O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.

 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
    to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
 what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

Psalm 8:1-4

I could probably write about 15 blog posts for the last 2 weeks. I feel like every minute is jam-packed with information and amazing experiences. I’ve been struggling to find a way to organize all of my thoughts, and figure out which points are important to share. I could use this blog to teach you all about Hebrew words (or grammar – I think I spend more time on grammar), archaeology, or Jewish holidays. But I’m not an expert on any of those things at all.

My undergrad experience was great because I was studying a lot of things that came pretty naturally to me. I was definitely challenged, but not like I am here. Memorizing rock types and reading books about the history of the Dynasties of Egypt in the Middle Bronze Age II are not the kinds of things that I’m super passionate about… UNTIL they get connected with the Bible. Then I get really excited about them. So even though my knowledge of geology and history is significantly lacking compared to a lot of people here, I’m super grateful to be able to learn from these people, and just have conversations with them.

I feel like a little sponge just soaking everything up. In moments when I start to feel insecure about not knowing an answer or having much to offer in a discussion, I try to take a deep breath and remember that I’d never grow if I was always one of the smartest people in the room. That’s when gratitude takes over, and I look at the people around me and just think “wow… I’m so lucky to be here.” I want to spend the rest of my life asking good questions and learning as much as I can. And exploring, of course!!

So giving an actual update on my life at this point is a little tough. I took midterms last week, which meant that I spent most of my time in the library. But the week was bookended by some AMAZING trips – especially the one I just got back from today! It was our first overnight field study, and we went all over the Negev. This is a Hebrew word that refers to the southern part of the country, which looks a lot like how most people picture Israel. The picture above here is a great example! We hiked through Wadis and visited oases, and swam in both the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The weekend before, we were in the land of Samaria learning all about the Northern Kingdom of Israel, spending a lot of our time reading books like Judges.

So rather than try to write everything I’ve learned in the last two-ish weeks in one blog post, I’m going to talk about awe and gratitude. These words have been on my heart a lot recently – through difficult papers and (literal) mountain top experiences, I want to be filled with both. When I was sitting in the library last week, I took a moment to look around at the titles of the books on the bookshelves. The fact that I have access to this kind of information is C R A Z Y. So even when I’m trudging through graduate level work, I’ve been trying to remember how cool this opportunity is.

Another point of gratitude is the incredible people that I’ve met here. It’s a unique experience being in a mixed community of graduate and undergraduate students, but it’s a beautiful thing. I feel a bit caught in the middle sometimes, since I’m taking classes at the graduate level, but I still feel like a college kid. Again, I feel like a little sponge, just soaking up all the opportunities for cool connections and friendships to be made here. I think a lot about how God ordained for this group of people to be here in this place together at the same time, and about all the things we have to learn from each other. There are plenty of amazing conversations, along with almost choking at meals because these people make me laugh so hard. We watch funny videos, tell stories, and show each other pictures of our bad haircuts when we were little kids. The best kind of people are the ones who are just as wise as they are goofy!

Needless to say, I’m grateful. And right along with gratitude often comes wonder and awe. I recently learned the Hebrew word “yareh” which means fear and awe. In the Bible, it’s most often used to talk about the fear of the Lord, but I like that it means awe too. I think that this is a seriously underrated aspect of our relationship with God. We get so wrapped up in trying to find all the answers and in understanding God, that sometimes we forget we just can’t. No matter what we do, we’ll always end up at a loss for words when trying to describe who God is or what He has done. We’re limited by language, and trapped in our own human understanding.

But He gives us creation. God reveals Himself so clearly and beautifully in creation!! That’s why my prayer recently has been that God would fill me with awe and wonder during our field studies. Honestly, they can be tough sometimes. It’s hot and we spend all day walking, so there often comes a point where I feel like I’m just trying to write notes as fast as I can to get the information down before I zone out. This is when a place that I know should take my breath away becomes just another site, and I forget to let wonder take over.

Isn’t that how it goes though? As soon as something becomes an obligation or requirement of us, we have way less of a desire to do that. I used to spend my free time this summer looking up Hebrew words for fun, and now I have 150 vocab words on flashcards that I sometimes have to force myself to study. If you had handed me an article on the tribal territories of Ephraim and Manasseh from the Bible this summer, I would have totally geeked out. But now that reading this kind of a thing is homework, I want to do it waaaayyy less.

