Home Safe and Sound

After nearly 24 hours of travel, we all arrived home last night at a few minutes past 11PM. We were greeted at the airport by family, friends and leaders of the Diocese. I'm sure our young people will be processing everything they experienced for months to come. Keep checking the blog, as I'll be asking them to write some posts about their thoughts. - JR

Not a Happy Ending

I am very saddened to write that our trip has ended on a very sad note.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1006341.html

There was a shooting at the beach across from our hotel this afternoon. Apparently, the shooter intended to kill a person with a known criminal record. Unfortunately, he hit a woman dining nearby. And more unfortunately, six of our young people where in the immediate vicinity of the shooting. Four of these were apparently right next to the woman who was shot.

As chaperons, Kate and I immediately found all of our group. Robyn and Alex, who had been inside the hotel, looked after the rest of the group until we had all of us collected into one room. People called parents, and we sat with each other as we began to process what had happened.

After awhile, we went out to dinner. People were somewhat fearful of going out of the hotel. We had a group reservation at a nearby restaurant (two doors down). We felt it important to eat there. One- people needed decent food in their stomachs. Two- the group needed to see that the life on the street and beach were returning to normal.

At dinner, Flora asked me if I would do this trip again given what happened this afternoon. I told her yes. Such violence is a part of any city. Similar criminal shootings happen in Seattle, too. As Kate pointed out, this could have happened on Alki.

However, I think that everyone will be glad to head home tomorrow. This was not how we wanted to end this journey. But I am thankful that we are all safe and sound. I ask your prayers for our safe travel, and for the family of the young woman who lost her life today.

A Day in Tel Aviv

On our last day here in Israel, Kate and I took the crew into the heart of modern and secular Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv reminds me, in many ways, of a South American city. There is the energy and creativity of any European city, but the era of architecture is very similar to cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.

We were most interested in taking the young people two specific sites we felt were important- Ben Gurion's house and Rabin Square. Ben Gurion was the first Prime Minister of Israel, and a major architect of its ethos. His very modest house is mostly as it was when he left it. While there, we watched a movie about his life, and Kate shared some of her admiration for all that he accomplished in his lifetime.

Rabin Square is where Itzak Rabin was assasinated following the peace process in the early 1990's. Kate and I both remember this event clearly, as she was a high school student and I was at college. However, our young people were under the age of 5, and don't have that clear memory like we do. For me, that square is a reminder of the risk of standing up and trying to do what is right. It is also, clearly, a testament to all that Rabin accomplished in his life.

Not too long ago, Kate and I were at a conference and training hosted by Reconcilers.net discussing the Episcopal Church do to help foster peace in the Middle East. We discussed the issue from a myriad of perspectives. At one point, we were asked to say what gifts Israel has to offer the world. For me, Tel Aviv is somehow a symbol of a secular and vibrant city. It plays hosts to world-class performing and visual arts. It has a vibrant economy. It is an exciting city to be. It was important to me that our young people see a bit of this. I hope that as we wondered through the downtown of Tel Aviv, they did so. - JR

Sunday - by Daniel

Yesterday, we all packed up, had breakfast, and headed to Tel Aviv. Before we got to Tel Aviv however, we stopped to attend the church service at the Church of The Holy Family where some of our host families worship. It was fun to see some familiar faces. After church, we stopped at a restaurant and had lunch. It was sort of sad though because we had to say good bye to our friends Dina and Christina. All of our friends that we made were so friendly, and we bonded so well, that it was very hard to say good bye. My good friend Hanna had apparently told his parents a lot about me, and when we said good bye to him the previous night, his mom came up to me, said thanks for being such a good friend to Hanna, and told me that whenever I came back to Israel, I would always have a home at their house. It was very sweet.

