Hello Friends and Family!

We arrived in Jerusalem safely on August 20th and have been busy, busy since we arrived!  We have spent the past week or so getting settled in our apartment and getting ready to start classes.  We live in a small suburb of Jerusalem called Baka, בקעה in Hebrew.  Baka is about a mile from Jerusalem's Old City where such landmarks as the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are located.  Our school, Jerusalem University College, is just up the hill of Mt. Zion, which is just outside the Old City's southern wall.  The walk to school is fairly short, and it takes us about 30 minutes to get to JUC from our apartment.  

So far Jerusalem has been really nice, though not without its share of surprises for us as we have attempted to get settled in for our adventure.  First the nice things...then the surprises.  Our neighborhood is very nice and feels safe.  We have at least two grocery stores near us, as well as plenty of nice little restaurants and shops.  There is also a mall about a mile away that has familiar places such as Office Depot (which we actually haven't quite found yet, but we've heard that it's there).  In the opposite direction, slightly to the north and west, is the "new city," which we got to visit Friday night with a group from JUC.  This area is filled with really nice hotels (all named after a significant Bible character), the central post office, and a shopping district that looks similar to either Santa Monica (for our Cali friends) or the 6th Street Mall (for Colorado friends).  We are beginning to get a sense of direction around here and we are starting to feel at home in Jerusalem.  

Now for the really fun stuff!  We have had a few visitors since we arrived.  They are mostly pretty small and from the animal kingdom  -  namely cats, ants, spiders, and a few cockroaches.  Some extensive cleaning and some K-300 (a kind of bug-spray with an intimidating name that Justin gets really excited about) have alleviated the insect issue; however, the cats are another story.  For our readers who have yet to experience Jerusalem, take it from us, there are a lot of cats in this city!  (Here's your Hebrew lesson for this entry, pay attention now, "cat" in Hebrew is חתול, pronounced cha-tool, plural is cha-tool-im.  Pronounce the "ch" as in "Bach."  :0)  The cats in the Old City, which are mostly homeless we think, look really bedraggled, but the cats in Baka look pretty nice.  Since the only air conditioning to our little home in Baka is to open all of the windows and doors, the cats, who are well aware of this air conditioning situation, invite themselves in and crash on the guest bed.  We have made an effort to keep the furry interlopers from sleeping on our beds, which ultimately has resulted in the closing of the bedroom sliding glass door at night.  Fortunately, the temperature in Jerusalem is actually very moderate, despite what one might expect.   There seems to be an almost constant cool breeze coming from the Mediterranean, and this prevents the days from getting too warm.  Typically it is in the mid to upper 80s during the day outside, which leaves our apartment at about 81 during the day and in the mid-70s at night.  It is actually pretty comfortable here, even with the bedroom door closed. 

On Friday we began Orientation with JUC and got to meet all of the new, jet-lagged students as they began to trickle in, ready for anything from a semester to 2-years of study.  The student body this fall is about 65 students, with approximately 1/2 of them being semester study-abroad students, who are still enrolled in home universities in the states, and 1/2 of them being Masters students in either their first or second year of study.  

On Sunday, our first class began, which was a mixture of orientation with the Old City, and the beginning of our class.  Our professor took us to systematic places around the Old City for 6 hours, showing us the vast diversity in the geography in this very compact space.  We saw the Room of the Last Supper, which is thought to be a relatively accurate location for Jesus' last meal with his disciples.  The larger context of the building, however, has served as a church, synagogue, and a mosque throughout the years (and sometimes at the same time).  It is interesting to consider that this mixed-up place commemorates the place where Jesus washed his disciples' feet, demonstrating to them true servanthood...

We also visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the most likely place where Jesus could have died and been buried) which, on first glance, seems very old and very gaudy.  The church is actually owned by 6 different churches who work more or less (many times, less) together to maintain the building and to keep their share of its holdings.  The keys to the building have been in the care of 2 muslim families for several hundred years, to keep the churches from locking each other out.  The stories range from funny to outright ridiculous.  The building itself can have different affects on people.  For Justin and I, when we visited the church last year, we felt more a sense of interest in the history, but it was very difficult to be worshipful with lines of people and so many "smells and bells" as we have accurately heard the church described.  This time, however, was a little different.  We understand a little more how the church came to be built, and we understand that the people who come here to worship do not care so much for finding the "X marks the spot" of where Jesus died and was buried.  It is simply important to them that it happened, and they use the spot for worship.  Understanding what the building means to others, instead of seeing the building through our own protestant eyes (which are not used to so much decor, gold, and...well..stuff) helps us appreciate it a little more, and come to our own place of worship.

We ended the day on a roof almost exactly in the middle of the city, where the four sections come together.  Standing on the roof we could see significant parts of the city (at least their roofs), and we encountered an amazing concept that, I think, will take us quite awhile to fully unpack.  From the rooftop, you can easily pick out the different sections of the city.  In particular, the Muslim section is filled with minarets; the Christian section is filled with crosses.  You can tell that each section has tried to pack out their area with symbols of their faith, leaving a more significant "footprint," so to speak, than the other sections of the city.  Despite their efforts, however, you can also observe minarets in the Christian and Jewish sections, crosses in the Muslim sections.  Each tries to be separate and win the control of the Old City, but each one never can fully win.  The city is separate yet mixed at the same time, and it seems to symbolize the struggle of the entire Middle East.  There are deep-seeded issues between the three religions, irreconcilable differences that have caused them to fight for thousands of years and will continue to stir up issues until the end of time.  But, the three are also connected to each other.   They have all contributed to the beauty and the struggle of the Middle East, and they all share their roots in the same land.  What exactly does this mean?  We really don't know the answer, but we will leave the ideas for now for you to consider.  

This past week has been interesting and a bit exhausting, but also very exciting.  There is nothing like having the Old City a short walk from home.  We can go and hear the Jewish and Muslim calls to prayer at the Haram esh-Shariff, the Temple Mount.  We can get lost in the bustling corridors and narrow streets that are crowded with eager merchants of all kinds.  We can entreat God at the Western Wall for peace among the inhabitants of this war-torn land that once was the scene of many of the events described in the Bible.

How can we put into words the feelings that we have had in just the week that we have lived here thus far?  We have already learned a great deal in this short time.  Our Hebrew has improved from only a week's exposure to the language in our everyday dealings with people.  In fact, when we pass the occasional American in the streets, English sounds out of place for us.  We are learning to think in the metric system of measurement, including the use of the Celsius scale rather than Fahrenheit for reading temperature.  More importantly than these things, and in addition to preparation for school, we have had to look inward at our own feelings as well as theological and academic perspectives as we learn to rely on God more than we ever have before.

Current prayer requests we would love to share with you!

1.  Continued provision for needs

2. Grace for ourselves and each other as we work through the good and the difficult aspects of being in a new culture.

3.  Pray we can get our internet working soon!  (we've heard stories of how difficult it is to get set up, and we do need to get it working at home soon.  We have a technician coming to our house on Wednesday!)

4.  There is a chance our apartment might be sold to new owners in the next couple of months.  Please pray that God will be with the situation, either in keeping us in Baka or helping us find somewhere else.

Once again thank you all for your support and prayers as we begin this journey. We have now posted pictures of our apartment, so enjoy!  We will be back in touch soon (and, as soon as we have internet, hopefully more frequently too! :0)  Love to you all!

Justin and Mandy