God has been putting it on my heart to pray wonder not only over myself, but over this campus and this city. It’s my desire to see more hearts captivated by the beauty and power of who God is. As we walk around this incredibly diverse land, trying to take it all in, He’s subtly whispering to us “there’s so much more”… and most of the time we don’t hear it. Would we know how to respond if we did?

I love Psalm 8 because it reminds me how big God is, and how small I am. But then verse 4 says “what is man that you are mindful of him?” I can imagine the Psalmist beginning his Psalm captivated by an awe of who God is, and then having it hit him halfway through that God pays attention to us. That’s so relatable! Here I am, jaw on the floor looking out at waterfalls, salt seas and huge canyons, and God is paying attention to me? That’s wild.

I cannot stress enough how valuable it is to be here. There are so many things I’m learning and understanding here that I would not be able to anywhere else! Never do I want to fill my head with knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself – that’s not the point. I’m absolutely convinced that everything I learn here is for the purpose of knowing God more, and helping others know Him more as well.

I’ll sit down one of these days and try to craft a blog post that focuses on a couple of the really amazing and helpful concepts I’ve learned here, but it’s 11pm on the day I’m arriving back from a field study, and that’s just not going to happen. But I wanted to share that things are good and my heart is FULL!

Prayer Requests:

• Academic focus and stamina to work hard
• Continued community growth
• Prayer for the political state of the country
• Wonder and Awe – and an increased awareness of God’s presence for me and everyone else here at JUC!
• Discernment about staying here longer than a semester..?(!!!!!)

Shalom,

Hannah Marie ❤

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, 

that I will seek after:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord

and to inquire in His temple.”

Psalm 27:4

It’s proving to be harder to write these blogs than I thought! I’m getting into a rhythm here with classes, friends, and going on little adventures. The day-to-day is so fun that I forget sometimes to document it! A little over 3 weeks in now, I feel less like a tourist. I’m not scrambling to take pictures all the time, and my friends and I always laugh a little when we see tour groups with cheesy matching hats. Jerusalem is starting to feel like home – like a dwelling place.

Psalm 27 (specifically verse 4) has been important to me in the last year of my life. Senior year of college was full of big questions, hard lessons, cool God moments, and heartache. I prayed this verse often with longing in my heart for something to be different – for God’s presence to dissolve the pain or confusion that I felt so that I could just dwell. But I really didn’t know how to dwell.

Yashav ( יָשַׁב ) Is the Hebrew word in this Psalm for the world “dwell” – It was actually on my vocabulary quiz this past week! How cool is that? As I’m learning what it means to dwell here, let me show you some of what that looks like.

Student Activity Day: A much needed break from classes and studying – we got to go to Gan Hashlosha National Park, and spend the day swimming in a literal Oasis. Just an hour and a half north of Jerusalem, you can find these spring-fed pools connected by waterfalls. A beautiful place, and some really cool people to enjoy it with. Plus, I just really have a thing for waterfalls. Pretty much the ideal “dwelling” situation.

I’m also extremely grateful for the chance to return to a lot of places that I went to on my previous trip to Israel. This past weekend we visited Bethlehem and the Mount of Olives – both of which had very special and significant memories attached to them from the first time I came here. It was so cool to feel a sense of familiarity with these places, but still learn a ton all while treasuring the memories from last time. Let me share some more specifics:

We hiked to the top of a tower in Jerusalem called the Herodian. This huge palace is just one of many that King Herod built all over this land, and it overlooks Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Back in May of 2018 when I came here with GVSU, I got to recite the story of Jesus’ birth while standing on the ledge looking over the city. I couldn’t help thinking about how this memorization challenge sparked in me a love for and desire to memorize scripture. It was hard to believe that I was really back in that place, and that it’s only a bus ride away from where I sleep every night.

