Step up to the Mike

Teaching Philosophy

2011-10-18T16:03:00.000-04:00

I'll be honest for a moment. I love my job. It's one of the most satisfying things I've ever done. I get to spend time every day caring about middle school students.

I changed around my "teaching philosophy." I was doing a lot of lectures at the beginning of the year, but I've changed that. Now, I try to allow them class time each day to learn the material for themselves. Ironically, I started doing this mainly because I was so sick of telling the students to be quiet all the time, so I basically gave up and took the easier route. However, it's caused me to view teaching in a completely new way. Let me give an example.

The other day, I gave my class one whole class period to read through the section we were going over (about Pilgrims coming to America on the Mayflower) and create their own short story about the event using a fictitious family. Here's what I have found using this method:

1. They learn it better if they do it themselves. It's just a fact. When I lecture, many of them tune me out. When they have to engage their own minds, they have to learn it.
2. They have more fun. They like the chances to be creative, and subsequently they like my class.
3. I connect with them better. When I was lecturing, my interaction with the students was almost always negative. Be quiet. Pay attention. Stop doing that. Stay on task. When they are allowed the chance to learn for themselves, I have much less "crowd control." Although I still have to do crowd control, I spend most of my time encouraging the students, giving them advice, helping them learn. This has caused me to enjoy the students more, and the students like me more as well.
4. They learn how to learn. Instead of being spoon-fed all the information, they are finding it for themselves. Of course, sometimes I have expected too much from them, and had to tone it back down, but often I find they surprise both themselves and me. They are practicing a skill that they will use the rest of their lives. They are learning how to pick something up, figure out what it is saying, and then be able to say it again in their own unique way. And trust me, they have some very unique ways of saying things.

So, because of my new teaching philosophy, I have been able to connect with the students better, which is why I am a teacher in the first place. The students have a test tomorrow, and I find that even this is a way to connect with students. Of course, with the right attitude, every second can be an investment into students' lives!

Mr. Mike's Life

2011-09-25T06:42:00.000-04:00

Well another week has gone by here in Beit Hanina, Palestine. I have enjoyed my time here so far. Teaching has ironically been such a learning experience. Let me tell you about my life as Mr. Mike.

I currently teach 4 or 5 hours every day with Lunch duty (watching over the kids to make sure they don't do anything stupid during lunch). This means that I have about 2 hours free every day. These hours are usually filled with grading papers or preparing powerpoint presentations.

The greatest joy in teaching is being able to connect with the students. Since I am teaching 7th and 8th graders, they are very passionate, emotional, and somewhat out of control. Discipline is something that many of them lack to such a great extent that sometimes I feel the need to teach more about how to keep their mouths shut while I am talking than whatever else we may be working on. However, in these moments, I can show them that I am disciplining them for their actions while not being angry with them. And sometimes when I do become visibly angry with them, I can show them true character when I apologize for my own actions.

This is something that is very difficult. Some teachers here say that you don't realize you have an anger problem til you start teaching these kids. I can definitely relate to that. At the same time, I already love these kids. They are each special, and it is my job to bring that out of them and give them confidence to do so more often. It is an incredible feeling when the kids work hard at something, especially the kids who normally wouldn't even bother writing their name down.

The most important thing to me is that I am a follower of Jesus. This place, Palestine and Israel, needs the teachings of Jesus. Jesus taught to forgive and to love even your enemites. This is for another blog post, but my hope is that by knowing who I am as a person, my students will know what Jesus taught and how He lived.

Being a teacher is difficult, but it is rewarding. It makes me wish that I could have high school over again so that I can show my teachers how much I appreciate them! God bless!

Two Weeks of School

2011-09-19T12:31:00.000-04:00

We have finished two weeks of school and started on our third week, although it feels like we've been in school for months. I am getting into the swing of teaching every day. There is a lot more planning and preparation that goes into teaching than there is to being a student! And by the end of the day, I am exhausted! I usually crash into my bed and stay there for a couple hours after school.

I love the kids in my classes. There are certainly some who are more difficult than others, but for the most part, they are a great group of kids who are growing into their personalities and becoming quite unique people.

I also like the stuff that I'm teaching, which helps. I am teaching American History and Religion (I start Religion after the 1st quarter because another person is teaching the Judaism portion of it). So I have enjoyed creating powerpoints for American History and teaching it. Tomorrow we will be doing some review for a quiz that will be on Wednesday! I have scared the kids into thinking that the quiz is going to be really hard, but I think they'll be pleasantly surprised!

A sad note; one of my roommates is having to return to the US. His visa was not accepted. He is leaving tonight. It is disappointing for all of us; he really brought a lot of excitement to our apartment and school, and he will be missed!

But, to end on a positive note, I still really like my friends here. They are a lot of fun! One thing I've learned is that here, the support from the other teachers is very important. There are often bad days where students misbehave or get on our nerves, and being able to talk about it and be supported by those who understand is an incredible gift.

God bless you all!

First day of Teaching!

2011-09-05T08:43:00.000-04:00

Today was the first day of school. It was an eventful day, to say the least. I got to school at 7AM.

My schedule is as follows: I teach 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th periods this week. 3rd period is lunch, when I have "lunch duty." Lunch duty basically means that I walk around, talk to kids, and make sure they're staying out of trouble.

Let's rewind to 7:45 AM (School starts at 8). I am asked by the high school principal to substitute teach for the first period... for 5th graders. The teacher wasn't able to make it to school that day, so they were desperate. They told me simply to watch the kids. Well, you can't just watch kids for a whole hour. The Elementary Principal told me to teach math. Well, that would be great if the kids had math books. I asked for a teachers math book so I could teach it. It never came. Eventually I figured it out and we started doing some math problems, but it's safe to say that it was a fiasco of an hour.

Since I had to leave the 5th grade classroom to find someone to take the class so I could teach my American History class, I was late for my first official class as a teacher. How exciting! And from there I taught every class period during the day.

But, I gotta say, the the 7th and 8th grade kids made up for the crazy beginning to the day. I am really going to enjoy teaching them. And I hope that crazy things like what happened today won't be typical, because it was exhausting.

And to end this blog on another high note, I really like my friends here. There are some great and unique and interesting people. Thanks for all the prayers you're sending my way. Know that I'm sending them your way as well, and I miss all of you!

Eid Mubarak!

2011-08-29T15:21:00.000-04:00

As of right now, it is officially Eid Mubarak (meaning literally, "blessed festival") for my Muslim friends. They have spent the past month fasting from sunrise to sundown, and the Eid is the end of the fast. They spend about 3 days enjoying the festival.

I will be working the next three days while my Muslim neighbors party. They have earned it, though. Their fasting is commendable, and they spend a good deal of time praying and discussing the Koran during this time. On top of that, this month is possibly the hottest month of the year. Many of them work outside and can only drink water in the hot summer sun. They break the fast at 7:30PM and eat to their heart's content.

As a personal update, I miss my family and friends. Sometimes I make jokes or comments that I know people back home would think was funny, but nobody here laughs. And sometimes I say things that shouldn't be that funny, and people laugh. Over the next year, we'll get to understand each other better, though.

I do love the people here. Some of the volunteers and I went to church on Sunday and afterwards one of them bought coffee for all of us people she barely even knows. Another person has helped me decorating my classroom (You may guess that decorating isn't really a skill of mine). Another has taken me and others to the "Wal-mart" of Jerusalem to do some shopping. A friend from my old school, JUC, brought something very important for me in her luggage. I've just been blessed from the kindness of so many here, and I'm challenged to find creative ways to share the kindness with others!

