This week our Joshua class has been preparing for our big Philippians test that was on Thursday. We recited our final chapter and took a test on the knowledge of Philippians. The test was a pretty confusing for all of us, but the staff was really gracious and humble about it and in the end, the majority of us passed!! All of us were pretty excited to be done with the stress of Philippians and to have a lot of weight lifted off our shoulders. Even though we were all pretty stressed this week, it was really good that the staff continued to encourage and reminded us that the goal of studying and memorizing Philippians is to have the word of God written on the tablets of our heart. We not only memorized an entire book of the Bible, but we have God-breathed scripture in our minds and in our hearts. This is something that I know a lot of us with look back and be grateful for this part of the program. Memorizing the whole book of Philippians was definitely a struggle at times for a lot of us, but in the end this is something that I know a lot of us with look back and be grateful for this part of the program. I feel like it has become such an encouragement to us as students, to know and to have confidence that we are even able to memorize this much of the Bible. It really encourages me to take this dedication to memorizing scripture with me even as I graduate Joshua. God has provided and strengthened each of us as we strived to memorize His word. It is a beautiful thing to see 39 students strive to memorize the words God has given us. Staff gave us until 4pm to recite Philippians, and after we all recited chapter four, we celebrated!! The building was full of cheers for a couple hours as people came out after testing out. It was really nice to have the rest of the evening stress free so we were able to just relax after a very long day and hang out with each other.
Tonight, ‘twas old people theme night. We all dressed up as if we were going to our Joshua class’s 60th graduation anniversary. People got really into it, like really into it. They put baby powder in their hair to turn it silver. They used makeup to draw wrinkles on their faces. And, they shoved pillows under their shirts for that gut effect we all pray to get in 60 years. Most of us got really into it and created characters for ourselves. I ran into these soon-to-be eighty year olds and we chatted about the good old days back when we were in Joshua. The funniest part was that everyone decided that they were suddenly an old mid-western person instead of an old west-coast person. The accents killed me. Once dinner ended, we played BINGO! A classic old people game that just had to be played. All of the winners will receive free Magnum ice cream bars in Israel in a little over a week!
How crazy is that? We’re going to Israel in about one week! My little heart, along with the other 38 hearts, are so excited and trying our best to prepare ourselves before we visit the Holy Land! We have our bags laying open on the floor just waiting to be filled up with as few clothes as possible so that we can bring home everything our poor wallets will allow us. The packing list is intense, but so is the hike at Masada. Hopefully we all have our hiking crocs broken in! But first, we are to study for the Israel test that will be on Monday. It’s a big one. You’re prayers are always welcomed and, yes, even encouraged.
Good night and farewell blog readers!
Written by Hannah and Jaedyn