A very specific place I was excited to go back to on the Mount of Olives is the Garden of Gethsemane. For some reason, this was a place where God really met me the first time I came to Israel. I remember so vividly praying for people I loved in that place, and being overwhelmed by the thought that Jesus once prayed for all of us in that place. In fact, the Garden of Gethsemane was likely a pretty regular prayer spot for Jesus. There are tons of clues in the gospels that lead us to believe that he came here a lot to talk to God. There are a couple different churches and sites that are dedicated to remembering this sacred spot – this place where Jesus prayed fervently before His arrest. But the place that holds the memories for me, and the place we returned to again this past Sunday is called the Church of All Nations.

At the base of Mount Zion, surrounded by centuries-old Olive trees, this breathtaking church invites you to remember the story of Jesus’ famous prayer: “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done” (See Matthew 26 for the story). It was surreal to be back in this place where I had been moved to tears by the beauty of Christ’s sacrifice, and by my own tendency to forget it. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that 1. God met me here in this place in a significant way, and 2. He allowed me the opportunity to come back and remember it. I didn’t sob the same way I did last time, but a couple tears did sting in my eyes as I sat again in these pews:

This is when a sense of dwelling really hit me again. As we walked away from the church, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I couldn’t help thinking about the fact that most followers of Jesus come here once in their lives – if that. And I get to come back? For three months? Absolutely crazy. I thought again about the short bus ride (or hour walk) it would take to come back to this place while I’m living in Jerusalem. Because I am actually living in JERUSALEM.

Yashav. It actually means to sit down, to stay, remain, and to dwell. I love that this is the word the Psalmist uses when He talks about dwelling in the house of the Lord. The temple that would have come to mind for the Psalmist when he wrote “house of the Lord” no longer stands in Jerusalem, but there’s no doubt that it’s still a special place. For three months, I get to sit down, remain, and stay here. I get to dwell in the house of the Lord. I think back to how I prayed this prayer in Psalm 27:4 a year ago, and I definitely did not think that God would answer it in such a literal way.

Dwelling looks like investing in the people I’m surrounded by, and hearing their stories. One of the reasons it has taken me so long to write another post is because I’ve been spending most of my free time talking to these people. I love hearing where they’re from, what they’re learning, and asking them what their dreams are. And I really love taking selfies inside old ruins with them! They’re as goofy and fun as they are deep and full of life. We’re all coming from different places, but I’m really pumped about all the things God is going to do here, and the things I’ll get to witness.

Another aspect of dwelling that I’m really loving is getting to know the land. Our Physical Settings of the Bible class focuses a lot on Geology, Archaeology, and Weather patterns in the land of Israel. If I’m being honest, it was not really a part that I expected to connect with much. I thought it would be interesting, but I didn’t expect that it would make me feel so connected to this place. I really can’t stress this enough – the Bible makes SO MUCH more sense when you understand this kind of stuff!!

A lot of Christians – especially in the western world – approach reading the Bible in a way that just assumes there will be a lack of understanding. It’s almost like somewhere along the way, someone told us “The Bible is confusing, and you’re just gonna have to deal with it.” But I’m not really a fan of this mindset! I’m learning that there are no “extra” words in the Bible – everything in it is intentional, and helps us learn something about who God is. Take weather patterns, for example. God put His people in a land that has very specific seasons of rainfall, which meant that they were extremely dependent on the Lord’s provision for water as a life source. Understanding the weather cycle hear in Israel makes the biblical metaphors about “a dry and weary land” contrasted with “living water” so powerful.

We stood on the top of the Mount of Olives with our backs to Jerusalem, facing east. Looking out over the Judean wilderness, we saw what the prophet Jeremiah was talking about when he talked about drought in chapter 14. Often a lack of rain is used to symbolize or emphasize Israel’s desperation for God, especially when they have strayed from Him. All of the darker brown stuff in the picture above is dead, dried up foliage. It hasn’t rained at all in this part of Israel in at least four months – which is pretty typical for the dry season. Reading Jeremiah 14 as I looked out over this valley made this passage so much more real and tangible. I feel like I can picture Jeremiah climbing the Mount of Olives, and using this dry and desolate land as a metaphor to help the people understand just how badly they need to be made right with God.

