Well our Joshua time in the building is almost over. We have this week, our two weeks in Israel and three weeks when we get back then we get ready to leave the building and head to summer staff housing. Our time in the building has been, for all of us, an amazing 9 months of community and fellowship with one another. Of course staying in a building with 50 plus people is not a stroll through meadow, but it’s been rewarding. You learn to communicate, how to build one another up and how to hold each other accountable. It also has it perks, like theme dinners are the best and not having your Joshua siblings there would not be fun. Times when we play board games or “Murder in the dark” or when we all sit and be creative and draw, paint, do blackout poetry, and swap cooking recipes will not be forgotten. We have had a lot of memories and life changing moments that will be with each of us probably for the rest of our lives. But like the saying goes ” when Joshua ends, it begins” and our lives will be completely different, maybe not for everyone, but for most.
The weather on the mountain has been nice, sunny and warm! A lot of the snow is melting and hopefully it will be gone by the end of the week and no more will come. It started raining today and I think it may stop tomorrow or tonight but its suppose to be warm again.
Everyone passed their Israel test so that means we all get o go to Israel and we leave this Saturday. During our two-week stay, we will get to go and see 56 different sites and get to hear a teaching from each site from our staff and other cool people. We will get the opportunity to float in the Dead Sea, go to a bunch of caves; we get to see where David slayed Goliath, the Galilee, the Western Wall. We will get to go to Mt. Carmel, the mountain Jesus taught at, and we get to hike Masada. I am so excited for this trip! Also we get to eat so much good food I just can’t wait to be there already. To be in the Holy land, to walk where these characters of the book we read all the time have actually been…that they are not just characters but were once living, breathing people. To put things into reality, to imagine being in their shoes and hearing and smelling what they may have heard or tasted. Getting a better understanding of all of it, the Bible that we read and watching it come to life and putting things in a different perspective then. Putting ourselves in Peter’s, John’s, even Jesus’ shoes, walking along the roads and trails and kicking the same dust, will be amazing.
-Matthew reed, Bryce Kirkland, Madi Saunders, Regina Gosney