Three cheers for full bellies.

Today being a day of classes and homework, let me elaborate on two, nay three, important happenings of the day.

To do it chronologically would be slightly confusing, so I will go a different route.

In Life of Christ my brain was shattered by a wave of genius, which spewed freely from Abner's mouth. Don't ask me to explain, just believe it. ... Just kidding. Today we talked about the birth of Christ as related in Matthew. I didn't know an hour and a half could be spent on two verses like that. He went into detail on the predictions in Isaiah 7, 8, and 9. We all have heard different perspectives of some kind (i.e. dual fulfillment, obvious evidence/prediction of virgin birth, etc. If the passage doesn't ring a bell, grab an hour, read it, and think about it... no really, think about it.) Regardless of what we've heard, Abner's explanation was both astounding and so amazing and detail-oriented that I couldn't even begin to tell it, my heart and mind are reeling. I loved it. The one lecture that I definitely should have recorded and I was so preoccupied listening that I forgot. I love this class, I love what it makes me do, I love how it makes me think and how it makes me realize that I have so much to learn. The more I learn the less I know.

Second important thing of the day, sort of a two-parter actually. I got up early and talked to Jordi, I got a letter from Jordi. In the same day. Chronologically speaking. The day started great, turned amazing, came to wonderful, passed go, gave me 200 dollars, and the I landed on boardwalk.

What is this boardwalk of which I speak? O ho ho, let me tell you! Once a week in February Bill and his family (the Schlegels) have 10 of us over for dinner. Daniel and I went tonight (along with Brian, Mike, Lily, Jessica Wick, Stephanie, Bekah, Heather, and Breanna. I say their names just to help you out. Group photos/other photo updates of what we do can be found at ibexsemester.com - which I somehow forgot to mention earlier, whoops. Thanks for the reminder J). Anyway, it was real food. It was a lot of food. It was delicious food. We had lasagna, homemade rolls (like your homemade bread mom, so good!) salad and corn. It was sort of like american food, only better, because we haven't had such "scrumptious vittles" in a little while. For the first time in 3-ish weeks, I am really, really full. Plus we had brownies from heaven. All in all, I wish that would happen more often.

So there you have it. The top three of the day. If I get a chance I will write up that promised food network special F.I.L.A.F.E.L.S. this weekend, we'll see.
Have a good one.

And read Psalm 1, Bill had Mike read it after dinner, always a good reminder.

On the road to Jericho...

In the words of Christian music superstar, Keith Green, "I left Jerusalem last week for Jericho." Except that it was today, not last week, and I suppose technically I didn't leave from Jerusalem first, though we did go through it on the way...

Anyway, today was field trip day (like every Wednesday will be). We went to so many places! It was crazy. But in reality we were never more than 20 miles from "home." We drove to the west to the Valley of Aijalon (where the sun stood still/God lobbed hailstones at the Amorites). Then we made our way west, stopping along the way on a ridge that looked out toward the coast. People, Israel is amazing country. So pretty and SO diverse. The Hill Country, where we were standing, overlooks the Shephelah (pronounced "Shvelah" - it basically means low foothills) and the coastal plain. The coast is about 25 miles from us, maybe a little more, but you would never be able to tell when you stand outside here.

During the day we went to Geba, Ramah, Gibeah (which is where the "ruins" of the Jordanian palace that was never finished because of the 6 Day War in '67) Michmash, Gibeon, etc. They are all in the Central Benjamin Plateau, which is north of Jerusalem and a key crossroads area even today, but especially in Bible times. For some reference, Samuel lived in Ramah, King Saul had his palace at Gibeah, Jonathan toasted some Philistines at Michmash, the main "highway" in the Hill Country that ran north-south went through this area as did the main access highways from the east (Jericho) and west (Gezer, Aijalon, etc). So this is big-time territory.

But the coolest thing I noticed was that when we stood at the top of a ridge near Geba is that we could see clear to Tel-Aviv at the coast on one side and the high plateaus of Jordan on the other. I could stand on a mountain and look across the whole country! Standing at about 3000 feet above sea level I could look at the Mediterranean (barely visible in the haze) and down at the Jordan Rift Valley/ Dead Sea (-1000 ft sea level). Pretty awe-inspiring. So much happened in so little an area, our God is pretty phenomenal.

Our day ended at Jericho, which is not that big around, the flannel-graphs are deceiving people. We say the leftovers of the wall of the time of Joshua - for a quite interesting, but detailed, explanation of the walls and how they fell and all of that ask me when I get home, I'll be glad to share my new knowledge :) It was pretty cool to see a wall that is part of one of the oldest cities in the world. And since it's in Palestinian-controlled territory their archaeological security is pretty lax so we could look around for potsherds (broken pieces of ancient pottery). My friend Brandon found a sweet jug-handle and I found a semi-large piece that has the painting decoration on it (decoration is a relative term, apparently the Canaanites thought two parallel lines was pretty artsy, but hey, no one else found something so cool)

It was a good, good day. Lots of walking, lots of sunshine, some delicious coconut ice cream at an Israeli mall, amazing realism brought to even the more mundane parts of Scripture... what more could a small-town college student ask for?