It’s little things like this. Moments where suddenly the details make sense, and I have a picture in my head to go with a passage. It’s something that I would have trouble doing if I wasn’t here, walking around and experiencing Israel in a tangible way. I’m not saying that its necessary to come to Israel in order to understand the Bible – that’s definitely not true. But I am incredibly grateful for the way that being here brings the word of God to life!

I truly feel like I am dwelling in the House of the Lord, gazing upon His beauty, and inquiring in His temple during this really special season of life. (Most of the inquiry happens during Hebrew class.) But any of us can do those things anywhere – not just in Jerusalem! So think about what dwelling with the Lord means for your life right now. How can you Yashav – sit down, stay, remain, and dwell in his presence? Psalm 27:4 is a prayer you can pray that I’m 100% sure God would love to answer “YES” to.

Speaking of Prayer! Here are my prayer requests:

• Praise point – I’m really starting to see God at work among the students here! Pray that He would move and open our hearts to what He’s doing in us individually and as a group
• Academic focus and motivation. It’s getting a little tough! But so so good.
• That I would make it a priority to sit with the Lord, and just listen.
• Continued prayer for the political state of Israel!

Shalom,

Hannah Marie ❤

“Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,

    which cannot be moved, but abides forever.

As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

    so the Lord surrounds his people,

    from this time forth and forevermore.”

Psalm 125:1-2

A couple days ago, my Physical Settings of the Bible teacher took us on a 10 hour hike around Jerusalem. We covered Old Testament sites in the morning and New Testament sites in the afternoon, taking a break for lunch. I have never been more exhausted after a day of school before! One of my favorite moments at an overlook spot above the Kidron Valley; from here, you can see where David’s city was during the time that he was King of Jerusalem. My professor read us a couple Psalms, and talked about the language that was used in them. In Psalm 125, the author (King David, most likely?) talks about the Lord surrounding His people the way that the mountains surround Jerusalem. Here’s what that looked like:

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I love it here so much. Of course it’s super cool to be in a place where I have so many opportunities to study the Bible hands-on, but I’m also thousands of miles away from everything familiar and all of my closest people. So why do I feel so much peace? Why do I relate so much to the Psalmist in Psalm 125? Because “surrounded” is the perfect word to describe how I’m experiencing God here. I can totally feel the Lord’s presence surrounding me the same way the mountains surround Jerusalem. He’s teaching me that my heart longs for this more than anything else, but it’s not necessarily specific to a location. So whether I’m spending time with him under a pomegranate tree in Israel, or in the sunroom at my parent’s house in Brighton, Michigan, my soul is satisfied in Him and Him alone.

I’m also learning that peace is not necessarily synonymous with comfort. While I feel tons of peace in knowing that God is with me here, there are also plenty of things that I’m adjusting to. The seven hour time difference is kind of tough – it’s totally worth staying up late to talk to friends and family, but not always ideal. And learning a new language is hard! Especially when you’re working with an entirely new alphabet. And the reading load at the graduate level is significantly more than undergrad! It’s a good thing I love what I’m learning about.

Another big adjustment is the culture. When I’m on campus it’s not that noticeable, but if I walk five minutes down the road through Zion Gate, things are definitely different. There are things I could wear in the states walking downtown in 85 degree weather that would be unacceptable here… or at the very least, attract unwanted attention. There are places in the Old City that a woman really shouldn’t go by herself, and I’m learning about the culturally appropriate way to communicate (or not communicate) with men here. For someone who has a habit of smiling at strangers and saying “hi!” on the sidewalk, this is a bit strange.

I walked through the Old City for a while this morning by myself. It was a step out of my comfort zone for sure, since there is still a decent amount I’m unfamiliar with. But everyone here says that the best way to get comfortable with it is to just go! I’m looking forward to being confident about where I’m going later on in the semester. And I saw some really great things this afternoon!

It’s incredible all of the things I can do and see in the hour and a half that I have between lunch and class on Mondays and Wednesdays! Should I be using this time to study? Yeah, probably. Later in the semester when the workload is more significant, I’m sure you’ll find me in the library – which is also one of the only places on campus with air conditioning. That’s one really good way to motivate students to do their work!

Back to some thoughts on peace… I’m so grateful for the strong sense that I have of it internally. But as many of you may know, there are plenty of people who are experiencing the exact opposite. The political, ethnic, and religious tension in Jerusalem isn’t prominent absolutely everywhere you go, but if you pay attention it will hit you like a ton of bricks.

