New Blog Page

Hello Everyone! This is just a post to direct you all to the New blog if you haven't already found it. Just click on the button that says view my complete profile and then it will show two blogs. Click on the one that says go into all the world... That is the new blog. This one is now obsolete!

Back in the States!

Hello everyone. Most of you already know, but for those still keeping up via the blog, I have made it back to the United States of America! However, this return to the states has turned into merely a visit, as I will be leaving again next week. I have decided to join Ryan Watts in Africa and finish the journey with him. So far, this is our tentative plan: 2 months in Africa (Kenya and Tanzania), 2 months in India (New Dehli and Goa), 1 month in Cambodia, and 2 weeks in Thailand to wind down. We will be returning on March 28th. This part of the journey however is not just for the joy of travelling. While there will be that aspect still, our main goal is to help. We will be connecting with Y.W.A.M. (Youth With A Mission) bases in every city that we go. We will do short-term staff, helping wherever we are needed most. At the moment Ryan is in Kenya, working with a preschool, the details of which I am still uncertain. So that is the plan. Another few months out of the country. We will be creating a new blog and make it a joint effort as well, the site for the new blog will be posted on both of our individual blogs. The pictures found in this post are of my last week in Jerusalem which was spent with Ryan. We went to the Old City and Hezekiah's tunnel. A few other things, but mostly we both just rested and tried to prepare for the next part of the trip. I hope this is adequate enough information and if anyone has any questions, there is a comments section, which we read very thoroughly.

Until Next Time.....

L'Shana Tova!

Well, I'm not swimming in the Nile or anything (Go RYAN!) but I did have a great last week. For all of you who have been keeping up with me, isn't it amazing that tomorrow is my last day of Ulpan?! Where did the time go? Well, to get you all caught up on my time in Israel, a few important things happened this last week. On Thursday, I went on a random trip down to a place called Kiryat Gat, which is a development town about 30 minutes away from Ber Sheva. A few people from the Ulpan were headed down there with a girl named Jenny. She is a volunteer in a program that is aimed towards providing a place for at-risk youth to learn and grow in a safe environment. These kids were in elementary school and they were great. We went down there to play with the kids and help with their Rosh Hashana party. There was a lot of singing and playing games. I even showed the kids a few card tricks! It was great. Although I have to say that it was a little humbling to have an 9 year old kid tell me the proper way to read a Hebrew song....But hey, at least Im trying. On that Friday was the beginning of Rosh Hashana. Now, I had been waiting for a long time to hear the shofars being blown all across the city, and to my dismay, I found out that they weren't going to blow the shofar because it was Shabbat! How sad. Anyway, I went to a conservative synagogue on Shabbat which my teacher of ulpan directed me to. After the service I went to the house of a family that attends that synagogue. I spent the whole day at their house and it was great. The dad of the family liked Jazz so we had a lot to talk about. He even had some Django music! All that to say, I had a good Rosh HaShana and life is going well. My final test is tomorrow and then I am all done with Ulpan. I will be studying like mad today, but I don't think I will have a problem on it. Yesterday was the Oral examination and I did really well on that. We had to prepare two 5 minute dialogues and improvise a little. Last night my class went to Ephrath (A settlement just inside the westbank) where my teacher lives. We had a great time. The view out there is just amazing. Although I didn't bring my camera I am relying on my classmates to e-mail me the pictures. So hopefully I will have a grand presentation when I get home, who knows. As we are nearing a time of reflection I just would like to say: I feel very blessed for my oppurtunity to do this Ulpan. I am still amazed at the turns my life has taken and I am so thankful to the Lord that he pulled me up from the depths. Thank you to you all who helped me and supported me and prayed for me, during this time and before. Even though I have my highs and lows I always know that I have people that care for me and that there is always a reason to smile and get up out of bed, day after day. I can never show enough gratitude or repay what has been given to me by the Lord, using you all as his vessels, but I will try to live my life to the fullest and follow him in all his ways. May I be as good a friend, brother, or father in the days to come as you all have been to me. Sorry for the generality of "you all" but the names are too great to list, and that is a blessing in an of itself. But I hope that this message of gratitude is received by those of you who know where I was and where I have come and have helped in that process. I say this in almost every post and I will say it many more times to come, thank you. I love you all!

May we be mindful of this coming Yom Kippur and look deep within ourselves and turn to the Lord our God with Repentance and Thanksgiving!



P.S. The second picture is of Machane Yehuda Market which is a very great place to shop for food. The picture to the right is of one out of thousands of pastry shops in Jerusalem. They are all over and they are so good! I am going to miss these the most I think.

Dancing and the Zoo!

