Shalom Y'all

Well, it was East meets West and North meets South as Kim and Shannon descended upon the Holy Land for their recent visit. Our silence on the blog lately has not been for lack of stories to share. Rather we haven’t had a moment to spare as we’ve been running a Holy Land tour out of our apartment.
My sister, Kim, and our friend, Shannon, came over to visit us for 10 days. For those of you who don’t know them, Kim is currently attending Harvard Divinity school in Boston and Shannon works in the inner city in Houston, TX. Kim and Shannon met in college. They were the first familiar faces besides Josh & Lauren that we’ve seen in almost 6 months! So you can only imagine what it was like to see them come walking through airport security. We talked and laughed in a way we hadn’t for months. When Kim and Shannon are around hilarity usual follows and this visit was no disappointment.
Doing the Holy Land in 10 days is tough when your tour guides have school most days until 2:40 but nonetheless we put some miles on the old school van and were able to see the sites. The first weekend Mandy and I didn’t have school on Saturday. I think it was Muslim New Year. So we decided to let them sleep in a bit since they’d flown all day the day before and we took off for the Galilee about 10:00 Saturday morning. We stayed at Ein Gev which is a Kibbutz that runs a hotel right alongside the Sea of Galilee. It was excellent. We were able to go from there and see all the major sites. We went to Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin. We went to all the beautiful churches that commemorate events from the life of Jesus. One of our favorites is the Church of the Beatitudes which commemorate the giving of the Sermon on the Mount. Sunday we went up into the Golan Heights and went to the ancient Israelite city of Dan and Caesarea Philippi. Dan was, biblically speaking, the northernmost city in Israel. Remains of the Israelite fortifications are visible at the site. Caesarea Philippi was an ancient Canaanite and later roman city dedicated to the god of bread, Pan. The city was named Panias until Herod the Great (same Herod that built Masada and the Temple in Jerusalem in Jesus’ time) built it up and named it after the Caesar.
Then we drove home by way of Mt. Hermon and the Golan Heights. Mt. Hermon is Israel’s only large mountain. It’s peak was capped in snow which is a good sign. Israel’s major water sources, the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River depend on the runoff from these snows. The Golan is an interesting place. There are a lot of vineyards in the shadow of Mt. Hermon, and there is a large military presence here due to Israel’s less than friendly relationship with Syria.
Monday through Thursday took some logistical creativity since Mandy and I were in school, as I’ve said. But what we managed to do worked out pretty well. Kim and Shannon visit our classrooms and go on organized tours while we were in school and then we’d try to take them places after school. So they hit the major places in Bethlehem on a tour we organized through one of my students. Then we took them to some of the off-the-beaten-track sites after school. They even found a tour guide to take them through the refugee camp in Bethlehem to see one of the communities of people who have been displaced by Israeli settlements. We recently made friends with a priest who is a professor at Bethlehem University. He’s really knowledgeable about the history of the University and Bethlehem in general so we had them take a tour with him as well.
Friday we went to the Dead Sea. We went to Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Then we stopped off for Kim and Shannon to have a small shopping spree at the Ahava factory store. So if you’ve heard recently that the level of the Dead Sea has been dropping recently, now you’ll know why. From there we went for a picnic lunch beside the shores of the Dead Sea. Kim even went for a float in the salty waters. (Don’t worry she waited a half hour before swimming.) Then we tried to get into Masada but just so you know they close early on Friday. We thought of trying to sneak in but historically it has not been very easy to get into Masada if people don’t want you in there. (See Josephus for examples.)
Saturday was a field trip day for the High School. We took them to the Herodian and Kim and Shannon came along. It was a good time, but Kim and Shannon are still a little shell-shocked from a ride in a bus with 50 Arab high schoolers. Then after school we took off for the Mediterranean coast at Ashdod. Ashdod was once the capital of the Philistines territory. We didn’t do much exploring, rather we just flopped down on the beach and watched the sun set over the Mediterranean. Then we made our way back to Bethlehem and went to a barbecue with my 11th graders.
Sunday we spent the day in Jerusalem. There was a lot to see but we did pretty good. The Holy Sepulcher and the Mount of Olives were beautiful. The weather seems to be slowly warming up here. Yesterday was warm and sunny for most of the day until the sun began going down.
For me, it was harder to watch Kim go at the airport last night than it was to say goodbye to our families at the airport in August. Isn’t that funny? In August we were excited and nervous and we had a clear task in front of us. In a sense, we didn’t have time to be sad. Last night watching her go, it felt like there was just a long drive back to Bethlehem and 5 months until we see any more family.
Luckily, this weekend we have our friends Dan and Hiromu coming in. That is bound to be a good time. For the first time in 6 years, Dan, Josh and I will be together in Jerusalem again. Last week Friday was the 6th anniversary of the day we left for Jerusalem the first time. Mandy and I will be hosting these two pilgrims for three days next weekend. So that excitement takes some of the sting away from watching Kim and Shannon leave.