I have a lot of friends here who are taking classes on the political situation in the Middle East, and the things they’re discussing in class are fascinating. It’s heavy for sure, but definitely worth learning about. Being here makes me want to pay more attention world news, and the political situation – especially since there’s an election in Israel coming up here in less than a week. There is a lot of oppression happening, and hurt on both sides. Deep wounds and strong opinions characterize the social climate of this place that we call “the Holy Land.” Please pray for the people and government of Israel/Palestine in the next couple days!

The tension is real and present, but so is the Lord. I’m actually seeing a lot of beauty in it! On Sunday at the end of our “New Testament” walk in the Old City, we sat for a while on the southern steps that used to lead up to the temple in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. In recent years, the Al Aqsa Mosque was built on the site, which changes the access that non-Muslim people have to this area.

I had a really cool moment here, even though I had been to this spot before. We learned on my two week trip last year that this was likely the place where 3,000 people were baptized on Pentecost (Acts 2), and the Church was born. This time was different, though. Instead of being in awe of the steps I was sitting on and the ritual cleansing baths (Mikvahs) that had been uncovered, I was frustrated. I looked up at the walls of the Mosque, and wished that there was a temple where they stood. Like many people when they first come to Jerusalem, I found myself thinking “this isn’t how it should be.”

But then my professor walked us over to a spot at the top of the steps where some original stone was exposed. He explained that it had been dated all the way back to the second temple period, and then showed us on the wall where there is obvious evidence of a large, triple-gate temple entrance. This main entrance to the temple, with original stone dated back to the time of Jesus, is one of the few spots in the city that we can be just about ninety-nine percent sure that Jesus once walked on.

As I stood there with tears stinging in my eyes, looking over the city in sheer awe and wonder, I heard the call to prayer fill the air around me. It was funny, the frustration I had a couple minutes before was completely gone. I was so grateful for this patch of exposed stone, but more grateful for the ability to experience the peace and power of His presence wherever I go. We no longer have to go to the temple to be close to God, because His Spirit doesn’t dwell there anymore. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, the veil was torn in the Holy of Holies, and God’s spirit rested on man. Now we are temple! If we know Him and give our hearts to him, then we have THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD ALMIGHTY dwelling inside of us.

So in that moment of wonder, gratitude, and peace, I prayed that the people of Jerusalem would be experience God’s peace the way that I have been recently. It seems like a pretty hefty prayer, but our God is capable of bringing true and restorative peace to extremely broken and complicated situations. Sometime I’ll talk more about the Hebrew word for peace, which is Shalom. Many of you might already know that it’s a much deeper and more full word than our definition, but I won’t get into that now. I need to get some sleep!

Prayer Requests:

• the people and government of Israel/Palestine during this election!!
• a desire for me to continue stepping out of my comfort zone.
• a desire to learn more about what’s going on around me politically here in Israel, and pay attention to the news.
• motivation to do my best in my academics!!
• that my eyes and ears would be open to what God has to teach me and show me inside and outside of the classroom.

Shalom!!

❤ Hannah Marie

“Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth. Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King. Within her citadels God has made himself known as a fortress.”

Psalm 48:1-3

To locals, Jerusalem University College is known as “The American Institute on Mount Zion.” Maybe the name “Mount Zion” sounds familiar to a lot of us – it’s the name of one of the hills that makes up modern Jerusalem. However, in the Bible, it is a name often synonymous with the city of Jerusalem. The exact location of Mount Zion has changed over the years, but JUC is sitting on what locals would consider to be modern day Mount Zion. How cool is that???!!?

So I feel incredibly lucky to be here. I don’t think the reality of it has truly sunk in yet… but I know that I am SO blessed already. By random chance, I got placed in the “roof room” up on the balcony. Everyday, I climb up a series of winding stone stairs that make me feel like I’m in a castle to reach the balcony, then once I’m outside on the roof, I can reach for the handle of my bedroom door.