I miss you all. If you think of it, don't be shy about texting me or leaving a message on facebook. Sometimes your comments are the brightest parts of my day! And I apologize ahead of time for my response time. It can get busy here, and I am trying to spend as much time as possible getting to know people here, so it may take a while. God bless!

Service

2011-08-27T14:45:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I forget what I've been put on this earth to do.

I'm not talking about teaching high school or playing basketball or traveling the world. I'm talking about serving people. My good friend Jason Patterson (http://www.jasonmpatterson.com/) talks sometimes about how God is forever trying to get us to move from being selfish to becoming selfless.

It seems that many of Jesus' teachings had this as a theme. He said that his mission on earth was not to be served, but rather to serve. This is the mission of all Christ-ians (those who follow Christ; the Christ-like ones).

I've found myself often in this past week and a half giving in to selfishness. I often become far too self-conscious. By this I mean that I am conscious only of myself. The problem with being self-conscious is that the more self-conscious you are, the less God-conscious and others-conscious you can be. And so instead of risking my own comfort for the sake of God or for the sake of others, I focus on my comfort at the expense of God or the expense of others.

This is the role of a servant. A servant does whatever is best for his master. The Bible tells us that we are born as servants to sin. We are prone to give into this desire to be selfish. Therefore, a servant of sin does what is best for his own desires at the expense of what is right.

But God challenges us to be servants of others. This means that rather than staying comfortable in my selfishness, I risk my own comfort for the sake of someone else. A servant does not look to be promoted, and he cannot be demoted to a lower position. This was the role of Christ, and this is the role of Christ-ians. It is a move, a shift, from being selfish to becoming selfless.

That is what each of us has been put on this earth to do.

Speaking of blogs...

2011-08-22T10:05:00.000-04:00

Well yesterday is a good place to start on this blog. I had the privilege to go to Shane and Mandy's house, along with 6 others who are new volunteers here in Jerusalem. We ate Chicken Parmesan (delicious) and they told us a little more of what to expect in this school year. It was incredible, and it was a good time to hang out with some people who are in the exact same boat as I.

Speaking of food (yeah, it was earlier, but I'm hungry so it's on my mind), one of my roommates, Josh, loves to cook. And thus my main prayer for this year has been fulfilled. Uh, I guess there are some more important ones, but this has got to be top 5. Tonight, he's making some pasta. It's really a win-win for everyone. We will be paying him to cook for us a few times a week or so, but since we're eating in bulk, we will be paying less food, so it comes out to essentially a similar price.

Speaking of roommates, I have been able to spend more time with each of them, and I think we're really going to have a good time this year. I wouldn't change a thing about this setup so far.

Speaking of setup, I set up my classroom today a little. At least, I found out which classroom is mine. And I know that I will be teaching American History and World History. This should be fun!

Speaking of food, we'll be going to the city tonight to find some frozen yogurt! I'm very excited to hang out with some of these strangers here who I will be living and working with.

And let me just pause to say that I cannot imagine being anywhere but here right now. Yes, things are still foreign to me, and yes, I sometimes feel like an outsider, and yes, I'm sure that in a few months I will be lonely and desperately wanting some Chick-fil-A. But the Bible talks about a thing called the peace that passes all understanding. In other words, there are times when we know we shouldn't feel peace about our situation, but we do. Somehow we know that we are in the right place, or perhaps more importantly, that our hearts are in the right place. I like to call this the peace that doesn't make sense. We all have felt it before at different times in our lives, and I feel it now. Thanks for all your prayers!

Another day passes

2011-08-20T15:22:00.000-04:00

I got here about 4 days ago, but it seems longer than that. It has been fairly uneventful in the days that I have been here. Here have been some highlights:

- Taking a free tour of the Old City. I have taken many tours, and each time there is something new that I learn.
- Visiting my old school (JUC)'s campus and seeing 2 of my friends there. This happened today. It was great!
- Going to my favorite spot in Jerusalem: the lookout at the Western Wall.
- Just walking around the Old City again. I love it! It's great for people-watchers!
- Meeting some great people that I'll be working with at the school and being able to hang out with them.

It is a short list right now, mainly because I simply haven't done too much. My days have been either at my apartment or wandering around the Old City of Jerusalem. Tomorrow I and the other new teachers at the school will be hosted by a couple for dinner, and I am very much looking forward to that. Also, several of my friends will be arriving from the United States this week, and I'm pumped about being able to see all of them again!

Here is a short list of some things I am excited about doing this year:

- Learning Arabic. They will teach us Arabic for free while we are teaching here! A year of studying it almost every day will certainly help!
- Teaching history. I love history. I believe I'll be teaching World History and American History, both of which I am excited to both learn more about and to explain to others.
- Possibly teaching Religion. I hope they give me the chance to teach a Religion class. It is my passion, and teaching it comes a little more naturally to me.
- Hanging with my friends at my old school- JUC. It will be great to reunite with them!
- Watching the entire series of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yeah, that's right. I'm making it a goal!
- Starting new relationships here and developing old ones in the States. Believe it or not, being here can strengthen my relationships with my friends back home. For many of my friends, when I leave, I am just a guy who is no longer around. Their lives don't change much. My life, on the other hand, is completely different. I get lonely and I miss "the way things were." In these times, I find that I miss my family the most. I also miss a few close friends, and because of that I try to stay in touch with them. And once I come back to the States, my family and these close friends will be the ones that I will hope to see first.

Right now, I am exhausted. I have had several days in a row of walking many miles per day, and my legs and feet are enjoying their time off. I will update again soon. God bless to you all. Carpe Diem!

All Settled In

2011-08-16T23:17:00.000-04:00

Greetings from Jerusalem!

That's right. I have returned to Jerusalem, Israel. Instead of learning as a student, this time around I will be learning as a teacher! I am very excited about the opportunity God has given me to be here.

I will post pictures later of the school, my apartment, and so on. Suffice to say now that I have moved into the apartment here. I have two roommates: Christopher and Hakeem. They seem like pretty cool guys, so I don't think we'll have any problems. Still gotta figure out all the washing dishes and cleaning stuff but we'll get to that later.

Yesterday we went to the small market here to buy food. I was happy to see that they had frozen pizzas and chicken and cereal! I will be experimenting with cooking here, although it's hard because most of the directions on the boxes are in Arabic. We'll see what great and terrible things I come up with!

Tomorrow we will be going to the school to set up our classrooms. I will see where the next year of my life will be spent! I'm looking forward to it.

All in all, I am excited about this new chapter in my life. It will be challenging, frustrating, and lonely at times, but I am hoping rewarding as well.

I also hope that this blog will serve as a way for my friends and family to keep up with some of the details of my life here that I may not be able to share via text messaging, skype, or whatever else. This means that the blog will be much more about my personal and communal life here than about anything academic, scholarly, or spiritual; although, I hope to include some of those as well.

If you pray, please pray that I will be able to jump right into life here. It is a very different experience than the last time I was here, so there will be culture shock. Most of all, pray that I will be able to show the same kind of love that Jesus Christ has shown me and all who follow Him.

