Wednesday December 5, 2007

James Heaton
Class Journal
12-05-07

Today was really different day than most days here at the Jerusalem Center. It was really fun to change things up. We started out with a good breakfast and then all the students met in the forum at 9:00am to meet our tour guide for the morning. His name is Danny Seideman and he practices law in Jerusalem. Evidently he is a pretty important guy because he seems to have been involved in and is still involved in many of the negotiations taking place between the Palestinians and Israelis. We were told that he has done quite a bit of work representing Palestinians in land matters, particularly dealing with the highly disputed legality of Israeli settlements. Anyways, Danny took us around to several different points close to the Jerusalem Center and spent the majority of his time talking about the separation of Israel and Palestine. He used the separation wall as an example of a solution that causes a great deal of grief for the Palestinian people and that brings only minimal benefits to everyone. He did however tell us about the ongoing peace process between the two sides, and in doing that he seemed to feel that both sides were moving towards a real, tangible peace agreement. That made me feel like there is actually a hope to an end in this conflict. I learned a ton from that tour and I was really grateful the center decided to do it. The rest of the day was classes and studying, as we have two papers and two exams coming up.
My favorite scriptural passage in the New Testament this semester has been when Jesus taught the woman of Samaria at the well. In the gospel of John, chapter four, Christ says, "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. I love the imagery of Christ and His gospel providing all mankind the fluid that sustains life. He is the one that can save us both physically and spiritually if we just believe in Him and follow Him.