Going on 1 Month

Well, I've been at Ibex for nearly a month now, and I've been thinking about what the experience has meant to me thus far. What does living in the Land of the Bible do for you? Well, for one thing, the "warm fuzzies" I might have expect are not really that common. For one thing, most of the mental pictures I've grown up with of what Bible places are like have been smashed by reality. Jerusalem is a chaotic jumble of vendors and holy buildings. Bethlehem smells like deisel, and is plagued with heavy traffic. The place of the crucifixion has a gigantic church built over it, with several sects squabbling over it day in and day out. It's hard to mentally erase the scars of modernity and imagine what these places were like long ago.

This is not to say it's all bad. These places are fun and exciting, but for different reasons than I would have expected.

What has impressed me most about walking Jerusalem, climbing the mound where Jericho lays buried, viewing the Ascent of Adummim where so many biblical figures have walked - or ran - is that it is real. These places are just as real as Kansas City, or Santa Clarita, or Jahuara II! When we read stories from the Bible about these different places, the geography and setting no longer sound like jibberish - they sound just as real as if they said "Jesus and the disciples left that night for LAX, taking Placerita Cyn. to San Fernando, where they made a left and..." It's the coolest thing ever.

So at this point, I have to say that the reality of all these places are starting to take hold...

Dan