The Problem of Evil

2011-03-09T21:46:00.000-05:00

I've been studying for a test for the past few weeks covering all that I learned in Seminary. I have had to go over all my notes and papers that I've written, and I came across this. It's a paper I wrote concerning the problem of evil. I had to make up a person and write a letter to him as if we were discussing why God allowed evil in the world. I re-read this and liked it, and thought I'd pass it on. It's kinda long, but I think it's worth the read. Hope you enjoy!

Introduction

This is a letter to a friend named Herman Borchkie (fictitious character). We have been writing letters back and forth for several weeks. This particular letter is in response to a letter Herman sent me. In it, Herman brings up the problem of evil and makes various assertions. Herman and I were childhood friends; we even went to the same church, but since moving away for college, Herman has “lost” his faith. He is not very knowledgeable about many apologetical issues, but has recently been reading books questioning the Christian faith.

The Letter

Hello Herman; I hope all is well. You have brought up some very good points and some very good questions in your past letter. The problem of evil is one that has been debated for a very long time, and it probably will be debated for a long time to come. It’s not an easy problem to solve. I hope to at least respond to all the questions and misguided statements you made in this letter.

First, you said that if God is completely powerful and completely good, evil would not exist. Now, all that I need to do to show that this statement is false is give an example in which it could possibly be true. The burden of proof is on me to not necessarily prove that if God is completely powerful and completely good, evil would exist, but to prove that if God is completely powerful and completely good, evil might exist. In other words, I am not going to give you a theodicy, which explains why God would certainly allow evil, but I am going to give you examples of ways in which if God exists, and He is completely powerful and completely good, evil could still exist.

The argument can be broken down to three different parts. The first part is that God is completely powerful. The second part is that God is completely good. Finally, the third part is that evil exists. Your argument is basically that all three of these things cannot be true. One or more of them must be false. Since you and I know that evil exists, you are arguing that one of the first two parts is false (Plantinga, 13). I think it would be helpful to define some terms.

God is completely powerful. What exactly does this mean? Some would say that it means that God can do absolutely anything. However, this is not so. God can only do what is logically possible. Someone once asked me as a child, “Can God create a rock that He cannot lift?” It puzzled me, and caused me to question God’s existence perhaps for the very first time. The answer to this question, however, is quite simple. Alvin Plantinga, in his book, God, Freedom, and Evil, states, “Not even an omnipotent being can bring about logically impossible states of affairs or cause necessarily false propositions to be true” (17). So, it would be better stated that God can do anything that is logically possible.

God is completely good. Good is sometimes a difficult thing to explain, especially when it deals with God. C.S. Lewis, in his book, The Problem of Pain, says that God’s goodness is so far above ours, that we cannot put our definition of goodness on Him. He says, “To say, ‘God is good’… is really only to say, ‘God is we know not what’” (Lewis, 25). Sometimes the idea that comes across when it is mentioned that God is good is the idea that nothing evil can happen if God is involved. However, this is simply not true. Suppose you have a rash on your leg, and you go to the doctor and she tells you that you have poison ivy. It will be very itchy for a few days, but it will soon go away. The only other option to get rid of the pain of the rash is to amputate your leg. Now, the amputation would solve the problem, so would it be logical to go ahead and amputate? No, obviously not. Amputating the leg would bring about a much greater evil. So, the doctor is good precisely because he is not amputating your leg, even though the pain in your leg will still be there (Plantinga 19). So, we have to take into account the idea that in any given circumstance, God may be choosing the “lesser of two evils.” A professor of mine named John Cooper once wrote, “‘Either God exists or evil exists’ is a false dilemma” (1). He says that it is possible for there to be another possibility that God has sufficient reasons for allowing evil to exist. So, with that in mind as a backdrop for the conversation, I will now answer your objections and questions with possibilities for why God may have sufficient reasons for allowing evil.

You first said that since God is all good and all powerful, He would not have allowed evil. You and I both have knowledge of God’s sovereignty, and that is obviously part of the problem. If God is sovereign over all things, He should stop evil from happening. However, what must be understood is that God does give humans free choices. His ability to stop humans from doing evil would only override His “rule” to allow humans to choose for themselves what to do (thus, creating a robot-like society of people). Furthermore, He cannot be completely sovereign over every action (in the form of first-hand choosing everything that happens) and give humans free will. It is an either/or because they are contradictory. So, God may once in a while step in and choose one’s actions, but this would be an exception to the rule. We see this happening, for instance, in the Exodus story, when the text says that God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” (Exodus 10:20). So, in special cases, God may step in and override a moral action, but this is not normal. This is, however, still compatible with God’s sovereignty. It is only in respect to saving grace that God is the once-and-for-all decider. He is the one who brings people to salvation. He draws them and then holds on to them. This is the sovereignty of God in action. Far too often, I think, it is implied that God decides every thing that happens on earth, and that is only indirectly true.

The way that I have heard God’s sovereignty explained that has made the most sense to me is a theory which states that before time, before creation, before there was anything other than God, God viewed, so to speak, all of the different universes that could be created. So, he viewed this universe, along with every other one in which human persons have free will. He saw all that could be if He created lots of other similar worlds, only with one or two or three differences, and He saw that this world was the most good. Given the free will of humans, there would be evil in every world, and no matter what God would plan to save mankind from that evil through Jesus Christ, but even though this world had lots of evil things happening every day (not to mention throughout history, with the holocaust as a prime example), this world was still better than the others. I will discuss this in further detail later in this letter.

I mentioned earlier the idea that if God created human beings without the capacity to make their own choices, they would be like robots. Let me explain this idea a little further. John Cooper, my professor, wrote, “If God always prevented evil acts, he would thereby override and eliminate the freedom and responsibility of the agents he created, whose created capacity for agency is a greater good than the evil that they do” (3) Here, Cooper brings back the focus of the idea to the greater good/greater evil idea, where God chooses the greater good over the lesser good and the lesser evil over the greater evil. In this case, he says, simply creating humans who have the actual ability to choose to do good, even if many do not, is a greater good than creating “robot-like” beings who have no real choice in the matter. Parents know this concept very well. It is much better, as a parent, to see one’s child choose to do something than to see him or her forced to do something. It is a joy to see my niece, who is two years old, say “thank you” when I tell her to say it. However, it is infinitely more joyous to see her say thank you when I haven’t asked for it. In the same way, God instructs us (through the Bible, logic and rhetoric, philosophers, psychiatrists, et cetera), but He, as a general rule, will not force anything upon us. He delights when we choose to obey Him. And, it is a greater good, or, to put it another way, it’s just better that way!

Another thing that was implied when you said that no kind of evil should exist if God is completely powerful and completely good is natural evil. I am not completely sure if you meant this as part of your definition of evil, but I want to clarify this in any case. Natural evil is, obviously, evil that is not directly caused by human beings, such as natural disasters and diseases. I have often heard the case that natural evil is a main reason why Atheists do not believe in God. The reason, I have heard it said, is that many Atheists will recognize that humans cause moral evil, and the blame can be then set on humans. However, it has long been understood that God is the only one who can directly affect natural evil. Even many Christians make this assertion, saying that, for instance, Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans was God’s judgment. If God directly sent that hurricane, does God directly send all hurricanes, snow storms, tornadoes, cancer, AIDS and other things that cause death in great numbers? The Bible even has at least one example of a natural disaster being sent by God (the flood in Genesis 6:9-8:22). In this case, the flood was sent as a judgment on ungodly people. So, is it safe to assume that all natural disasters and diseases are God’s doing, that they are judgments sent by God? The simple answer is that every case may be different. It is hard to know, and frankly, it may not be our place to know. However, let us speculate some reasons why God may allow natural evils.