Anyway, we started to Tel Aviv. Once we arrived at our hotel, we unpacked, got settled, and us teens went to the beach to swim, and work on our tans! It was tons of fun. The waves were tons of fun and were better than Haifa. The disappointing part about the beach was that the chairs were 50 shekels to rent! What a rip off ! After swimming, we showered, had dinner, and headed to town to explore. There wasn't a whole lot to do so after about 30 minutes, we went back to the hotel, and went into Sasha and Flora's room, and watched some really weird European MTV. Finally, we went to bed to get some much needed rest. At least we get to sleep in. Today, Kate and I got up at about 7:30 a.m. to run. It was pretty pleasant. Today is our last full day in Tel Aviv. It is pretty much a free day. I do, however, think that everyone is at least a little anxious to get home. We're all tired of the food here and can't wait to get back to our own refrigerators. - Daniel

Saturday Night at St. Paul's in Shefamer

As a way of marking the end of our time together here in the Diocese of Jerusalema, we were invited by the wonderful people of St. Paul's Church in Shefamer for dinner. St. Paul's is a companion parish with St. John the Baptist Church in West Seattle, where Kate is on staff and where Shelby and Daniel are members. Hannah's family, who live in Shefamer, are members of this wonderful parish, so there were many connections to this wonderful community of faith.

For me, it was particularly wonderful because two members of last year's youth course, Raji and Nizar, were present for the dinner. I got to catch up a bit with them, as our group of youth got to know some of the youth from Shefamer.

The youth group ordered a type of Palestinian pizza for us for dinner. Kudos to Alex! She was the only youth in our group who figured out to fold the thing in half to eat it!

We hope that new connections between our two dioceses might come from this event. Kate and a young adult member of the parish, Kamir, are going to start a Facebook group for young people from the Diocese of Olympia and young people from the Diocese of Jerusalem. Hopefully this will be a wonderful new means of cross-cultural communication and friendship. - JR

Saturday - by Alex

Today we went to Megiddo and Beth Shean. Beth Shean was my favorite of the two. It was very interesting to see the ruins of the Roman-Byzantine city, because they are so well preserved. We sat in a huge theatre, capable of seating 7,000, and took a bunch of pictures. Then we seized the opportunity to climb some more. All of the kids were feeling unchallenged by the flat terrain we were moving across, so we decided to climb up a hill, in order to get a better view. JR and Kate were a little whiny about the prospect of climbing more stairs, but the youth in our group urged them on, since, after all, today was our last day of touring!

I am, of course, joking about that last part – as lazy teenagers we have been less than thrilled at the notion of exercise, but once we get to the top of a mountain, whether it be Masada, or Herodion, or Tabor, we are always very happy that we made the trek.

Megiddo is the place where John predicted that the war to end all wars in the ‘last days’ would be. (Armageddon.) Fun fact: Armageddon is derived from Har Megedon, meaning the mountain of Megiddo. At Megiddo, we climbed 183 steps down a shaft into a tunnel that was used to supply water safely to the city, so that the citizens could drink without having to leave the security of the walls. Then we climbed 80 steps back out of the tunnel, and headed to lunch, after making a stop to look out at the entire Sea of Galilee from the Golan Heights, which was one of the most breathtaking views I’ve seen in Israel. The Golan Heights was taken by Israel from Syria in the 1967 War, and is still a point of contention to this day. We made a stop at a bunker along the roadside, a reminder of the conflicts in this land in the last 40 years.

After lunch we headed back to the Convent, and hung out very quietly for a while. Now we’re heading to Hannah’s home town, a place that I can’t pronounce and therefore will not even try to spell. Hannah’s going to Turkey, so we’re saying good-bye to him tonight after a dinner we were graciously invited to attend at his church.

Friday- by Shelby and Flora

Today was a calmer day than we’ve had recently. At the beginning of our hike we visited the Grotto of Pan, which is where they had sacrifices and the blood ran into the river, which was pretty tight. The beginning of the trail was located at Caesarea Philippi, which is where Jesus asked the important question “who am I?” and Simon Peter answered “the son of the living God”. Hiking through the vegetation reminded us of home because of the green all around us, which felt like hiking in August in Seattle, and there was actually shade! After a nice lunch by the river we went to see the beautiful Banias Waterfall, which was tiny but prettier than we expected. We were disappointed when we found out when couldn’t swim in the river, but luckily we were given the option to go to a pool, which was much appreciated. Like we said we didn’t do all that much, except Shelby got a little tanner, which made her happy because it is a rare occurrence. It was a nice change of pace (and we didn’t have to go to another church!)

-Flora and Shelby