Rosh Ha‘Ayin

This morning begins our last week here in Israel. Of course it will be a bittersweet week. All good things, they say, must come to an end. (I would probably say, “Many good things…”) No one here wants to see it end, but we are all ready to get back to family and loved ones. Do I ever miss my girls, Carol and Samantha.

But the trip isn’t over yet and we’ve been told the best is yet to come. After what we’ve experienced, that’s hard for most of us to believe. We leave for our final field trip for four days up to the region of Galilee. Mt. Carmel, Sea of Galilee, Capernaum, etc. The area that Jesus lived his life. He came to the end of his Earth-stay here in Jerusalem, but he stayed on Earth in the region we’ll be in for the next week. I’ll try to post, but cannot promise anything due to wi-fi supply. 

Yesterday, we went to two wonderful places. We started the day with an early train trip across town to Yad Vashem, the Jewish Holocaust Museum. I am not sure how to convey the power and emotion of being in a place like that. I taught Holocaust literature for almost 8 years to Jr. High and High School students, but walking through that place put clothes on all of the abstractness of what I taught. I’m not sure if that metaphor makes sense, but I can’t think of a good way to say it. As I watched survivor testimonies on T.V. screens throughout the museum, I was forced several times to choke back tears and take deep breaths so as to not be overwhelmed with emotion. A few times I huffed audibly so as to betray the deep affect that it was having on me. Tourists in all shapes and sizes and colors were overcome as I was though, so I had no reason for hiding. We wandered out the back of the museum in silence, no one sure what to say.

The end of the day had a very different feel to it. I may have mentioned my climber friend who is here in Israel on the trip. Well, he wasn’t a friend before the trip, but climbing is always a quick and easy bond. With a group of people, we made our way across town on public transportation to a climbing gym across the street from the Jerusalem Mall. We all laughed at how unconcerned about safety they were at the gym. “Do you know how to belay?” “Yes” “OK, don’t get hurt.” No waivers, nothing. And we had a great time climbing all over the place, only occasionally coming near to messing something up irreversibly. I was glad that we only had a few hours in the place because my strength faded quickly and we got home at a reasonable hour.

Oswald Chambers wrote in today’s devotional that sometimes “we mistake panic for inspiration.” In other words, sometimes the people we look at who are busy for the Lord are often in more of a state of panic than inspiration. Panicked that they are not doing enough. Panicked they their life has not been full enough, or good enough. That is why, he goes on, most of us work more FOR God than WITH God.

Several times on this trip I have been struck by the sense that much of my life is busy for God. But walking where Jesus walked on the streets of Jerusalem, seeing what He saw from the Mount of Olives, reminds me that this life is so much better when done next to Him.

This may be weird, but more than a few times now I have pictured Jesus walking right in the middle of our little group of student-tourists, laughing at something stupid someone said.Read more