Now that the craziness that was my life after Jordan has ended, it is time to write up my journal! However, a couple of notices: 1) This has been edited. I used this for more than telling stories but to describe my emotions and such. Some of these I can keep but others.. well private stuff that is better left not being made public. 2) I'm going to post several days in a blog and the entire trip in several blogs. 3) For clarifications and additions, I'll use [ ]. These will try to explain things in relation to today and such. 4) Finally, if you are one of my closer friends (the only ones who are actually going to read this) then you are allowed to view these edited sections in my actual journal. just ask: if you can decifer my handwriting that is. So here we go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6-20-12 Wednesday
[To catch up, check my 3 posts on Jordan from June] "Yesterday we left Madaba for the village of Hartha, where we'll be staying for the rest of the trip. This morning I wasn't able to sleep much, I woke up at 3 =/ Layed in bed till 6:30 then went up for breakfast. Feeling pretty lonely at this point =/ Rachel hadn't come in yet so I had hope this would soon be fixed. We left the hotel at 9:30 and drove north to Irbid, the second largest city in Jordan. There were some pretty amazing sites on the way there but I got car sick an hour in and fell asleep. In Irbid, we were able to shop and have lunch. I was also able to get a phone. (As I look back, this following statement seems false but this is what I thought then). There really isn't much to distinguish the different cities. They all use the same materials for buildings and the streets, also there are lots of roundabouts. I fell asleep again on our way to Hartha though I could hardly tell since it's only 20 minutes north. We arrived at 2:30. Hartha is a small village about 3 miles south of the Syrian border and about an hour west of Israel. Smaller than Siloam Springs as well.We arrived at the "Hartha Hilton", a 4 story secondary girls school. The first story was just a lobby like place (which we turned into a dinning room) then three stories of one hallway with classrooms. There was also a Kitchen and an office on the main floor. We spent the afternoon making this school into a house, unloading barrels, moving mattresses, setting up the registry and the dining room, etc. Guys stayed on the third floor and the girls on the second. We had foam mattresses that we set up on desks for our beds, and we also set up lines in the courtyard of the school for hanging our laundry, which we do by hand. The bathroom is in a second building in the courtyard with stalls. Half of the stalls we converted into showers and the other half we left, for toilets of course. They are squatty potties so yeah. Water is precious in Jordan so we have to take short showers and use laundry water to flush the toilets. After everything was set up, most of us didn't think we could live like this and I'm sure that it will start to bug people eventually. So first night in Hartha and I go to bed at 9. So today [the 20th] I woke up at 6 and got ready for the day. 5 or so of us were ready for breakfast at 6:30 which consisted of tea, jelly, and peeta bread. I feel pretty great right now! I think I'll be ok living here. On top of that, Rachel got in last night so I finally know somebody on the trip! At 8 we left for the dig site and got a tour. The scope of the thing is just amazing!! I can't wait to start next week. I did some laundry in the afternoon and played some chess then walked around Hartha. I think I'll like it here. I still feel like I get on people's nerves but we'll just wait and see...
6-21-12 Thursday
Today was good. Woke up at 6 again and left for the dig site at 8 (same again tomorrow). We actually got to dig today, though in practice squares. Had some fun, but learned I needed to become more observant. We came back at noon, ate lunch then read some in the entry way, which has this fantastic breeze! I'm reading "That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis. So I had a realization today. I prayed last night that God would show me why I am here. All my reasons were pretty selfish So today while I was reading and listening to my Ipod, God kinda guided my thoughts. I think God is leading me into a part of my Christian walk that has really been absent in the rest of my life: evangelism. I think I've explained the gospel to someone once and he was only 5 but all the people I have run into in my life are either Christians or God uses someone else. I've never really had the opportunity to evangelize. [So at the end of this trip, I realize it's no so much me learning to evangelize but more so me learning to be a witness which is much more important. It ended up being God ironing out personal flaws and making me more like him, well at least a little bit]. God also kinda showed me that I need to get to know the people on this trip and not be a hermit, so let's see how good I am at that... In the afternoon we had a "draw your room" game where we had to draw our room to scale like the top plans we'll have to draw soon. Luke, Aaron, and I won (we drew Luke's and my room) so we got ice cream. I spent the evening on the roof, a beautiful spot, then off to bed!