The first reason God may allow natural evils is that it may actually be caused by humans. This speculation has been front and center of much of the news lately, especially with the theory of global warming. It is quite possible that in some way throughout the centuries humans have been the cause for what has been perceived of as natural evils. However, this is quite frankly a little unlikely, and if it were true, it would likely be limited to a small number of natural disasters. There may, however, be more of a case for natural evils such as diseases. In many cases, some kind of human doing may cause that human or another human to contract a disease. This is certainly not the case in every scenario, however. The second explanation for natural evil is that it may be the cause of spiritual unseen beings, such as angels and demons. Frankly, I do not really like this explanation very well either, since I view angels as beings who only do things on direct assignment from God, so saying that an angel is responsible would be saying that God is responsible. Demons may be a better explanation, since they are not sent by God, but have a mandate from Satan to destroy God’s creation. This theory, of course, does not necessarily imply that natural disasters and diseases are miracles. Demons may be the cause of scientific elements coming together in such a way that a hurricane may appear and cause destruction, or that a person picks up a disease when they would not have regularly (Moreland and Craig, 539). This is a possibility. Another possible explanation is one which Professor John Cooper pointed out. He wrote, “God ‘cursed the ground’ as just punishment for human sin. Natural processes that harm humans resulted, but just punishment is not evil” (3). At the event of the fall, God says, “Cursed is the ground because of you” (Genesis 3:17). This may imply that nature is directly affected by the fall of mankind. As Cooper points out, however, God’s goodness is not in question because this is a just punishment. Since mankind’s evil is the cause of it, mankind would then be the recipient of its blame. This is a possibility that I actually hold to. I think God created a good world in which natural evil did not exist or existed to a much lesser extent (you may say that snowfall alone is an evil, to which I would only half-jokingly concede), and it was man’s fall that brought about the intensity of evil which we see today.

Given this proposition, we are still wrought with the question of why God does not simply stop many of the terrible natural disasters that happen. Even though it may be humankind’s punishment, would it not be the responsibility of a good God to intervene and stop at least the terrible senseless ones from happening? Does the Edmund Burke quote, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” apply to God? This is a very subjective question because we honestly do not know how much God intervenes, if at all. It is quite possible that He intervenes on a regular basis, and the world would be a much worse place if He had not. One possible explanation is that God has simply placed limits on how bad natural evils can get, boundaries to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand, but will not step in to prevent many natural evils. This, again, is something that we cannot know. We often look at natural evils that were quite terrible and think that it could not get any worse, but the fact of the matter is that it could get far worse, ending in the destruction of the entire human race. So, perhaps the boundaries stop these natural evils in coming even close to that event. Another possible explanation is the idea of allowing humans to see a little bit of evil so they can recognize it and not be afraid of it. One example of this is giving someone a shot with a tiny bit of the flu in it so that their body can grow immune to it. Do you remember the Mighty Ducks movie? Goldberg, the goalie, was extremely afraid of the hockey puck. So, the coach tied him to the goal and had the entire team shoot at him for 10 minutes. After a minute or two, he realized the puck did not hurt as bad as he thought, and you see him become a great goalie because of his fearlessness. In the same way, God allows us to see evil so we know what good is, and we can fight for that goodness. Because of our fearlessness of evil, we can attack it head on and through us, God can bring about a good world.

Evils bring about pain and suffering, which you mentioned. You asked why God could allow bad things to happen to good people. Many books have been written on this subject, and, unfortunately, many of them do not do the subject justice. It is definitely a difficult subject, but one that I do believe has explanations that can still uphold God’s goodness. We must first affirm that we are contingent beings, or, in other words, we are not gods. Only God by definition has always and will always live. So, human beings necessarily are under God, and it is therefore viable for human beings to suffer death.

I once reprimanded a friend for sticking an ant in a toilet alive, just waiting for somebody to defecate on it and flush it down the toilet to its death. I still hold that it would be better to stop its misery immediately, but another friend reminded me that the small brain probably reduced the terror that the ant felt. This made me realize something. The greater capacity for feeling that a being has, the greater amount of both joy and terror it can receive. So, humans can feel much terror and experience much evil precisely because we have a capacity for much more joy and happiness. This can be looked on as a curse, but I would argue that it is really a “greater good.” As the saying goes, “It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.” The idea is that it is better to feel both great happiness and great pain than to not feel anything at all.

Because of the fact that evil causes such great pain, it is a greater responsibility for humans to be good to each other. If nobody could feel pain, wronging someone would not be such a terrible thing. Because of that, there would be hardly any motivation to do good instead of evil. God allows evil to cause pain so that humans can have a greater responsibility towards each other, and it shows the antithesis between good and evil. It shows the depth of the difference between doing good and doing evil. I believe this is a great reason for why Jesus told the story of the “Good Samaritan” in Luke 10:25-37. The priest and Levites were actually forbidden by God to touch corpses because it would have made them unclean. However, Jesus wants to be clear that an act of service to God is helping people, and by walking by the Samaritan who needed their help, they were actually doing evil.

Albert Wolters, in his book, Creation Regained, speaks of the world as going through a process of creation, fall, and redemption. He argues that the fall has reached every area of life (humankind, natural evils, everything). He says, “The new humanity (God’s people) is called to promote renewal in every part of creation” (Wolters, 73). Christians are called to transform society by helping to bring about the world as it was like before the fall. So, this emphasis on doing good is something that the Bible wholeheartedly affirms.

Pain is a necessary part of life. You’ve read stories of people who indulged themselves with food until they could no longer move and weighed a thousand pounds (although this is an extreme example, it proves the point). Because these people refused to discipline themselves and exercise and eat healthily (both of which are painful at times), many of the people who have reached that point have died at a very young age. The maxim, “No pain, no gain” is one that many sports teams ascribe because the pain makes the team better and stronger. In the same way, pain reminds us that humans are weak, and ultimately it reminds us that we need a savior. Mortality brings with it a sense of need. If any one person was immortal, he or she would understandably be fearless. However, since there is a one hundred percent chance that you and I will die, we are reminded that there is more to this short life than pleasure; there is something deeper, and that deeper meaning in life is serving God.

One of the great themes of the Bible is that the righteous will inherit the earth and that the wicked will perish. This is an important feature of the Bible. I believe it’s true, and I believe that it should be taught. However, like many doctrines of the Bible that are taught in our churches, this doctrine can be abused. It should be noted that being righteous does not necessarily bring wealth or pleasure, or whatever it is that you desire, to come about. Often, in fact, the opposite is the case. Part of the answer lies in the fact that this theme is a proverb, or an adage. The Bible does not purport that this adage will always be true, but that it is a general rule of thumb that, for instance, doing good will bring about goodness into your life. Another answer lies in the fact that we live in a fallen world, and combined with the fallen nature of human beings, often the blessing that should be coming does not. The answer may lie in the idea that the treasure we will receive will be in heaven, after we die. This is, I believe, part of the answer, and I believe it is taught by the Bible as well.

