernacle. We had an Israeli Believer as our guide through it. She told us all about how Yeshuah has fulfilled the Tenach (OT) requirements that God set up for the Jewish people. I learned so many things that I didn't know before and that are so cool. What all I learned will be saved for my next post, because there is just so much!
We camped out the whole week. In Israel there are cats everywhere, so many cats that they are like pests. There were cats at the campsite that were nice and really cute. But the first morning a cat got into the girls tent and sprayed! We aired it out really good and then sprayed someone's deodorant in it. Gross!

1st Day: Beach! Snorkeling/Tanning
2nd Day: 11 miles of hiking
3rd Day: Beach! Snorkeling/Tanning. And at night eating at restaurant/shopping
4th Day: Making our way home/stopping a lot, and checking out a Moshav

The beach didn't have very good sand...bummer! I bought this really handy beach mat (the deciding factor was the attached blow-up pillow) that folds up nice with handles. The snorkeling was so cool. So many color fish! They say that the reefs in Eilat are second to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. At night when I was on the pier 4 lion fish came up to the surface. They are those poisenous fish with all the prickly fins everywhere. I had an underwater camera and am hoping the pictures turn out.
Hiking was incredibly amazing and tough. I had never seen so many different types of rock in one area. The hike was tough because we went for so long on rocky, steep ascents and the a lot of descents as well. We drove out and April dropped us off because she has a bad ankle and hiked back to the camp site. We had to make two trips because we met three new Israeli friends at our camp site that we invited to come along. It was really nice to have them hanging out/hiking with us. The trail was called the Israel Trail and it goes from the top all the way to Eilat (it's like the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Trail in the States). The marker for the trail is white/blue/orange stripes. One bummer but good part of the hike was when we took a wrong trail. The wrong trail was a dead end after 15/20 mins. of hiking and at the Egyptian border. There was a cement thingy that said 89 on the Israeli side and then 89 in Arabic on the other side. Really it was a buffer zone but I'm going to say that I've stepped in Egypt! My feet were so sore that it hurt to walk for the next couple days! That night we had a nice campfire and smores on the beach.
The last night we went into town for dinner and shopping. We all went to Giraffe. It is Asian-type food. Really really good. Soni, April and I shared three things: Spicy Thai Soup, the Malaysian, and the Spicy Philipine. The soup was super tasty good! I wrote down all the ingredents I knew and the description in the menu so I can try to recreate it. For shopping there is a mall that we popped into for a few minutes at the end, and there is the Prominade. A long street on tent market stores with a bunch of fun stuff. I bought some cool pants for people, but nothing really for me...I ran out of cash.

On the way home we stopped at a Moshav that a son from one of the guys on the Kibbutz lives and works. His name was Matan and he grows peppers. Red, yellow, and green peppers! A Moshav is like a Kibbutz but where the people own their own land/homes/etc. On a Kibbutz everything belongs to it and everyone shares. But this particular Moshav is famous for its peppers. It is in the middle of the desert! And the peppers are PERFECT! It was really amazing to see all the technology (but it was like practical technology if that makes sense) they used to grow them. I learned a lot! We made lots of bathroom/Aroma ( ,ארומהthe Israeli equivalent to Starbucks). Made it home for a late dinner (8:30) and then I went to bed. But now we are crazy busy! Lots of homework and there is a huge thanksgiving party we are throwing and are preparing for! Right now we have to guests from Oregon here to stay with us. Jeanie and Elaine (or something with an E...but I can't remember it now), but they are two woman who come and help out and cook us students lots of super good homemade food! They are such a blessing!

If you have any questions just post!

Eilat!

I love this new template! I think I won't ever change it, because I love fall. It is my favorite season! Tomorrow at 5am I'm leaving for Eilat!


We will be gone for 5 days of touring/relaxing/tanning on the beach/shopping in town/snorkeling! It is going to be a beautiful time!

bedtime

Trying to update template...and I miss the old one but I saved changes and can't get it back! Sad night...so I'm going to bed!

Not much to say...

I am going to bed very early tonight because last night I went to bed at 3am and took a 3 hour nap before I had to get up again. I was preparing for Modern History of Israel class. I was teaching for an hour the events of the Independence War from 1948- 1949. It took me so long because I was putting together a power point presentation and researching about what each enemy country was doing.
Check this out: When the Jewish people were given land from the United Nations in the 1947 Palestine Partition Plan they started the state of Israel. It had been 2,ooo years since the Jewish people were in "nationhood". the last time...which also very interesting to me... was when the 2nd Temple was destroyed. Jerusalem was attacked by the Romans who were led by Titus. Titus completely destroyed the whole Temple...they left nothing. And to celebrate their victory and to humiliate the Jewish people they forced them to carry the sold gold menorah on their backs throughout the streets of Jerusalem. Now this menorah was huge, weighing probably about a hundred pounds. In Rome, after Titus died a monument was erected to commorate him and his capturing of Jerusalem. The monument is the Arch of Titus just a little north of the Coliseum in Rome. Everyone will know what it is because it is famous. Just look it up. But on the inside of the arch there is a scene of the Jews carrying the Menorah. And it is said that the Roman Catholics still have the Menorah in their ancient relic vaults under the west wing of the Vatican. But it is also said that when the Romans came back with treasures from the fallen Jerusalem that their was a terrible storm the caused the ship to sink. So to which one is truth? God knows. and now to get off my rabbit trail... Eight hours after Israel declared independence on May 14th 1948 Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt invaded Israel (before Israel the whole area where it is now was called Palestine, some people still call it Palestine today but Israel the country is not. Palestine is Arabs and them wanting the land of Israel for themselves and to be called Palestine. I pretty sure I'm correct on this info, but it is still confusing to me.) Israel was so small and 5 huge countries attacked all at once! And not even those countries but also the Arabs that were living inside the new state of Israel attacked. Israel won obviously and lost 6,000 people (something like 30,000 injured) and all the casualities of the other countries including local Arabs were 7,000. You can see God's hand in Israel because they were so outnumbered that it was crazy!

