Thursday, May 24, 2007

From Jerusalem!

I'm here! After a LONG trip I made it all in once piece to my hostel in Jerusalem were I spent the night. The trip went very smoothly, and thank the Lord, I had no problems at all in customs.

It was all very overwhelming getting here last night. All of a sudden I was in the heart of the old city of Jerusalem ( in front of Davids tower) surrounded by orthodox jews, palestinians, russian orthodox, germans, americans, etc etc. Whew! This morning I took a walk around the old city and saw the Wailing wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and some other sites. In many ways being here is somewhat anti-climactic. Jerusalem is supposed to be this magical city, but in many ways it's just another place. The Wailing wall, for example, is pretty small and very un-impressive. I know that from a historical perspective everything here is important, but still it doesn't move me. Really, I didn't come to see the archaelogical sites, or to "walk where Jesus walked." That's all interesting, but in the end unimportant since we worship a Living Christ (hallelujah!) who walks the streets of all our cities alongside us.

The reason I came here was to live and work with Palestinians and I can't wait to begin. Today I am meeting my group and heading down to Bethlehem to meet my host family. The adventure begins!

Salaamat

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