Another thing you brought up was an instance where there was no good that came out of an evil. I realize this is something that many people feel and struggle with. I have myself as well. When I was in college, I was in a car accident with a very close friend who died the next day. It was the single most devastating event of my life. I searched for a while for something good to come of it, but was left disappointed. I can say now that I am stronger because of it, but I’d much rather my best friend was still here. The question of why God did that has haunted me, and sometimes still does. It did cause me to start considering different possibilities for why something like that, that had absolutely no good outcome, could happen. I like an explanation that John Cooper gives concerning this: “Perhaps it is consistent with the greater good of God’s maintaining a fallen creation in order to save it that he allows a certain number of genuinely gratuitous moral and natural evils to occur” (6) This is simply a defense of God’s goodness in allowing what he calls “gratuitous evils.” He contends that it is possible that God is simply upholding the laws of creation that He put in place. If someone were to say that since these things are happening, God should simply end the world, and none of them would happen, the response would be that the good of redeeming creation from its fallen state and nature is good enough to keep the laws of nature that God put in place there.

In his book, The Reason for God, Timothy Keller gives a story of a person who experienced a great deal of suffering who became angry at him for giving sermon illustrations in which everything turned out alright. She told him that giving a philosophical reason for why God did it does not put God “off the hook.” He wrote, “In response the philosopher Peter Kreeft points out that the Christian God came to earth to deliberately put himself on the hook. In Jesus Christ, God experienced the greatest depths of pain.” Keller points out something I think is pretty incredible: that Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection are a response to the unnecessary pain, since He Himself was not required to suffer, and yet He did for our sakes. And so, although Christianity may not always provide a reason for why pain and suffering occurs (although, in my opinion, it does a far better job than other worldviews), it does help people in facing them (Keller, 27-28).

The problem of evil is not an easy one to face. I believe that the answers I gave here in this letter is a good start to understanding the problem, but there are still so many theories to be studied. I maintain that God must have reasons for what He does. I maintain that God is wholly good, that God is wholly powerful, and that evil exists nonetheless. Faith plays a part in every single person’s worldview. The reason for this is because we just do not know so many things, so we can only guess. I base much of my faith on the Bible and what it reveals about Jesus Christ, and I believe it to be a consistent worldview. I am open to listening and considering other options, but until I am convinced that the Christian worldview is inconsistent, it is the faith that I hold to. I pray that each person who considers this problem of evil will come to the same conclusion.

Bibliography

1. Keller, Timothy, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Penguin Group, 2009) 27-28.

2. Lewis, Clive Staples, The Problem of Pain (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1943) 25

3. Moreland, J.P. and Craig, William Lane, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2003) 539.

4. Plantinga, Alvin, God, Freedom and Evil (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1974) 13, 17, 19

5. Wolters, Albert, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005) 73.

Hello?

2011-03-05T15:49:00.000-05:00

This is one good way to be found!

via Miss Cellania

Test

2011-03-05T15:33:00.001-05:00

Test 1 2 3

Test

2011-03-05T14:51:00.004-05:00

Test 1 2 3

Jim Joyce

2011-01-06T21:43:00.000-05:00

Today I was reading about Jim Joyce. Jim Joyce is a professional baseball umpire; in fact, he is one of the most respected umpires in baseball. June 2, 2010 changed his entire life. Armando Galarraga had been throwing a perfect game, a feat only 21 players ever has accomplished. It is one of the rarest moments in all of sports. Joyce was the first base umpire, so he called whether or not batters were safe on first base. On the last out of the game, with a perfect game on the line, Joyce made the wrong call.

He called the batter safe when he was clearly out. That was over 7 months ago, but that blown call haunts Joyce to this day. It is possibly the worst mistake by an umpire in history. He has received numerous death threats, and he thinks about the mistake he made on June 2 every single day.

Why do I bring that up? The article that I read was about Joyce dealing with life after "the call." He ruined a perfect game. But he said something that rings true to every person, despite the enormity of our mistakes. He said, "What does the word 'perfect' mean? Sometimes the word 'perfect' means being able to accept imperfection."

Sometimes the word "perfect" means being able to accept imperfection.

I guess the rest of the story should be told. Jim Joyce made a mistake that cost him dearly- he even had to delete his facebook account (gasp). But the way that he reacted once he realized his mistake is what he will be remembered for. Once he saw the replay, he apologized to Galaragga while hugging him and crying. He apologized to the Detroit Tigers organization, and he apologized to baseball fans everywhere. He accepted the fact that he was imperfect, and he's trying to move on.

Sometimes we just need to hear a story like that to remind ourselves that past (and current) failures don't have to define our futures. We may remember them and learn from them. We may even think of our failures every minute of every day. But sometimes, perfection comes from being able to accept our failures and live instead in remembrance and gratitude of God's acceptance despite our imperfections.

On a different note, I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years. I had an amazing time visiting all my family, and I am ready to start a new semester. Classes won't be as exciting this semester as they were in Jerusalem, but I'm ready to learn nonetheless! God bless!

2010-12-19T22:22:00.000-05:00

Well guys, this is officially my last post about Israel. I have been back in the states for two weeks now, and I have been reminded why I love America so much (hint: it has nothing to do with the snow I have endured since arriving). I love my friends here! The amenities are nice as well, such as fast food, junk food, good internet, a sewage system, and other glorious things, but what I really love about America are the people who make it special. On a similar note, I find myself missing Jerusalem. I miss lots of things about Jerusalem, but what I miss the most are my friends. I'll talk about some of them in this post, but really I miss all of them. They are all special.

Can you guess where we are in this picture? This is a place where some believe Christ was buried. It is a very old tomb. Although it cannot actually be where He was buried (it was empty during the time of Christ), it was a fun visit to a place that remembers His resurrection. As you can see, my friend Caitlin here is pointing out, sort of like an angel did, that Christ is not here. He has risen!

Megan is in the tomb, and she is wondering where Jesus is. He's missing! Apparently she needs Caitlin to point to the sign at the entrance to the tomb.

I knew you'd want to see me at the entrance to the tomb, so here it is. Here is the tomb that Jesus was not buried in! Whoo hooo!

This one's for my family. There was a windmill that is a national monument in Jerusalem. I saw it every single day from the window of the library at our school. It was very exciting!

Jerusalem University School (JUC) was the college I attended. This sign was the first thing I saw back in August when I came to JUC, which became a home away from home.

This was the basketball court that I played so often on in our campus. Whenever I needed a break from anything, I pulled out a basketball and worked on my shot right here.

In the beginning of December is Hanukkah. A few of us went to the Wailing Wall to celebrate Hanukkah, and we saw them light the first candle! Hanukkah is a "festival of lights" in which a candle is lit every day.

This begins the pictures of one of the most interesting things I did while in Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is where many believe Jesus was buried, and it is also possibly the place where He was crucified. Every day they lock the doors at 7pm, and then reopen them at 5am. A few friends and I decided it would be fun to try to get locked in, so we went to a basement area and hid. Unfortunately, we were found and were kicked out, but I started talking to a Fransiscan monk who lives at the Church, and asked if we could stay there for the night, and he let us. So we got the whole place practically to ourselves. We read the scriptures of Christ's death and resurrection, and we sang Amazing Grace there. It was a very cool experience. The above picture is the place they believe He was crucified.

This is just a cool door inside the Church.

This is the stairway that goes up to the place where He was crucified!

I love this picture. This is what the Old City of Jerusalem looked like at night. It's eerily barren, in contrast to the busy marketplace it becomes during the day. I would walk these streets often at night. This is what I will miss just as much as anything else. I loved walking here with a friend, talking about life and God and how special it is to be in Jerusalem.

Here is the picture of the group of us who were in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the night. What a great experience!