I have an assignment for readers of this post:

Please bookmark jpost.com. It is an English newspaper in Israel that tells all the news of the US and Israel. And it is closer to honest reporting...not like CNN or BBC. Anyways read an article and if you have any questions or don't understand it ask me. I have learned so much and can now see what it really going on over here. And if you have any questions other than news, ask me. The BII staff told me that people in the states will ask questions like, "do you have refrigarators?" and the like because they think with all the terrorist activities that the land is a third world country war zone or something. Israel is no third world country!

In God I Trust

It is really sad to me that way this presidential election has gone. But I think that was can have real faith because of what the Bible says. Read the end of Daniel 4:32. I think election should be a wake up call to believers in the US. It is a wake up call because we can see the need to become closer to God and to be changed by His word. To use a well known metaphor from the Bible: We are the Bride preparing for our Bridegroom. Our personal sanctification (changing our behaviors/attitude/mindset to match the only God's) is our preparation for our Bridegroom.

Listen to this song:

It seems to me that the believer "culture" has turned God into someting else that He is not. We "put on" that band of gold or things that we think are pleasing to God (i.e. going to assembly, hanging out with only other believers, saying things that make us sound like we have a personal rich relationship with Him, focusing on the words that we pray because others will hear, etc.) when we want to. You can't compartmentalize Him. What kind of faith/trust/devotion/love would that be? NONE

Wake up believers of America...remember you can't put your trust in a man (whether it is McCain or Obama), only can it be put in Yeshua Messiah.

HaTikvah

An American-born Orthodox Jewish Saxophone player. The part in the song where he plays the solo sax, and the lyrics at the end, are Israel's anthem: HaTikvah. Ha=the, Tikvah= Hope.

Wow! So much I didn't know...

I'm learning so much about the History of the State of Israel! In my Modern History class I'm researching the Independence War because my assignment to teach about the war for 50 minutes to the class. It is just amazing because you can see how God has worked this out. The odds were overwhelmingly against the Jewish people but God provided a way for them to state the state. Soon I'm going to write some of the cool things I've been learning.

Go Wildcats!

So I tried to watch HSM3 online but it was an illegal copy. You could tell that it was recorded from a theater. The clarity was awful and when the songs came on the theater speakers were so loud that it just sounded screechy. So I gave up on watching it. But I'm really excited about the soundtrack!

Hannah's 9th Bithday! Yom Hohledit

Last night we had a surprise 'crazy hair' birthday party for one of the staff's daughters, Hannah Brough. And it was so much fun. We decorated the girls house before we left for class. After class we had 10 minutes before Jeanie brought Hannah to the house to do our hair in a crazy style. I had big poof! I LOVE big hair! And I'm being serious. If it was acceptable in society to wear my hair like that I did last night then I would!

Simchat Torah

Last night we went to Tiberias for Simchat Torah. It is a celebrating time where the Torah scrolls come out of the synagogue and are danced with. Only the men can dance with the scrolls, but the woman started their own dancing on the outer circle. It was a lot of fun!


The night before we slept in the succah. It was the last night to do it before it is to be dismantled. I was bit by bugs and had to sleep with a comforter on but I was super hot. Even though I was sweaty and you could hear a big techno music concert down in Samach I slept through the night!

Go to baptists4israel.com and click on the 2008-9 photos to see pictures from all of the interns cameras!

My hair smells like smoke!

Two nights ago we camped out on the beach of the Kinneret. It was so nice. We had s'mores (but they don't taste like they do in America). We went swimming in the sea (it was a little freaky, but that's just because I get scared in dark water). I wanted my hair dry before going to bed so I got close to the fire and dried it. It worked great but now my hair, even after 2 separate hair washings (I always rinse and repeat in each washing), smells like smoke! Not even good wood smoke, just smoke. I think my shampoo isn't making the smell any better because it is mint, so it amplifies the bad smell somehow.

Camping out was so much fun. I slept so good and usually I don't when I camp out. It was the sound of waves that put me to sleep.




Then we got up, packed up, and went to Gamla. Gamla is an ancient city that the Romans took over. They call it the "Masada of the North" because when the Romans breeched the wall all of the people committed suicide because they didn't want to become prisoners and tortured by them. So the jumped off the top of the mountain the city was on. Crazy story and crazy to be there.


We then went to Qazin, an ancient city that have been turned into a living history tourist site. It was so interesting because I got to see how people lived and what their homes looked like. The size of the cities way back when was determined by home much water was available. This city had a small stream coming through it so about 75 families could survive from it. (In this picture we are learning from this guy how to make olive oil the ancient way. The picture after it is the synagogue of the city: Which a common misconception for synagogues are that they didn't exist before the Temple was destroyed. The truth is that they existed but their role changed when destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Before then they were like community centers where a bunch of the city/village happenings took place).