Blog Number One

I've never really been good at this whole blogging thing. I expect most of my posts will be pretty boring, just telling you what I've been up to all day. But you should all still read because I might post something exciting once in a while.
I think my first order of business will be to talk about my trip to Israel. A lot of you have asked questions about the trip, and to be honest, it's so hard for me to answer "so, what did you do?". We went so many places and did so many things, I don't think I could even begin to explain it in an intelligible manner. So I'll start with the basics. We were there for about ten days, and we toured many biblical sites. We went to many places in Israel from Dan to Beersheva. I have many many pictures (some of which I've posted on facebook, in case you wanted to check 'em out) and so many stories to tell. I loved it all, but two of my favorite places were the Garden of Gethsemane and Bet She'an.

Over there is a picture of the Garden of Gethsemane. We learned that the garden was actually an olive grove. The reason I loved it so much wasn't because of its beauty (I would actually say that it was more eerie than beautiful) but because of the realization I had while I was there. The Garden is on the bottom of the Mt. of Olives, and just over the mountain is the desert. Jesus could have just run away from it all, run into the desert, and we never would have heard about him again. Being the Son of God, Jesus could have also just called down the angels or brought fire from heaven....But he didn't. I've known this for most of my life, but seeing the garden, seeing where Jesus decided to die for me was a humbling experience. It made the reality of my faith sink in just a little deeper.

Over there is a picture from the top of a Mountain of what Bet She'an looks like. This was a roman city that was extremely well preserved. The city featured an amiptheater, a theater, a bath house, and a temple to one of the goddesses. I really enjoyed seeing the remains of the city, especially the bath house. It was interesting getting just a small glimpse of life in the city. The whole trip was definitely an eye opening experience. Dr. Hummel studied at the Hebrew University for a year and he said it divided his life into two eras: Before Israel, and After Israel. Even in our short stay, each of our lives were also divided because the visit completely changes the way you read the Bible and how you think about the people.

The Israel trip was the highlight of my semester, and now it's back to the grindstone. School has been pretty busy the last couple of weeks. It's getting to the end of the semester so everything is due all at the same time. But soon we'll be done and summer will be here! This summer will be filled with working and wedding planning. I'm excited to get home and begin working on all of the details for the wedding I couldn't work on while I was at school. Latley I haven't gotten much wedding stuff done, but I'm at a point where I can't really do a whole lot here. We've gotten all of the big stuff taken care of, so that's good. Brad and I got word today that we are officially in Married Student Housing. It's a load off our minds knowing we have a living space!

I think that's basically all I have to update on. God Bless!

~Liz