From now on, I will post blogs about my experiences, but they will not be anything like the blogs I have done while in Jerusalem. Experiences here are completely different, and I do not usually carry a camera to capture the moments. So most of the following blogs will be more about regular life and about what I've learned. Jerusalem is a very special place to me, and I think of it regularly. I expect this to continue for a long time. However, life is happening right now, all around us. Life is full of emotions, concerns, joys, and lessons that must be remembered. One way I will remember these is through this blog. I hope you will continue to read, and maybe we can all learn some things. Onto the next stage of life, the next journey, the next adventure!

Back Home

2010-12-07T17:44:00.000-05:00

I am back home! I haven't seen all my friends yet, but I'm hoping to see most of them by the end of the week. I read a facebook note by my good friend Cameron, and thought that I'd do the same thing he did. He wrote just a little bit of his favorite memories of the semester. This will be much more entertaining for those who were there for the events and who know the people involved.

Things that I will remember from this semester:

- Man Night
- Creating the Grad Lounge
- Telling Todd we should go out every other night
- Walking in the Old City at night with Stacy
- Tichu, Chess, Settlers of Catan, Ping Pong
- Paula joking about me not liking bread every single day
- Dan's burning eyes/almost every other conceivable thing hand motion on his face
- Robyn burping when she saw me in the grad lounge
- Learning Cameron had the exact same background as I
- The Jesus Walk (so many memories there) with Lis, Stacy, Hans, and Jason
- Getting locked in at the Holy Sepulcher with Megan, Jon, Caitlin, and Hans
- The poker night with all the guys
- The last night with Cameron and Seth
- Twisting my ankle
- Going to Zollis
- Arak
- The Coffee House and the performances during it
- Walking on the beach of the Sea of Galilee every night in Galilee
- Climbing in the oldest building still standing
- Ultimate Frisbee!
- Almost puking from eating so much at Thanksgiving
- Megan's birthday and the following crazy night
- Watching White Christmas on Thanksgiving (just like we do at home)
- Writing a 32 page paper on the Mountain of God in the Bible and Ugaritic sources
- The cold showers/no sewage system
- Walking outside in shorts and sweating in December
- Caitlin's stories
- Conversation with James one of the first nights there
- Lis's contagious enthusiasm
- The City of David- "Where it all began"
- Hezekiah's Tunnel
- The almost trip to Eilat with Dan and Chris
- Rabbi Moshe
- Skype with good friends and family!
- Genis
- Eating tongue in Galilee and making jokes about it
- Making jokes about Jerash
- Running up the steps in Petra with Dan- twice
- Hangin with the undergrads at the end of the semester
- Cookie Night!
- Running through the Israel Museum with Caitlin and Carmen
- Temple Mount with Dan
- Bible Lands Museum with Caitlin and Dan McCallister
- Talking football with Ben
- Yad VaShem- the Holocaust Museum
- Tower of David Museum with Megan
- Rockefeller Museum with Stacy
- The Western Wall experience
- The Garden Tomb with Megan and Caitlin
- Sneaking onto the Ramparts Walk with Lis, Stacy, Todd, and Caitlin
- Talking while overlooking the Western Wall
- Going to a Messianic Jewish Synagogue
- Wishing I had more time with the people at JUC and with Jerusalem

There's so much more, but that's a pretty big list already. I do miss it already.

It is great to be home though, and I'm excited to make new memories here!

Thanks to all who prayed for me during my trip. It was amazing, an experience I will never forget. There will be more pictures coming up as soon as I get them on my computer as well!

Last few days in Jerusalem

2010-11-30T10:51:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a great ride here in Jerusalem. I've done a lot of really cool things, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to be here. This will probably be my last post while I'm in Jerusalem. I wish I could have posted more, but hey I'll have plenty of time to post again once I'm back in the States. I'm only in Jerusalem once. I hope to come back here someday, but who knows? This may be the last time I see this beautiful country.

Today is Tuesday, November 30, and I leave for the States on Saturday, December 4. It's a crazy thought that soon, I will be able to eat fast food and other American food, have consistently hot showers, have a vehicle, have a cell phone, be with family and friends, studying for my last semester as a graduate student.

Those are some of the good things. Some of the things I'm not necessarily looking forward to is the freezing cold weather, not being able to have touristy things to do all the time, not living in a city that has shaped the world, not being with my friends here in close community, learning different cultures and studying archaeology.

It's important to always remember the past, live in the present, and look to the future. Right now a season of my life is coming to close, one in which I was blessed by God to live in the place where He lived. I have been blessed to have studied under the professors here, and I have been blessed to meet the people here who have shared these experiences with me. It has been a great season in my life.

Now, I'm beginning to look toward the future. I am looking forward to the Christmas season, I am wondering what jobs will be opened up or searched out, and I am ready for it. I finished all my work here, and I have one exam to take. Since it is in a subject that I love (Rabbinical Thought and Literature), I think I'll do fine on it. Basically, I'm already getting ready to go home.

I went to a 24/7 prayer house today. As I was there, I prayed that I would be able to remember the lessons learned here in Israel and apply them. As I go back to life, I pray this again.

As for all my devoted readers, keep reading if you want. I'll be posting more of my thoughts soon! Can't wait to see you all!

Jordan

2010-11-15T04:09:00.000-05:00

Last night we got back from an amazing 4 day trip to Jordan. We covered most of the important sites (except Pella- I was pretty disappointed we didn't get to go there). I took about 300 pictures, so I will try to just pick a few and give you some of the details.

This trip was more of a tourist trip than all of our other trips. Since we only had 4 days in Jordan as opposed to 4 months in Israel, we had to pack everything touristy to see in Jordan in this trip and see the biblical sites as well.

I love the culture of the Middle East. The only thing that I don't love is the culture of the tourist spots. Everything is Americanized. It's like the difference between meeting some nice people who are relaxing and grilling out and meeting a salesman who wants to sell you a vacuum. Tourist spots just aren't as real as the rest of the places. They are still fun though. Here are the pictures!

Ok, so this was not in Jordan. I was sick for a couple days and had some free time, so I played hearts. I've been trying to get a perfect score for a while now, and finally did it!

In Jerash, the pillars were amazing. There will be more pictures of the pillars coming up, but I loved this photo.

This is the King and Queen. The Jordanians love their royal family and pictures are up of them everywhere. They have done a lot for the poor and needy families.

Here I am at Jerash surrounded by pillars. This was like a meeting place, and there was a stone in the middle where people would give speeches.

The Cardo street. Cardo means heart, and the Cardo street means that it is the heart of the city. This is the most important street in the city of Jerash. On each side, there would be shops. This is from the Roman times.

Another picture of the cool pillars

Here we are at the Jabbok River. This is the professor of our class. He is about to tell us the story of Jacob wrestling with God. It happened here, or somewhere close to here, as he was walking to meet his brother Esau.

This was at Petra. Esther here is standing in the place where you are supposed to stand to ask the gods for forgiveness. I find it fascinating that almost every culture feels the need for forgiveness, and each one goes about it in sometimes similar, sometimes radically different ways. No need to go into comparative religions here, but the concept in Christianity is both similar and radically different than other religions as well. By the way, Esther here has that big of a smile almost 24/7. I've never met someone who smiles as much as she.

Here I am at Petra. This place was simply amazing. Oh yeah, and if you recognize it, you might be thinking of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Jealous? You should be.