Shalom. This is yet another post on a nice sunday afternoon. Not much has really gone on in this last week, just more of university. Sorry if the information is getting boring....It's just college life now. I did however do a few interesting things this week. On Tuesday, I went with a couple friends to the German colony and attended a dance class. It was very fun, however it was rather slow. The first two hours is for beginners and it was at that point that I realized how hardcore about dancing we are at Beit Hallel. Anyways, I did have some fun and unfortionately the group wanted to leave before they started doing the dances I knew, but I will try to go back there on this coming tuesday. On Friday, all of the aleph level classes went to the Biblical Zoo. This is a zoo that features animals mostly from the bible and a few that are not specifically mentioned. It was very fun, only I did get to see the Lions, or cheetahs, or the bears....So really I didn't see anything cool! We had to do a scavenger hunt and my group had to go to the elephant station first which meant that we had no time to go see the Lions. Maybe I will go there again when Ryan gets here! After doing the hunt, my class had a picnic and I played some of the songs that I wrote on my guitar, which is always a joyous experience for me. My Shabbat was relatively quiet. I went to two Erev Shabbat dinners that were hosted by the students. Then on Shabbat I slept a lot, read some Sriptures and listened to music. Well that is all of my adventures for this week, hope I have something more interesting to talk about next week. Thank you all again for your prayers and support. Only three more weeks to go!

Love you all,

Jesse

The Weekend in Haifa!

Shalom, you are all asleep as I am writing this so I hope that when you wake up on this beautiful Yom Reeshon that you will enjoy this update from Jerusalem. As I mentioned in my last post, I took my Mid-Term test last week. Just to get off on a quick start about the good news, I got a 94% on my test!! Thank you Lord for your Wisdom and Grace. On Thursday afternoon set out for Haifa. I took a bus from Har Hatzofim (Mt. Scopus) to the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem. From there I took a bus directly to Haifa. I got a ride from the bus station in Haifa to a mall where I met with a man named Avi Shalom. Avi is another contact that I was blessed to have through Yerus, who lived in Haifa before she moved to the states. Avi is one of the nicest people I have ever met and I feel very blessed to have met him. Avi drove me to the apartments that belong to the congregation (sorry but I don't know the name of the congregation) and I was given a room to stay in for the weekend. On Friday, I wanted to see the city....which I didn't exactly accomplish. I was supposed to meet with some friends from my Ulpan and go up to the University which is on Mt. Carmel. In fact, to the best of my knowledge it is the highest building in Haifa. I went to a bus station that was next to the apartments I was staying, and attempted to get a ride to the University. Well, come to find out, the buses don't run to the University on Friday. I then got a little inspiration from my very good friend Ryan Watts. I thought "If he has all these crazy adventures, then I will too!" After that thought ran through my head I rushed to get on a bus that was getting ready to leave the station. I had absolutely no clue where it was going. I just jumped on a random bus! It was a great feeling to actually branch out and tackle the unknown. I wish I could say that it just got better and better from there but I would be lying. The bus took a straight course to Hof HaCarmel, which is the bus station that I had arrived at the night before. Since I had already been there, it ended up being lest of an adventure and more of a hastle finding my way back. The sea was just a 2 minute walk from the bus station however and so I decided to spend some time on the beach. I met with my friends there about 2 hours later (Yeah, I wasted pretty much the entire day) and only swam in the sea for a couple minutes before I had to make my way back home. My fear was being stranded in an unknown place when Shabbat came, and that is almost exactly what happened. When I got back to the bus station, it was already closed for the Shabbat. I also had forgotten what the place was called that I was staying. I could only remember Mozart Square. I sat on the curb for about 30 minutes and thought "Lord, I think I am in trouble, I have no clue where to tell the taxi to go and besides it would cost a lot of money for the taxi!" Just then, a guy about my age came up and asked if I was lost. I said yes and he asked where I needed to go. I said "That's a good question, I can only remember the name Mozart Square." He said that him and his friend live right around that area and know exactly where it is and asked if I wanted a ride. So needless to say I got back to my house O.k. and I was very relieved. On Shabbat I went to the Congregation with a couple that I had just met from America. The service was great, I was thoroughly happy. Also, I found that I could understand quite a bit of the Hebrew that was being spoken. By the way if you read this Yerus, the congregation says "Hello and we love you!" More specifically, a lady named Claudine wanted me to say hello. I hope you like the pictures. So, I stayed at the congregation the whole day and played ping pong, ate some good Russian food, and played guitar a lot (reminded me a lot like home). That was my trip to Haifa. I didn't really see much of the city but I really had a blessed time. If things go well, I will be travelling back there next weekend and then I will go to Tzfat and the Sea of Galilee. Now I am just back in the daily grind of Hebrew. I am hoping to make another post in the middle of this week about more specific things, so keep watch if you are interested.

