Alright, here is the second part you've all been waiting for.
I think I left off telling you about our first day, which our first few days feel like a blur with getting used to the time change and not to mention a bit of culture shock.
The place we're staying in is perfect for us. It's an apartment that looks pretty old. It has 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, and a dining/living room. This is just the space we need. It doesn't have a dishwasher, but does have a washing machine. I have to dry-hang the clothes. That's no big deal, but the funny thing is the dry lines are hanging suspended about 6 stories up. So if I drop one it's kind of a long way down. And it would become especially awkward if one of the clothes I dropped happen to catch on a neighbors line going down. But my first go at it proved to have no incidents. Our place is right on a main road where there's a lot of restaurants, a market (small grocery store), coffee shops and even a yogurt shop. So we've been exploring our options over the last few weeks. We've found some pretty tasty cuisine. I didn't think I was a fan of Mediterranean food but that's probably because I hadn't had it near the Mediterranean. The hummus is to die for. I've never had hummus that good. And the pita bread you dip it in is the best I've had too. Our place is a 5 min. walk to Jeremy & April's and a 10 min. walk to Stephen & Tiffany's. It's so nice to be able to walk to everything. You really can get places faster by walking then driving. It's how it was meant to be I think. So we go to the local market every few days to stock up and we'll probably end up going to the bigger/central market once a week (more on that later).
So the first few days were spent recooperating and the Mowry's were kind enough to have us over for dinner multiple nights while this was happening. We've done a lot of parks just to get the kids out and about. Thursday we took a bus and went to the central market. This was a happenin' place. Everyone was getting ready for Shabbat. Everything (and I mean everything) shuts down from 5pm Fri. till 5pm Sat. So you have to get all you need done before then. This market we did a little food shopping, but we mostly were trying to figure it all out. It was pretty chaotic, but neat to see more of the culture. Friday night we went to the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) because every Fri. night its the happening place. I guess its how the Jewish people get ready for Shabbat. There was a lot of dancing and a lot of crowds. It was definitely a sight to behold. It was really cool to see the unity in these people. Complete strangers yet bonded together by millenias of history. It was also a somber sight to see people coming to this wall that has so much history for them and then just beyond the wall is this huge, beautiful mosque. Just the day before this I was reading in Lamentations 5. And in there the author is talking about how their land is being taken over by foreigners. It's crazy to see that, that hasn't changed for these people. (Afterwards, we headed back to Jeremy & April's for a Shabbat meal and gathering/worship time. That was refreshing.)
But a lot is changing. I feel like God has us hear for a reason. And Ben and I are beginning to feel like there might be some longevity in this. We have no idea how or what or when. But we are planning on taking a crash course in Hebrew over the next several weeks. That should be interesting. Jeremy & April and Stephen & Tiffany have done this and we are ready to jump on board. We feel like taking this step is a good way to engage the culture here. We are actually starting tomorrow. Ben and I each will do 3 hours 5 days a week. One of us will do morning while the other will do afternoon. It is one on one, which is good. I know it will be challenging, but I'm excited to get some bearing on the language. I know it will make me feel less frustrated and isolated. Don't worry I know I'm not going to be able to speak it in the next few weeks, but at least we're on a trajectory.
One cool thing we did Sat. night was to attend a Messianic Jewish church. This was pretty neat to see and experience. The pastor and his wife there seemed really cool. He was from the States, but had been in Israel now for 19 years. I believe his wife is Israeli. I'm sure it would be cool to get connected with them more.
What we've been doing so far is getting enough food for breakfast and lunch for several days and then usually going out on the town for dinner. So far we have 2 places we really like to eat at that were recommended to us by Stephen. We need a few more so we don't burn out on these places. We might go exploring tonight to see if we can find another. The kitchen's have to be kosher so it's a bit difficult to cook in them how we would normally do it.
So this next week will look pretty different with the language studies, but it'll be nice to get in some kind of rhythm/routine. I'm still doing some school with the kids. We'll see how I can balance that with the language studies. Man, it's crazy to be doing these language studies. It will be like being back in school again. That's kind of a head trip, but I guess this whole experience is. Alright, well I'm sure I'll be writing a 3rd part to all of this. I'll probably have quite a bit to tell by the end of this week. Another side note: It does not feel like Christmas at all! I have to remind myself that it's just this weekend. Tiffany and I were just talking about this and she feels the same way. I miss some things back home especially because of this. So if you have any Christmas cheer to send my way, I'll gladly receive it. Thanks for reading and caring about us.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Our family's journey to Israel part 1
I thought I'd post this on here for my fellow blog readers. Our family decided to go to Israel for a month. We felt like God was leading us here. There are some fellow believers here that need some support. And there seems to be some doors that God is opening up for a ripe harvest here. We don't know yet exactly what we're doing, but we are following the Holy Spirit in all of this.
