Wednesday December 12, 2007

Lauran Lloyd
December 12, 2007
This was our Tel-Aviv field trip today. Everyone made it on the bus, despite the whisperings of mutiny at breakfast and the thoughts of “missing” the bus to do homework. The ride there was a bit long, the traffic being quite slow. The time flew by. However, for jolly tunes of Christmas cheer radiated through the bus – I think the top requests were for Archie’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” and an Archie/McCall duo of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
We got there and split into groups. We took a walk around the city with a tour guide. I can’t tell you a lot about the tour – we saw some strange things and walked around the nicest “hood” I’ve ever seen. We went through a museum made entirely of displays of anatomically accurate sculptures of naked old women – we even got to meet the artist. It was strange. Some people managed to mooch chocolate milk and Hanukkah donuts off of a free stand (this is said only with a slight bit of envy, because I did not take advantage of this momentous opportunity) as we walked through a school in Tel-Aviv. Our tour guide was … interesting.
We ended the tour with lunch (finally!) and then went to Israel’s Independence Hall. One of the tour guides gave a very fiery speech about Israel and how the whole world was inferior to them. It was stirring, but some of it was a bit over the top. The movie was neat and the room was cool – it was where, on May 14, 1948 Israel declared their independence. Then we stood and sang their national anthem.
Then we had free time! Some went to a Diaspora museum, and some just wandered around. I went to Jaffa/Joppa and looked around a bit. Then we walked by the beach and took pictures and watched Nick do a twenty foot flip off of a cliff (whoops, don’t tell the insurance guys). We made it back to the bus in plenty of time – too bad I can’t say the same for Brother Ludlow, Eran, and Brother Huntington. They were a full SEVEN MINUTES LATE, and I don’t think we are even going to get ice cream out of them for it.
I talked about Christmas traditions all the way home and watched a beautiful sunset. After dinner me and the White sisters (that sounds fun) watched “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Great movie. I tried to write my research paper, but ended up talking and goofing around instead.
My absolute, unarguably favorite time during New Testament was at Galilee, but if I had to choose a favorite day it would be Bethlehem. Seeing the town where Christ was born, after imagining it for twenty years, was incredible. I liked the very secular feeling in the shops and the complete change of venue when you go into the church. My heart felt like it was going to burst with excitement or adoration or something when I walked into the grotto where it is said Jesus was born. The moment after I actually got in it was slightly ruined for me – I was at the end of our group and the security in charge of it was yelling at us to not take pictures and just get out because there was another group behind us – I didn’t even really get to see the star or stop and think about what happened there… but it was okay – I felt how the shepherds must have felt when they entered into the grotto, knowing the Christ Child was there. And our Shepherd’s Field program was one of the highlights of my time here in the Holy Land. It was so spiritual and I got some incredible insights. The music especially was touching. Sitting in silence and looking over the town and up at the stars was a moment of extreme testimony building.