The Last Sunset at Galilee

I just realized that I can post photos from my journeys from this summer since I have legit internet. This is the last sunset I saw at Galilee. I pretty much realized everything that I need to do in life while I was watching this sunset. It's amazing the things you realize when you just take a couple of minutes to stop and ponder life.

A Little Humour at the Mt. of Beatitudes

I had a very spiritual, yet amusing time at the Mt. of Beatitudes. Is it even possible to be super spiritual, yet be bursting out laughing all at the same time? Like every other site, there is a church that is built wherever Christ has done something. Brother Harper sat us down in front of the church that commemorates the Sermon on the Mount. We were yards away from it though. When Bother Harper gave his devotional, a little old lady would start screaming in a microphone saying, "Be quiet! There are people praying in the church!" She had pretty good English. I could only hear a slight hint of an accent. The whole time Brother Harper was giving his devotional, every other ten seconds she would yell into the microphone. Brother Harper started feeling self-conscious after a while and thought that he was the one being too loud. He was not talking loud at all though since we had headsets to hear him clearly. I thought it was ironic that she was yelling into a microphone to tell people to be quiet. I am pretty sure she herself was disturbing those who were praying. She was a cute, well-intentioned lady though.

Megan and Rachelle then performed "Consider the Lilies" right where we were. I was freaking out because I was expecting the little lady yelling in the microphone to tell them to be quiet. Luckily, she did not say anything because that would have been super awkward. Megan played the violin and Rachelle sang. It was such a beautiful rendition. I started tearing. During the middle of the song, an African tour group were passing right behind them. They stopped to take pictures and videos of them. I could not help but laugh at this sight. They seemed so eager to get a shot of them singing. After Rachelle and Megan finished singing, the same lady that was yelling into the microphone started clapping. She even came up to take a picture of them. There was just so much going on around us while we were having such spiritual moments, that I could not help but laugh at this whole episode on the Mt. of Beatitudes.

I am pretty sure this does not sound funny at all to whoever is reading this. These are one of those moments where you have to have been there to understand. Or maybe I was just slap happy and immature at that time and I was the only one that found this all funny.

Get Some in Galilee (GSG)

So the students of the Jerusalem Center Spring/Summer 2012 chose "Get Some in Galilee" as our motto. Super inappropriate, but whatever floats their boat.

Here's a little briefing of how Galilee is. I'll go into more depth with my experiences in future posts. I have not emailed anybody about how I am doing, so I am writing this so people won't think I died.

Galilee reminds me of Waianae on Oahu. It is a tropical countryside, but not the prettiest tropical place I have been to. It is super hot and moist. There's dead shrubbery on the mountains. There is the Sea of Galilee against the mountains. I hear that during the winter time Galilee is a lot prettier.

We are staying at a beachfront resort. The water at the beach is not the greatest I have been in. The water is like warm bath water. It is nice though that we can go swimming everyday while we are here.

Galilee is crazy hot! At least last week was intense. The temperature was in the 100s and possibly in the 110s. What made it worse is that it was way humid here. All at the same time, my apartment was a freezer. I felt bad for turning off or turning down the temperature in our apartment, so I would alternate going inside and out.

We still had class while we were here. We had 3 hours of New Testament for 3 days. We had 2 hours of Ancient Near Eastern Studies for 2 nights. We were all pretty wiped out in Ancient Near Eastern Studies because we had it from 7-9 p.m. There was one night I could not stop giggling in class because I was so tired that I was slap happy. There was another night that I had a throbbing headache because I was doing back flips into the water at the beach.

The field trips have been way fun. I think some of my favorite field trips have been up here in Galilee: Boating on the Sea of Galilee, Mt. of Beatitudes, Golan Heights, Megiddo, Gan Ha-Shelosha, Dan, etc.

We have been in Galilee since July 16 and we will be leaving July 26. The end of Galilee marks two weeks before the end of the Jerusalem Center experience. Sad.