Jon the Baptist.

This is most likely my last entry from Jerusalem.  I have no more tests or homework.  I just finished editing my last final exam paper and I’m getting ready to head out to Jordan for 6 days then leave for Canada right after.  Having got my work done I have been able to spend some more time walking around the getting better aquainted with this funny historical city.  Funny because there is absolutly not city like it anywhere in the world.  With this much history, this much religious mixture, and this much old things I don’t think I’ll ever be in a place like it again.  Maybe I’ll never even come back to Israel…  I’m taking this into account and spending much time hanging out around the city taking pictures and the like.

Kitten at the Temple Mount

I went shopping to get some last minuet gift as well.  I have quite a few, but have no yet decided who I am going to give which to which person.  They are all pretty cool though…  I hope you enjoy them.  This entire experience has been an amazing experience of opening my mind to so much.  I can even begin yet to explain what it has meant to me…  maybe this next 4 months spent doing maintenance work at Camp Malibu will be a helpful time to unpack all that I really experienced.  The people are amazing, the learning was amazing, the challenges were hard.  My devotion seem to be taking the shift of God teaching me about perservierience to having a peaceful heart again.  Making the transition from spending all my time learning to spending all my time serving will be awesom, even the Lord is preparing my heart for it.  My lessons are consisting of how I really need people to hold me accountable.  I have had to repent in not having any people really here to do so, I started a group the last week here.  We had an awesome meeting and I was able to really speak my heart and concrete what God has exactly been doing in these crazy 4 months.  I guess I could now say that my lessons have been made into cement blocks now, but I still don’t know what they will build.  Perhaps it will help me teach, perhaps it will help me understand, perhaps it will make for more intimacy with God, or perhaps it will make me all the more loveable to God… (<– Interesting lesson I had yesterday and today while doing my devotions on that).

Nick looking intenty at the camera

I have been reading the book by CS Lewis “The problem of Pain”.  It has challenged my view of God on suffering in many good ways.  Amongst my reading the Bible, prayer, homework, reading CS Lewis, and playing music that Lord has conjured up some interesting themes that overlap in them all.  One big one on what exactly waisting time is and what waiting time isn’t in God’s eyes.  Wull see what the outcome is soon enough, but as of now I stand challenged.

I borrowed my roommates camera and began learning how to use things such as aperture and exposure…  He sent me on my way without explanation more than, “just stay off manual, it is too complicated”.  So the whole time I left it on Manual and learned from experience how not to take entirely white picture or entirely black pictures.  It was actually quite an awesome new experience and makes me want to get into picture taking more.  Perhaps gettin one of those cameras that make the real shutter noise… the ones that actually make your hand shift when you push the picture take button because the shutter moves to fast.  Oooo that would be fun.  I think I will go picture taking tomorrow as well.

Confused Cat with Baby...

I looke forward to being home after a long (very long) travel home.  I go directly from traveling all day in Jordan to traveling to the airport to Toronto, then stopping in Calgary, and then finally home at like 12:00 in the afternoon on May 15th.  Though I leave on the 15th and travel for a whole day, I still get back on the 15th…  I get to live the day twice!

Which one is the Temple Mount? Dome A? B? or C?