Thursday November 22, 2007

Kendra Crandall
22 November 2007
Journal Entry
Happy Thanksgiving! Today was a day of varying emotions: we felt saddened as we learned more about the atrocities of the Holocaust; we felt great happiness as we enjoyed a Thanksgiving with great company; we felt a small bit of homesickness at the thought of our families gathering for their own Thanksgiving meals at home.
We began the day at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum on Mount Herzl. There was definitely a somber cloud overshadowing our usually chipper group as we entered the museum grounds. Yad Vashem makes an architectural statement that introduces the underlying theme of the museum: it is like a triangular rod that cuts through the side of Mount Herzl, scarring the beautiful green landscape. The museum was filled with the tragic stories of the Holocaust – most memorable were the stories of individuals that helped us put a human face on the horrors of this time. I thought it was interesting to learn about the Holocaust through the eyes of the Jewish people. My group’s tour guide expressed great feelings of bitterness toward the nations and individuals who were simply passive bystanders living out of fear.
After a solemn ride home, we some of us grabbed a fast lunch and changed clothes for the Turkey Bowl. Nineteen of us went to Gan Sacher in West Jerusalem to play a rousing game of football. We had a fun time together – there were not even any major injuries! The weather was also reminiscent of Thanksgiving Day at home.
At 6:00 that night we all wore our Sunday dress and congregated in the Oasis. Jimmy and the rest of the kitchen staff along with the service couples and student committee members had worked really hard to plan a memorable and delicious Thanksgiving dinner for us. I thought they were successful – there was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade rolls, pumpkin soup, and a wide range of desserts. Most of us stuffed ourselves to the brim as we usually would at home and then we commenced to play a rousing (and competitive) game of Turkey Trivia. After that came the Turkey-gobbling contest. Greg Marsh won that one without trouble . . . he even had the combination of the gobble, rolling head, and squatting walk. The tide then turned as we demanded that our professors compete against each other. Brother Draper’s gobble won against Brother Ludlow’s faint wild turkey “caw, caw, caw” and Brother Huntington’s embarrassed and brief “gobblegobblegobble.” Craig Estep then serenaded us with a concluding acoustic vocal guitar solo, “Poems, Prayers, and Promises.”
After dinner we had our orientation for the upcoming Galilee field trip. The orientation got me excited about making the most of this time to rest, think, and study while in the Galilee. For the rest of the night, some people welcomed in the holiday season by watching “A Muppet Christmas Carol” while others of us went to work on our New Testament homework and studying for the quiz the next day.
My New Testament expectation is to understand Jesus’ parables on a deeper level.