6-20-12 Wednesday
[To catch up, check my 3 posts on Jordan from June] "Yesterday we left Madaba for the village of Hartha, where we'll be staying for the rest of the trip. This morning I wasn't able to sleep much, I woke up at 3 =/ Layed in bed till 6:30 then went up for breakfast. Feeling pretty lonely at this point =/ Rachel hadn't come in yet so I had hope this would soon be fixed. We left the hotel at 9:30 and drove north to Irbid, the second largest city in Jordan. There were some pretty amazing sites on the way there but I got car sick an hour in and fell asleep. In Irbid, we were able to shop and have lunch. I was also able to get a phone. (As I look back, this following statement seems false but this is what I thought then). There really isn't much to distinguish the different cities. They all use the same materials for buildings and the streets, also there are lots of roundabouts. I fell asleep again on our way to Hartha though I could hardly tell since it's only 20 minutes north. We arrived at 2:30. Hartha is a small village about 3 miles south of the Syrian border and about an hour west of Israel. Smaller than Siloam Springs as well.We arrived at the "Hartha Hilton", a 4 story secondary girls school. The first story was just a lobby like place (which we turned into a dinning room) then three stories of one hallway with classrooms. There was also a Kitchen and an office on the main floor. We spent the afternoon making this school into a house, unloading barrels, moving mattresses, setting up the registry and the dining room, etc. Guys stayed on the third floor and the girls on the second. We had foam mattresses that we set up on desks for our beds, and we also set up lines in the courtyard of the school for hanging our laundry, which we do by hand. The bathroom is in a second building in the courtyard with stalls. Half of the stalls we converted into showers and the other half we left, for toilets of course. They are squatty potties so yeah. Water is precious in Jordan so we have to take short showers and use laundry water to flush the toilets. After everything was set up, most of us didn't think we could live like this and I'm sure that it will start to bug people eventually. So first night in Hartha and I go to bed at 9. So today [the 20th] I woke up at 6 and got ready for the day. 5 or so of us were ready for breakfast at 6:30 which consisted of tea, jelly, and peeta bread. I feel pretty great right now! I think I'll be ok living here. On top of that, Rachel got in last night so I finally know somebody on the trip! At 8 we left for the dig site and got a tour. The scope of the thing is just amazing!! I can't wait to start next week. I did some laundry in the afternoon and played some chess then walked around Hartha. I think I'll like it here. I still feel like I get on people's nerves but we'll just wait and see...
6-21-12 Thursday
Today was good. Woke up at 6 again and left for the dig site at 8 (same again tomorrow). We actually got to dig today, though in practice squares. Had some fun, but learned I needed to become more observant. We came back at noon, ate lunch then read some in the entry way, which has this fantastic breeze! I'm reading "That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis. So I had a realization today. I prayed last night that God would show me why I am here. All my reasons were pretty selfish So today while I was reading and listening to my Ipod, God kinda guided my thoughts. I think God is leading me into a part of my Christian walk that has really been absent in the rest of my life: evangelism. I think I've explained the gospel to someone once and he was only 5 but all the people I have run into in my life are either Christians or God uses someone else. I've never really had the opportunity to evangelize. [So at the end of this trip, I realize it's no so much me learning to evangelize but more so me learning to be a witness which is much more important. It ended up being God ironing out personal flaws and making me more like him, well at least a little bit]. God also kinda showed me that I need to get to know the people on this trip and not be a hermit, so let's see how good I am at that... In the afternoon we had a "draw your room" game where we had to draw our room to scale like the top plans we'll have to draw soon. Luke, Aaron, and I won (we drew Luke's and my room) so we got ice cream. I spent the evening on the roof, a beautiful spot, then off to bed!
Great stuff, I can't wait to read more!!! Yay for ice cream! ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that you and God had some serious time together, sometimes in our normal day to day life that time can be more difficult to comeby.
Excited to get to read all of these!
ReplyDelete:)