It was a loooong journey to get here that's for sure. We ended up taking 3 planes to get here. Our first stop was in Memphis. That was a 5 hour plane ride. But our longest plane ride was yet to come. We quickly boarded our plane heading to Amsterdam. This flight took about 10 hours I think. We watched a lot of movies :) That helped pass the time. Once we got into Amsterdam it was our night but Amsterdam's morning. So, needless to say we were a wee bit tired. And we planned a 9 hour lay-over there;) hmmmm still wondering if that was worth it. We found a Children's Museum that was neat for the kids. We probably spent a few hours here. Then we went to a coffee shop where we were to meet a couple of Ben's clients for Epipheo. I know funny. Well these nice people picked a candle lit atmospheric coffee shop where the youngest people there were probably in there 40's. We got there first waiting for them to arrive and within 10 min. all 4 of our kids were completely passed out. We were quite the scene. Ben's clients arrived and we had a nice chat with them over some dinner and coffee. We had to take the kids sandwiches to go. We woke (mostly) the biggest three up and dragged them to the taxi that was waiting to take us to the airport. We got to the airport and ended up carrying Memory all the way through customs. It was quite a task, but finally we all got there and got through that and bunked out in the waiting/holding area until our plane was ready to board. Most of us ended up taking a nap here as well. Memory woke up, though. Bright as a clam. Good timing. Within a half an hour a hundred Israeli people came around us and sat with us waiting to board the plane.
In this moment I all of a sudden had a swell of emotion thinking about these people-God's chosen people who were lost. I felt like in that moment I felt an inkling of what God felt for these people. It was an emotion of compassion, sorrow, loss, and mercy. It was very sudden and quick and gone in a blink of an eye, but very powerful for me to experience. I believe God was helping me connect with what I was about to experience in Israel.
Well, we boarded the plane and Eden had a total and complete emotional melt down. This was difficult for me. I believe it was really good for me. Because I am too worried about what other people think and in this moment I had to think of what my daughter needed and what us as a family needed not just saving face for a bunch of strangers. Of course Eden had to sit in back of the one lady on the plane that had a problem with her emotional melt-down. She called a flight attendant over and speaking in maybe Arabic I don't know, pointed to Eden and probably was asking if she can shut this kid up. Eden wasn't being incredibly loud but it was definitely noticeable that she was crying. The flight attendant came over and was looking for her parents. Ben told her we were right here behind her and the flight attendant told the lady "What do you want me to do. She is crying and the parents are right there. What's the problem?" It was kinda funny. So we definitely ruined this lady's first hour of flight and mine. But like I said this was a good thing for me. I had to keep telling myself that this was her (the lady's) problem and not mine. This flight was only 4 and a half hours, but once we got there we were like the night of the living dead. We got our bags and got some gelato. This was 4am Israel time. We boarded a van/taxi thing that every seat was filled. All six of us piled in the pack of the van. To put it short this 40 min ride to our house we were to stay in was a ride from hell compared to the last 30 hours of travel. And that's saying a lot! This guy drove like a maniac speeding around corners and stopping and going really fast over bumps. All of us were starting to feel nausious by the end. Mercifully, we were the third to get dropped off out of like eight. He dropped us off and we weren't even sure if this was the right place. Ben went to go find out and I was with the kids and the luggage. I then proceeded to drop on all fours and felt like I was going to throw up but was trying to keep it together. Dove asked if I was okay. "Yeah, I'm okay." In a few minutes I was feeling better and Ben came back and told us that this was it. Praise God!!! was all I could say.
We crashed for about 4 hours and woke up to Stephen and Tiffany knocking on our door. They were going to take us to the old city which is about a 15 min. walk from our house. This was good because we needed to stay up during the day to help get adjusted to the new time. They took us all over and it was really neat. We saw the Western Wall and went and ate in old town Jerusalem. By about 5pm I and the rest of us hit a wall. We managed to stay up until 9 and put the kids down around 8. That first night was a little difficult with all of us waking up around 4 wondering if it was time to wake up. It wasn't so we all forced ourselves back to sleep.
Anyways, this is getting really long so if you want more let me know and I'll email a part 2 of the last few days here in Jerusalem. But all in all it has been really neat to be here. And I'm excited about what God has in store for us to be apart of.