If that weren’t enough reason to be sure that God’s goodness has surely followed me here, I also hit the roommate jackpot!! Becca is a second-year MA student here, and she’s from Kalamazoo, MI! When she helped me carry my stuff up the many, many steps to our room, she told me that we actually have mutual friends on Facebook! Becca graduated from Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, which is only about 45 minutes from where I went to college. Those mutual friends are people who went to school with Becca that I worked at camp with at SpringHill. Small world – right?? We asked the director of Student Life if she did this on purpose, but she assured us that it was completely random! Okay God, I see you.

Even though I wasn’t actually in the classroom until yesterday, my first “class” was on Sunday. All first-semester students take a class called Physical Settings of the Bible. I often explain it to people as “the field trip class”, because a big part of it is traveling around the country to study the geography, topography, geology, and weather patterns of the different regions of Israel. Here at JUC, they believe that these aspects of the land are essential to fully understanding the Bible. So this class is all about studying the contextual details of the Bible that often get overlooked, and understanding the land that is the setting for the story that we love.

Above there is a picture of me in front of the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock. This is from my first Physical Settings class! We walked through the Old City for about five hours, learning about its layout, and the different ways that it has changed throughout history. The Old City walls contain many different holy sites, like the ones shown above, and ruins from different historical periods that have shaped the city. The modern-day Old City walls contain a land area larger than what Jerusalem was during the time of Jesus, and a lot of it has become very modernized, but there are spots within the walls that really do take you back in time. The mixture of different cultures, religions, world-views, and the sights and smells that come with them are equally fascinating and overwhelming.

The coolest part is, the Old City walls back right up to JUC’s campus. Both Zion and Jaffa gates are about a 5 minute walk from the gate of our school, so we can go pretty much any time we want! There is so much to do and see – I’m sure I’ll never get bored in my free time. The first-semester students even did a scavenger hunt there the other day as a part of our orientation!

The picture above was during that scavenger hunt (My team got second place!!), where we visited one of JUC’s favorite shopkeepers, Shabaan. He has known the President of JUC for decades, and loves the students here. We can rely on him for fair dollars-to-shekels money exchange, and quality souvenirs. Yesterday I walked down to his shop with two other students between lunch and class. Shabaan’s son Omar was there, and he pulled out some stools for us to sit on while we chatted for a bit. He even gave all of us some baklava (which might be my absolute favorite middle-eastern food)!

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in the garden on JUC’s campus. There are olive, pomegranate, and fig trees, as well as grape vines and dates growing right here on campus. Here’s a little view from what I think is going to be a pretty regular homework spot for me:

So my classes today are Biblical Hebrew I and Text Studies in Rabbinic Literature for Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. It’s safe to say I’m a bit intimidated. People here are really, really smart, and I’m realizing quickly that the academic side of things is not going to be easy! But that’s grad school – right? Besides, I’m learning Hebrew in a place where I can practice reading it on the signs everywhere I go, and learning about rabbinic literature from an actual Jewish Rabbi. I know this experience is something that I can’t get many other places! Wish me luck as I start diving in!

So I feel like I could go on and on, but I’m going to try to wrap up my thoughts here. I don’t think it has actually set in yet that I’m living in Jerusalem. Maybe in 2 or 3 weeks it will hit me, but right now a lot of it feels like a dream. The people are amazing, and I’m having so much fun getting to know them! But I’m sure a wave of homesickness will probably hit me at some point. The Lord is stretching me outside of my comfort zone for sure – Freshman year of college Hannah Marie never ever ever ever would have thought that she would someday move to another country by herself, but here I am! And the peace I have deep, deep in my soul is truly from the Lord. I’m confident that I’m exactly where I need to be. And even when it gets hard, His presence with me is absolutely undeniable. I echo the Psalmist’s words in Psalm 48: “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God!”

Prayer Requests:

• community building and growth in friendships
• a desire to keep stepping out of my comfort zone
• the favor of the Lord as I start learning Hebrew (hahaha)
• that I would keep seeking to know Him and love Him with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength

Shalom!!

Hannah Marie ❤

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills.

    From where does my help come?

2 My help comes from the Lord,

    who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved;

    he who keeps you will not slumber.

4 Behold, he who keeps Israel

    will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is your keeper;

    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

6 The sun shall not strike you by day,

    nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;

    he will keep your life.