With much love from Jerusalem,

Jesse

The Unique Aspects of a Language

Well, I promied that I would post every Sunday and even though I don't have any new pictures to post, I will still fill all of you in on my recent events. The Ulpan is going great, and I think I am finally getting used to the difficulty level. I find that I am becoming more and more able to hear the words and understand the just of the conversations in class. We have a big test every Thursday and I just received the one I took last Thursday, I got a 96%!! It was a very refreshing sight to see that number on the test. I always think I do bad on my exams and then somehow, I pull out a good grade. Anyways, I was supposed to travel to Haifa this weekend but I made conflicting plans with four different people and so I compised and ended up staying in Jerusalem. On Friday, I went to a huge park that is right by the Knesset (Governmental Offices of Israel) and played some Ultimate Frisbee. For those of you who don't know, I am an Avid Frisbee player. I had played with these guys a month ago, and they ran circles around me. That was not the case on this occasion. We played for two and a half hours and I was at the top of my performance. I made one of the best diving catches, it was quite exhilirating. All that to say, it was a very nice afternoon to get to play Frisbee again after so long. There was only one slight problem, I hadn't eaten or drunken anything prior to the game. It hit me right after we were done and I think I was very close to being clinically dehydrated. I laid in my room for about an hour on my floor wishing I wouldn't have played so much, but then I slowly recovered and at about 7:00pm I went to an Erev Shabbat dinner. It was nice, except it was all in Hebrew. A good way to practice but not a good way to get to know people. On shabbat I did nothing as usual, just sat in my room and read some scriptures and played guitar. I think next week I will try to attend the synagogue that is on campus, it is called Beit Hillel. Tomorrow is the mid-term test so if anyone would be so thoughtful as to pray that I would understand what I am reading, that would be most appreciated. As for my part, I will pray and study hard. To address the title of this post, I would just like to say that I have learned so much more than just Hebrew during the time that I have been here. Languages are so fascinating, and now I feel that I understand english a lot more now that I actually have to be able to recognize a verb, or a noun, pronoun, prepositional phrase, etc. I am definately starting to see that while language does possess a measure of logic, it seems to be on the large part, composed of the spirit of the people who birthed it. It is quite a simple realization but one that I am thankful to see (I hope that doesn't spark a heated debate, because it tends to happen!). In the end, I am becoming very fascinated with languages (as I am with so much other things...One at a time Jesse, one at a time!) and I am really enjoying my time here. Sorry for the lack of pictures, Lord willing I will be travelling to Haifa next weekend and I hear there are some great picture oppurtunities on Mt. Carmel.

With much love from Jerusalem,

Jesse

The weekend in Eilat!

Good morning America! Hmm....I hope that isn't a copyright violation. This last weekend I traveled four hours on a bus down to Eilat, the vacation getaway place for Israelis. School got out on Thursday at 1:00pm and right after that my roomate and I got on the 444 bus destined for Eilat. I was directed to go to a Hostel called "The Shelter" which was located about 10 minutes walking distance from the beach in Eilat. That to say.....I am so glad I found it! The only thing to do in Eilat is go to the beach and party. Eilat is much like Goa, India for those of you who are familiar with my past adventures. The city is located at the very northern part of the Red Sea and it is surrounded by Saudi Arabi, Jordan, and Egypt. You can actually see all three countries from mostly any elevated point in the city. It is still so amazing to actually swim in the sea that the Lord split for the Israelites to cross. Most of my time was spent in the hostel, it was very much like my refuge. This hostel is a christian hostel that is aimed towards bring in people off the streets and providing them with food and a place to stay and sharing the Gospel with them. While I was there I met the cousin of Yerusalem (Married to Eric, and for those of you who don't know either of them, sorry it's too long to explain!!). She was very nice and it was such a blessing, though it was rather hard to communicate because she didn't speak very much english. It did however give me a great oppurtunity to practice my Hebrew. The picture above is me and Galil, the guide from australia Another blessing was meeting a church group that had come to Israel from Germany. They invited me to eat every meal with them and travel around Eilat. Their guide was working with the Chosen People Ministry and all in all it was just really refreshing to be around believers again. Now I am back in Jerusalem, but I have made many more friends and have an idea of places to go for the next coming weekends. Hopefully I will continue to have grand adventures that I can share with all of you at home. Pray that I would continue to be dilligent in my studies and that I would be granted an extra measure of wisdom that I might be able to advance beyond the expectations of the course. I love you all and I thank you for your prayers.

This concludes yet another adventure in the Land, until next time.....

(Sorry for the cheesy commentary, I always feel an overwhelming need to change things up so as not to be redundant with my updates!)