It was a loooong journey to get here that's for sure. We ended up taking 3 planes to get here. Our first stop was in Memphis. That was a 5 hour plane ride. But our longest plane ride was yet to come. We quickly boarded our plane heading to Amsterdam. This flight took about 10 hours I think. We watched a lot of movies :) That helped pass the time. Once we got into Amsterdam it was our night but Amsterdam's morning. So, needless to say we were a wee bit tired. And we planned a 9 hour lay-over there;) hmmmm still wondering if that was worth it. We found a Children's Museum that was neat for the kids. We probably spent a few hours here. Then we went to a coffee shop where we were to meet a couple of Ben's clients for Epipheo. I know funny. Well these nice people picked a candle lit atmospheric coffee shop where the youngest people there were probably in there 40's. We got there first waiting for them to arrive and within 10 min. all 4 of our kids were completely passed out. We were quite the scene. Ben's clients arrived and we had a nice chat with them over some dinner and coffee. We had to take the kids sandwiches to go. We woke (mostly) the biggest three up and dragged them to the taxi that was waiting to take us to the airport. We got to the airport and ended up carrying Memory all the way through customs. It was quite a task, but finally we all got there and got through that and bunked out in the waiting/holding area until our plane was ready to board. Most of us ended up taking a nap here as well. Memory woke up, though. Bright as a clam. Good timing. Within a half an hour a hundred Israeli people came around us and sat with us waiting to board the plane.
In this moment I all of a sudden had a swell of emotion thinking about these people-God's chosen people who were lost. I felt like in that moment I felt an inkling of what God felt for these people. It was an emotion of compassion, sorrow, loss, and mercy. It was very sudden and quick and gone in a blink of an eye, but very powerful for me to experience. I believe God was helping me connect with what I was about to experience in Israel.
Well, we boarded the plane and Eden had a total and complete emotional melt down. This was difficult for me. I believe it was really good for me. Because I am too worried about what other people think and in this moment I had to think of what my daughter needed and what us as a family needed not just saving face for a bunch of strangers. Of course Eden had to sit in back of the one lady on the plane that had a problem with her emotional melt-down. She called a flight attendant over and speaking in maybe Arabic I don't know, pointed to Eden and probably was asking if she can shut this kid up. Eden wasn't being incredibly loud but it was definitely noticeable that she was crying. The flight attendant came over and was looking for her parents. Ben told her we were right here behind her and the flight attendant told the lady "What do you want me to do. She is crying and the parents are right there. What's the problem?" It was kinda funny. So we definitely ruined this lady's first hour of flight and mine. But like I said this was a good thing for me. I had to keep telling myself that this was her (the lady's) problem and not mine. This flight was only 4 and a half hours, but once we got there we were like the night of the living dead. We got our bags and got some gelato. This was 4am Israel time. We boarded a van/taxi thing that every seat was filled. All six of us piled in the pack of the van. To put it short this 40 min ride to our house we were to stay in was a ride from hell compared to the last 30 hours of travel. And that's saying a lot! This guy drove like a maniac speeding around corners and stopping and going really fast over bumps. All of us were starting to feel nausious by the end. Mercifully, we were the third to get dropped off out of like eight. He dropped us off and we weren't even sure if this was the right place. Ben went to go find out and I was with the kids and the luggage. I then proceeded to drop on all fours and felt like I was going to throw up but was trying to keep it together. Dove asked if I was okay. "Yeah, I'm okay." In a few minutes I was feeling better and Ben came back and told us that this was it. Praise God!!! was all I could say.
We crashed for about 4 hours and woke up to Stephen and Tiffany knocking on our door. They were going to take us to the old city which is about a 15 min. walk from our house. This was good because we needed to stay up during the day to help get adjusted to the new time. They took us all over and it was really neat. We saw the Western Wall and went and ate in old town Jerusalem. By about 5pm I and the rest of us hit a wall. We managed to stay up until 9 and put the kids down around 8. That first night was a little difficult with all of us waking up around 4 wondering if it was time to wake up. It wasn't so we all forced ourselves back to sleep.
Anyways, this is getting really long so if you want more let me know and I'll email a part 2 of the last few days here in Jerusalem. But all in all it has been really neat to be here. And I'm excited about what God has in store for us to be apart of.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
And then there were 5
That's right, I'm pregnant and soon to be the owner of 5 children! Ben and I feel so blessed! God's timing is perfect. I'm due sometime Feb. 2. I had horrible morning sickness with Memory and that hasn't started yet. I've just had pretty minor sickness. So here's hoping it stays that way.
This timing is kind of crazy because when we found out we were pregnant a few weeks ago, Ben said, "We were just getting this 4 kids thing down." So just when you get too comfortable God shakes things up a bit. I think both Ben and I had resigned and moved on from having another child at this point. So to be given this was quite a shock. A good shock, though.
This timing is kind of crazy because when we found out we were pregnant a few weeks ago, Ben said, "We were just getting this 4 kids thing down." So just when you get too comfortable God shakes things up a bit. I think both Ben and I had resigned and moved on from having another child at this point. So to be given this was quite a shock. A good shock, though.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)