8 The Lord will keep

    your going out and your coming in

    from this time forth and forevermore.

[Psalm 121]

TODAY IS THE DAY!!!

This past year, I learned that Psalms 120-134 are called “Psalms of Ascent.” When the Israelites would journey to Jerusalem to worship at the temple during Holy days, they would sing these songs. Jerusalem is kind of up on a hill – it’s sometimes referred to as “Mt. Zion” or “The high Holy hill” – stuff like that. No matter where you’re coming from, people usually say that you’re going “up” to Jerusalem. I have been reading and meditating on these Psalms a lot recently as I prepare to leave for my own journey to Jerusalem! Except mine looks like a long flight over the Atlantic Ocean… not a dusty hike through the hills of Judea. 

It’s crazy how even just getting to this day – the day I got on the plane – has felt like a long journey. I’m not even in Israel yet, and I already feel like I’ve learned so much. The other day I looked back at my journal from this past fall, and found the entry where I prayed for the first time about my desire to go back to Israel! It was November 5th, 2018, the morning after I attended a Sunday night Gathering service at Hope. When I tell the story of how all of this JUC stuff happened, this is usually where I begin. Here’s a little excerpt of what I wrote:

“Dear Jesus, that Gathering service last night made me cry for so many reasons that I bet I wouldn’t be able to put to words even if I tried. But then he talked about Israel too?? Are you kidding me? It’s such a special place. I crave walking around the desert, spending all of my time thinking about what it means to follow you. I crave ending my days in worship on the Sea of Galilee. I miss being in the place where you once were in human form. Am I crazy for thinking about going to JUC? How incredible would that be?! To study Hebrew and your word in the Holy land – absolutely amazing. Jesus, is this feeling from you?”

When the speaker that night, Tim Brown, started reciting the story of Elijah and Elisha I had goosebumps all over my body. The mention of places like the Jordan River and Mt. Carmel made my heart feel like it was going to leap out of my chest. Then later in the sermon when he actually said the word Israel, tears poured out of my eyes almost immediately. Honestly, it was super weird. Nothing about his sermon was sad, but I was completely overwhelmed by a feeling that I needed to go back. 

A couple months passed – I spent most of my time talking about Israel, JUC, and all of the things I had learned on my previous trip. I remember the conversations I had with my parents that slowly progressed from “Wouldn’t this be cool???” to “Guys, I’m serious – I think I NEED to do this.” Then on April first, I got an acceptance email from JUC, and graduated from Hope about a month later. My parents were on board, by the grace of God, and it was official!

All of a sudden, around the beginning of June, the reality of what I had committed to hit me hard. I started questioning my decision to do this – to go to the other side of the world for 3 month, without anyone else that I knew, not really knowing what would happen after. I cried a lot whenever I prayed about it. Full of fear of the unknown, I was doubting that He would provide for me. I was scared that I’d lose friendships, feel lonely, and come out on the other side of it all more lost than I was before I had a “next step” after graduating. I started asking God “Why do you want me to do this?” totally forgetting that a couple months before, I was praying almost every day asking Him to let me go back. 

I guess that’s just how we are sometimes! We’re very forgetful people. The Israelites in the Wilderness asked God to let them go back to slavery in Egypt after they had pled with Him to set them free. I feel a lot like them right now. It’s amazing how patient God’s love is, though. He’s not annoyed with me for being scared, and I feel so much closer to Him after a summer of praying some really raw, tearful prayers. I haven’t even gotten to Israel yet, and this whole process has already taught me more about who God is. How amazing is that?? I’m writing this on the airplane from Detroit to New York City, and praying that He’ll fill my heart so full with gratitude that there’s no more room for fear. 

So these are my prayer requests:

• continued safety in travel
• prayers for my sweet momma’s nerves about sending me off
• gratitude and thankfulness
• a heightened awareness of God’s presence with me
• good friendships at JUC
• no more fear!!!

My “ascent” to Jerusalem has had plenty of peaks and valleys. Right now, I’m just excited to be there and see what He has in store! Stay tuned for more stories of God’s faithfulness, and hopefully some cool pics too. 

Shalom!!