Monday Nov 12, 2007

McCall Barrick

Brother Ludlow

November 19, 2007

Monday, November 12, 2007

We had class all morning today—our New Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies classes. Then after lunch we had our Arabic and Hebrew finals. So, in the space between class and lunch, and even during lunch, just about everyone was busy studying.

The general consensus on the exams is that they were pretty easy. After all, they are just pass or fail courses. The Arabic final was particularly interesting. Some of us even started laughing in the middle of taking the exam. It was a total of 13 questions long. That is so short for a final! However, it was harder than the length would lead you to believe. In fact, there were quite a few questions with words that none of us had ever seen or heard before. So that was really interesting. But all things considered, those two finals went really well.

After the finals a really large majority of us went out for the rest of the afternoon. There were groups doing the usual shopping, but there were also a lot of people who went to see some sites. A number of people went to West Jerusalem to an open air market. Apparently that was a really cool place to go. The people who went said that it was more aimed to locals than it was to tourists, so it was a really authentic experience. All who went loved it there, and had made those of us who didn’t go want to go in the near future.

Through my experience in this upcoming New Testament class, I want to learn how to better apply the teachings of Christ in my life. I think that learning will come as I gain knowledge and understanding of his background and situation. I want to be able to visualize Christ in his own setting, teaching the people. I especially want to grow to appreciate what he is trying to teach me personally through his parables and his stories. More than anything, I want to learn how to take full advantage of the opportunity that I have to study in the Holy Land, so that I don’t take anything for granted and so that I grow as much as possible during my time here.