This bridge was at Petra. Not very sturdy. There's Dan and his wife Paula in front of me, two really good friends of mine here.

Dan and I ran up tonnnnnnns of stairs. It was ridiculous. At the end of these endless stairs (that makes sense, right?), there was nothing. I mean, it was a good view, but we were expecting something awesome. Surely they would tell us before we walked up a thousand stairs that nothing was up there, but no. They didn't. And we were fairly disappointed.

This is again at Petra, after we ran up another huge flight of stairs. This time, though, we reached a cool monastery, which is the next picture.

This is the amazing monastery carved into the rock. Yep, this place is simply amazing.

Wow. This is the view of the Arnon canyon. It's breathtaking, fo shizzle.

This is a picture of all the girls on our trip.They are my good friends, and I am sad we won't all be taking any more long trips!

Here is all the guys. We have had a great time!

These next couple weeks will be basically only writing papers. Most of us are really behind on our papers and need to catch up. Also thrown in there is trying to see as much as possible (and possibly taking a trip to Mt. Sinai) before we leave in less than three weeks. Wow, less than three weeks. I will really miss being here, being with my friends here. It has been a great experience in every way. I'll save all that mushy stuff for another blog, but all that to say that it will be an insane three weeks. In fact, it's going to be an insane couple of months. And in May, I will graduate from Seminary which will be insane. I've said insane far too much, so I'll end it there.

I love you all! Can't wait to see most of you soon!

Jesus Walk

2010-11-03T10:03:00.000-04:00

Well this is a long overdue post about my latest adventure this past weekend. I and 4 of my friends did the "Jesus Walk." The Jesus Walk is a hike from Nazareth to Capernaum. It is about 37 miles. Our goal was to traverse it over 3 days. It was my first hike ever, and I loved it! Here is what happened in the form of the pictures we took.

First, let me introduce the group. From left to right, it's Jason, me, Lis, Stacy, and Hans. We took this picture when we were in Nazareth. It was the beginning of our adventure!

Now to each person individually. This is Lis' excited look.

This is my excited look as well.

However, we soon walked about a million billion stairs getting out of Nazareth, and I decided that Stacy should give her "exhausted" look. Here it is.

(On a related note, The Bible says that some people didn't trust Jesus because He was from Nazareth, and nobody of importance comes from Nazareth. I decided that it wasn't because nobody important was in Nazareth, but it takes so much work to get out of Nazareth that nobody ever leaves.)

Hans said that something was annoying, and so I told him to give me his annoyed look. He didn't understand what I said, but he looks annoyed that I'm talking to him anyway.

There was a sheep sitting in the back of a truck, and Jason pointed it out, so I told him to give me his "I just saw a sheep" look. He did a fabulous job, I thought.

Here is possibly my favorite photo of the trip. It is a mosque in Nazareth. The clouds were great for pictures that day/night.

We went to Cana the first night, and stopped to sleep in an olive grove, much like this one. This was actually the second night we were there, but it looked basically the same.

While in Cana, we picked up a small bottle of wine and some bread. This was our Sabbath Communion meal. It was a great experience! It was in rememberance, of course, of Jesus turning water into wine. Sabbath meals always consist of lighting candles and thanking God for giving us the sustenance for the day.

This was in the ancient synagogue of Arbel. Lis and Hans climbed the pillars.

This was a picture we took before the cliffs of Arbel. We are about to sorta climb up the cliff and then go down a different way. It was a lot of work, and we wanted a good picture before we did it!

Unfortunately, we didn't have any food for the entire day. It was Sabbath and everything was closed. So we got up to the cliffs and found a Visitors Center open selling snack foods. So the only food several of us had on that day of hiking was cookies and ice cream. At least we had water!

These are the cliffs of Arbel. We climbed down these on nearly empty stomachs, with pain all over our bodies, and ready to enjoy the Sea of Galilee!

Unfortunately, most of us never made it there. Lis had to go and sprain her ankle on the cliff. We had to help her back up, and then Stacy and I went to the hospital and back to Jerusalem with her while Hans and Jason continued onto Capernaum.

We had a good group, and we had a lot of fun.

One of the games we played was picking movies or tv shows and deciding which of us would be which character. We did the Lion King, and decided that Hans was the Father lion and I was little Simba. So we re-enacted the scene where he lifts Simba over the cliff.

That's it for the pictures. It's been a few days and Lis' ankle is very swollen, and the rest of us are also slowly recovering. The highlight was probably Communion with the Cana wine and bread. Every Friday here at school we do Shabbat (Sabbath) meal on Friday night, so it was special to be able to celebrate it even though we weren't going to be there with the rest of our classmates.

As for the rest of life, we have several papers due in the next three weeks, and all of us are behind on them, so the rest of my time here will be very busy. I may not get much time to blog, but I will try. I come back to the States in about a month. It is a sad but good feeling. Jerusalem has become somewhat of a home to me and my friends like family. I thank God for this opportunity.

Last minute blogging

2010-10-27T13:42:00.000-04:00

Life is crazy! It seems that these days blogs have taken a second or third seat to homework and doing fun stuff in Israel. I am enjoying life tremendously. Let me share a little of my weekend through the pictures that were captured.

Here I am in front of the Sea of Galilee. Here Jesus did most of his ministry. How exciting!

Some fishermen fishing at the Sea of Galilee... Is that Peter and Andrew?

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I love this picture mainly because I can't stop looking at the light. It was a really cool little passageway leading to the Sea of Galilee.

This is the view standing from Mount Carmel, where YHWH defeated the gods of Baal through Elijah. Elijah told a bunch of prophets of Baal to build altars and he set up an altar as well. He said that whichever god sent down fire from heaven to burn up the altar was the true God. YHWH did.

This is at the cliffs of Arbel, looking over the Sea of Galilee. As with all my other pictures, this is likely where Jesus stood at some point in his life.

This is a 1st century mosaic. It is intricate, and is kinda a big deal. It is sorta the Mona Lisa of Israel.

This is the tree that Judas hung himself on in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar. And this is an awesome picture.

This is a toilet. You just sat down there and let it out. Dan here is havin a good time.

I hope next time to share more about my trip. If you want to see the collection of pictures, they're on facebook.

Suffice to say that the weekend was great. Every night I got to hang out at the Sea of Galilee! Jesus probably did this often as well. It was surreal, and very exciting! I will share more at another time. Right now, I have work to do. Can't wait to see all my family and friends back home someday soon!

Adventures every day.

2010-10-19T08:11:00.000-04:00

Every day is an adventure here in Jerusalem. I and some friends love to walk around at night. We walk around, people-watch, get some food, watch the Western Wall, or do anything else we feel like doing. It's given me a good feel for the neighborhood I am in.

Speaking of which, let me tell you what neighborhood I'm in. I am currently living on Mount Zion. Some of you may know that name... it's in the Bible a lot. The sad fact is, though, that when the Bible talks about Mount Zion, it's actually referring to what we call today the Temple Mount. It was where the Temple stood. At some point since the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, people (probably the Crusaders in the 1500's) thought that the hill where I live now was Mount Zion. They were wrong.

Anyway, I live right outside the "Old City" of Jerusalem. This name is also a little deceptive. The Old City has a wall around it, fortified since around the Middle Ages. It is not the same parameters as the city of Jerusalem back in the Bible periods. You can see in the picture below that the now Mount Zion is Southwest of where it was back in the day. Also notice that within the Old City there are different "Quarters"- Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian. You walk through it, and you definitely know when you've switched to a different quarter.

