Ok, ok, ok... I'll write a new one finally...

Ok, so it's been something like a week or ten days since you last heard from me. Contrary to the worries of some, I am not dead, Gaza has not overtaken IBEX, I have not been shanghai'd into the IDF, and eating too much pita bread has not yet sent me to an early grave. So where were we? I think that you have not yet heard about my Indiana Jones adventures or the second trip to the Shephelah region. Ok, I will tell you:

It all began on a rainy morning in March. This last Sunday to be more exact. Now don't hate me, but I worked on Sunday again. But it is ok, because Saturday is our Sunday over here. Anyway, all of us IBEXers loaded up and headed for Jerusalem, off on an adventure find the Ark or the Holy Grael or some such nonsense. We had the rare and oh-so-"exciting" privilege of sifting through hundreds of buckets of dirt and rubble from the Temple Mount. To explain that, since we all know that excavations on the Mount are illegal: A while back the Muslims were like, "hey, let's build another Mosque so that we can have like 10,000 people come to worship a false god." So they added a mosque below ground (the area known as Solomon's stables) and took out tons and tons of old, important dirt. Then they dumped it all over without any archaeological study. Bad news. So now this little project, called the "Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation" is gathering those piles of dirt, moving them, and sifting through them. Yay.

So we got to sift and find tons of tiny pieces of pottery, some mosaic pieces, strange rocks and not much else. Except for some of us. Oh yes, some of us found really cool stuff. Or really cool if you are a nerdy archaeologist and just pretty cool if you are someone else I guess. Jason and I (we were sifters together for the day) had one last bucket to sort through before it was time to go. So we pick one of the buckets who has been left off to the side of the rest of the bucket. All the ones around him had been chosen long ago. He was lonely, we saved him. And he liked it or something because as soon as we started spraying the rubble we saw this corroded piece of metal. "ooh" is what you might be thinking. Jason and I both said, "hey... wait. what's that?" so we pulled it out, sprayed it off, asked one of the staff, she wasn't sure, she took it to another guy and he says, "yep, it's a coin." Probably the coolest one of the day, we were happy about that. They say that once they send it off to the cleaners it will be "really pretty" - clearly that was the gal's assessment, ours was more along the lines of, "it will look awesome and we will be famous." For once guys used more words than girls to describe something.

The next day we had the "privilege" of working at one of the current archaeological digs in the City of David area (just south of Temple Mount remember?). We were the chain gang, but it was so nice to have a day off of learning and do something physically taxing. We hauled bags and bags of dirt up out of the fortress area where they are excavating. I was on the line the whole time, though some of our number got to do the digging down in the big hole (room enough for 8 or 9 people to swing a pick-ax, not like those tiny shafts we imagine) where it was hot and smelly and stuffy. I got the fresh air region, sitting on a beam between the ground level and the excavation area. Somehow in this elaborate process we think I pulled a muscle in my wrist. You know that little muscle about 2 inches down from the very bottom of your thumb that kind of comes across the top of your arm? Well mine hurt like the dickens the next day, I could hardly lift my Bible and putting clean sheets on my bed was one of the most excruciating experiences of recent Eli history. But enough about that, the digging was fun and now I have official Israeli archaeological experience.

As for Wednesday's trip into the Shephelah (lowland/foothill region), it was one of the most beautiful days we have had here. We spent the morning at a Biblical garden (Neot Kedumim for those of you looking at my life calendar) where we saw every major Israeli plant and learned all sorts of cool stuff. I think Jeremy and I are two of the maybe 7 people who actually enjoyed spending 3.5+ hours there, but it really was cool despite the other opinions of our group.

Then we went to Gezer, which has some pretty sweet ruins, including a Solomonic gate. It's really off the beaten path, so much so that the only other people there were IDF trainees practicing their binocular-using skills by viewing the coastal plain. The road to the tel is ridiculous, Israeli bus drivers make rally car drivers look like pansies. Then we went to Gath (Goliath was from there if you recall), which has a great view and is huge. I would not at all want to charge up that hill. It was also where David acted crazy and escaped up the Elah valley to the Caves at Adullam. We like David, so we followed his footsteps and went to the caves, which were pretty neat if I do say so myself, but the view of the plains and the Shephelah and the hill country were unbeatable. It was close to sunset and the sky was clear. Basically it was a great place to sit and consider how God has worked through the ages. David was there, I was there... that's a lot of history in between -- and a lot of God being awesome and faithful in between.
That's all for the trip, we stopped at McDonald's on the way home for dinner, which is so much better than McDonald's at home, but still just fast-food...

Today a bunch of our people went to Tel-Aviv to chill on the beach, I have this fun thing called "doing scholarship renewal paperwork and financial aid verification forms" so I am here, getting things done so that tomorrow I can spend a guilt-free day in Jerusalem, cruising through new and old city alike and getting my shopping done. It will be oh so much fun. I think I will reward myself with a shewarma and ice cream. Maybe I will even hunt down a Pepsi...