הַלְלוּ אֶת-יְהוָה, כָּל-גּוֹיִם O, Praise the LORD all ye nations

In less than 12 hours I will be in an airplane taking off for the land of Israel once again. The day I land there it will have been 714 days since I was last in Israel, and much has happened in that time. Last time I was there I was ending my first year of college and now I'm done with my college career.

Being in Israel for that semester changed many things in my life. Being at the places did not necessarily change my life, because if you don't know what happened at a place it doesn't mean anything. What makes Israel special is because it is a physical place where we know God came to earth. What changed me was the teaching at the places where the Bible happened and the teaching in the classroom.

One of the main thing that changed me was that I was able to close the gap in space in time. Israel doesn't seem that far away anymore and the events that happened there 2000+ years ago don't seem as far away as it did before, making the theology of the Bible much more of a reality.

Another major thing I learned is that I have a selfish view of the Bible. As I read many times before I went and I can still do, I would read the Bible to see what I could get out of the reading for myself. "How does it apply to ME?" is the question that always seems to be asked, which is why people, at times, try to avoid the OT. What I learned from the teaching is that God is King, I am a slave, and the Bible is about Him. As a reader of the Bible I am an observer of the works and attributes of God proclaimed and how sinful my species is. These are just two of the ways being over there has impacted my life.

So, the question is, why am I going back again? It was something I might have done last summer, but it will be working out much better for this summer. My main mission is to be a part of an archeological dig at the city of Ai. The account of what happened at Ai can be found in Joshua 7-8. It was the second city conquered by Joshua, after Jericho. This link is the link that can show you more specifics about the dig-- http://www.biblearchaeology.org/outreach/event.aspx?id=134

The dig will last for two weeks and then I will be there for another two and a half weeks backpacking around Israel toting around art supplies, books, and cameras to make the most of my post-college Israel trip. I do not have any specific plans yet, but they will formulate once I will be able to talk to my professor from IBEX Bill Schlegel. We will be staying where I stayed for IBEX for those two weeks during the dig, so Bill will be close by, and it'll feel almost like home to me.

If you look on the website you can see that the days are filled with things from 4am-8pm, so my posting might be sparse. I'm starting this up so that people will be able to know where I'm at and what I'm doing. If you have any questions, you can ask me, and I will try to answer it. Next post will be in Israel.

שָׁלוֹם