I also live close to the "New City" of Jerusalem. This is a very recent development with a mall and a bustling cultural center with nightlife and everything people could want. It starts mainly to the East. I walk through Jaffa Gate to the Old City usually, and right outside that is the New City, with a coffee shop named Aroma that has become the favorite place to get coffee around here.

I'm coming back to the States in about 6 weeks, which is sad and exciting at the same time. Today it is 99 degrees, and in Lansing Michigan right now it is 35 degrees. Yep, you read that right. I think I may leave on that note. I wish I could spend more time talking about Jerusalem, but I have homework to do. I have to study for a test in my Rabbinic Thought and Literature class with a friend. God bless!

Three Day Weekend

2010-10-13T07:36:00.000-04:00

This is my favorite picture that I've taken so far. It's of the Dead Sea. For those who may not know, the Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth. It's so salty and dense that you naturally float on it. Your whole body just floats on top of it. It's a very strange experience!

This picture is also a favorite of mine. Somewhere out there, a long time ago, a huge man named Goliath stood and yelled out "Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us." Then he said, "This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other."

David heard these words and was irate. Goliath wasn't just defying the nation of Israel. He was defying the God of Israel. So David knew that the battle was not David vs. Goliath, but Goliath vs. God. And David knew that giants could be surrounding him, but if God was for him, who could stand against him?

This is a picture of my friend Reggie tied up on an altar ready to be sacrificed.

Here I am sitting in a temple in Israel. This was a temple around the time of King Solomon, until the reign of Josiah (possibly destroyed when Josiah reformed Israel). Where I am sitting is the Holy of Holies. The fascinating thing is that there are two altars here. The Israelites were regularly worshiping not only Yahweh, but Asherah, a goddess of fertility.

I climbed this cliff in the wilderness. It was great!

A view from the top

Israel has the largest natural crater in the world. While standing on it, we saw some wild Ibex.

Another view of the Dead Sea

We stood here and yelled out, and the echo from the canyon was beautiful!

This was just a portion of my weekend.

Highlights:
- Looking at the place where David killed Goliath and chased the Philistines all the way to Gath
- Dead Sea
- The Waterfalls at En Gedi (I'll put up pictures soon)
- The largest natural crater in the world
- Hanging out with good friends!

I try to update this at least twice a week, so I'm sorry it's been so long. I also try to add a personal note in each of my updates. Here's the one for today, and it's basically my ramblings about living in Jerusalem.

I find it challenging learning so much about the ancient Israelites. The world they lived in is so different than my own, and I find it hard to make connections. Faith is hard here. Whenever there is something that contradicts my personal beliefs, I find myself in a "faith crisis" where I have to choose between what I believe and what people are telling me. I've had to rearrange certain things. I try to hold on to my faith in Jesus Christ in this land.
You would think that would be easier here in Jerusalem, but it's not. Everything about Jesus here in Jerusalem is a tourist spot, and every place is only significant because of what Jesus did there. I find myself being concerned for the people around here... people who have to watch as thousands of rich people from all over the world visit these sites, take pictures, and leave. People who depend on these rich people to buy a souvenir for a dollar so that they can feed their families. People who are in a war for their own land (both Arabs and Jews).
Anyway, I've written probably more than I should have. I'll post again soon with more pics from this weekend and maybe a joke or something. Shalom!

Pottery Dating

2010-10-04T11:06:00.000-04:00

As some of you may know, I am in Israel studying three main things: History, Theology, and Archaeology. I've never studied archaeology in all my life, so it has been possibly the most challenging and rewarding learning experience I've had here. Something I didn't know about Archaeology is that the way we date what time period a building is from is by the pottery that was found inside.

Here's the basic idea: thousands of years ago, a stone building is destroyed, and the walls and/or ceiling collapse on everything inside. Over time, dirt piles up over all of this, and by the 20th century, people dig it up. They find this pottery because it's usually one of the only things that doesn't decompose from a building.

So, if we know what kind of pottery these ancient civilizations used, we can know when the building was from and who settled there. Pretty simple, really.

We know first that this is an early pot because it was before the invention of the spinning wheel to make pottery. You can see on the bottom that it was made on a straw mat.

Here's a whole pot! How exciting! :)

These are writing utensils, and the thing in the middle is something to write on. The invention of writing makes it a lot easier to date things, for obvious reasons. If the tablet doesn't specifically mention something that gives a clue to when it was written, we can study the language and learn that way.

The invention of pottery was around 7,000 BC, according to Archaeologists. Every building after this time period has pottery in it, without exception. So what happens when a building has no pottery? The assumption is that it was built before pottery was invented. There's Carbon-14 dating, of course, which helps Archaeologists date certain things with a very educated guess. The building I am standing in is estimated to be from 8,000 BC, and is accepted as the oldest building we know of!

Here is a coffin made out of clay. I just thought it was cool.

At the end of yesterday, I stood at the place where King Saul was born and where he first reigned as king from, and here is one of the pictures I got. The view was beautiful!

So, that's just a taste of what I've been doing and learning. Sorry it's been a while since I've updated. Everybody here has been working on a big paper that was due today, and although I finished it early, it's been a little boring since everybody has been busy. Next weekend we go to the Negev desert and the Dead Sea! It should be a good time! I'll take pictures for you!

The good Samaritans

2010-09-27T09:38:00.000-04:00

There are 800 Samaritans left in the world. There were thousands of them until Hitler almost eradicated them and they were killed subsequently in the next few wars that affected them. They were brought down to about 100 people worldwide. They moved to two places and have slowly been increasing their numbers since. They are a fascinating group of people. Here is a Priest

He said to us, "You read in your Bible about the 'Good Samaritans.' That's us." It was funny. Here is their Torah Scroll! They believe they have the original Torah as written by Moses.

Here is a blessing written on a tablet in the ancient Samaritan language, with a TV in the background. I like it because it reminds me of the Priest's quote: "We are modern. We have TV, we have internet, we have Facebook."

We also went to Jacob's well, which was the place that Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman and revealed that He was the Messiah. The well is located under a Greek Orthodox Church, which was absolutely beautiful! We couldn't take pictures at the actual well, but I got pictures of the Church.

Here is the entry to the church. I have so many great pictures from it, so it was hard to just pick a couple! Look on Facebook if you want to see more!

That pretty much sums up yesterday! It was an amazing day!

Life in College

2010-09-24T11:28:00.000-04:00

I have been doing some pretty heavy posts lately, so I thought I'd just share a little bit of what it's like here in Jerusalem. You may or may not have heard that there is a little bit of unrest in the city. Yesterday morning, an Israeli police officer shot and killed a Palestinian man. There have been riots in certain portions of town because of this. It's not dangerous for me. Nobody is upset at Americans, and we are all staying away from that part of town anyway. So, no need for concern!

We did go out last night to celebrate Megan's birthday. We just hung out and walked around the city. It is great to have close friends here. And we are close because we see each other like all the time, every day. I am already sad that in less than three months, I will not be around these people any longer.

I hope all of you are well. It is hard to believe I've been away from the States for almost a month now. I so look forward to seeing all of you again!

Oh, and I may see Matisyahu in concert while here in Israel. He is Jewish, and sings some great songs. Here is one of them about him hoping for the day when there will be peace. Take some time to listen to it if you get a chance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDagHLCSKBg&ob=av2n