Typical Weekend

The typical weekend here in Israel is Thursday night to Saturday night. This is because the Sabbath for the Jewish people is Friday night to Saturday night. Most churches, synagogues and mosques meet either on Friday night or some time on Saturday. Due to this practice in Jerusalem, I rarely get to go to church because I am often on field studies of the land during the time the church services meet, but last weekend I was able to go to church. When I can, I have been attending a Baptist church with Paul and Diane Wright. I love it. I have made some friends and really feel part of the community, but I will not be able to attend for another two weeks because of trips. But the message this last Sunday was excellent. The head pastor has been in the states so different parishioners have been filling the pulpit. The message this week was on situations and living for God even when it is hard to trust. When it seems like you did nothing wrong, but your life is falling apart. We looked at the life of Job and how he suffered so much, but still looked at God with a positive attitude and praise even though he did not understand why all this was happening to him. I realized that I still have many places in my life where I am trying to take control rather than letting the Spirit lead me. It was excellent!
I also took my first test this week. It went well. I did not do as well as I had hoped, and I am going to need to pray myself through the class. This particular teacher picks out little facts that he may have even simply mentioned in passing. It is going to be a hard class but worth every single minute of it.

Wednesday night I led Bible Study for the girls and it went so well. I read to them Ephesians 5:1-2. We focused on being imitators of Christ and what that would look like in the lives of woman. It easily could have gone into a place where people could be boastful, but rather people were very humble and spoke very honestly with characteristics which they knew were Godly but greatly struggled with. Some to mention were joy, love, trust etc… We were able to talk about what God really meant within each of these characteristics and how we could work on being better servants for the Lord with in these characteristics. It was great.

I have had many opportunities to touch people’s lives in ways I would have never expected. Every Thursday afternoon there is an opportunity to get together with a group who bakes cookies in Diane Wrights home with the female student service director, Abby. I have been going every week since it began and every week there have been new people who show up. This last week a new girl came who hadn’t come yet, and one thing we do is share about ourselves. She made some little comment in passing and I got very excited because it was something that bonded me to her. I love learning more about people and being able to share my life stories with them just as much hearing them share theirs with me. She was a blessing to me!

But the best part of yesterday was that God gave me the opportunity to have dinner with a friend/JUC faculty member. Cyndi teachers Physical Settings to the undergrad students and is good friends with my friend Emily. We knew that we had to get together. I went over to her place for dinner and my friend Laura came with me so that I wasn’t walking alone. We had a lovely time, and it was also very therapeutic. I shared a lot of what has gone on in my life over the years and she shared with me her story of coming to Christ and ending up at JUC. She is an amazing woman of the LORD and I am so thankful that the Lord brought me here to study and to meet her.
Blessings to you all!