On March 21st Stacie and I took another trip to the airport, but this time to pick up my parents who were coming to tour around the land for a couple weeks. What my parents (and Stacie) didn’t tell me is that my sister Kim was coming with them too!
It was really fun traveling around the country with my family – showing them the world of Stacie and I (our apartment, school, neighborhood…) many archeological sites, we went on some great hikes and visited a few other places – places that weren’t exactly on our initial itinerary.
We toured around the Holy City for the first a few days and even celebrated Easter together by going to a sunrise service at the Garden Tomb. After 5 days in Jerusalem (while Stacie and finished up classes before Spring Break), it was time to get out of the city. We headed for the Shephelah (western foothills) and joined up with a friend of ours who was leading a study tour. We climbed up Tel Azekah – near the area where God used David to defeat Goliath, and then we climbed up Gath – the city where Goliath was from –
and that its when our picture...
our plans…
our itinerary…all changed.
On top of the Tel (man-made hill of city remains), Kim slipped on some loose rock, and fell pretty hard. A doctor was in the tour group we were with and said we needed to get her ankle checked out. So we drove to the hospital – and sure enough – she broke her leg!
So they slapped a cast on her leg and sent us away. Great, so what do we do now? Well we were planning on driving up to Galilee that night for a few days, so we went anyway.
I’ve posted lots of pictures on our Shutterfly account that tells much of the rest of the story.
The broken leg Kim experienced was a bummer…I mean, first of all it’s not exactly a free trip to come visit us. Also, mom, dad and Kim were all exercising and training to be able to do some extensive hiking here. They were driving to hotels in downtown Grand Rapids just to climb the 24-flights of stairs – they wanted to come here and they wanted to go hard and hike a lot and see a lot and learn a lot and…
I learned a lot from these couple weeks as well. First thing I learned – this country is not very handicap accessible. Too many hills, valleys, rough stones, and archeological digs without nicely paved side-walks. I was also again reminded that the “picture changes everyday.” We often like to make our plans – and it’s good to plan – but we cannot hang on too tightly to our plans. In fact, when we were hiking up Tel Gath, someone in the group was asking me about what Stacie and I are planning on doing when we graduate from JUC. My response? I told him about a couple ideas or dreams that Stacie and I have, although nothing concrete, but in the end I said, “ya know, I don’t even know what’s going to happen three minutes from now let alone what next year will look like.” Sure enough, about eight minutes later, Kim fell and broke her leg.
“The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.” – Proverbs 16:9
So the initial itinerary changed a bit. But we truly had a fantastic two weeks together. We wheeled Kim around in that wheelchair to places we’re not so sure a wheelchair has ever been before – like the top of Mt. Arbel for example . We made the most out of what we had and what we could do, we enjoyed the moments we had together, we saw a lot, learned a lot, laughed a lot, (cried a little, slept a little…) – All is well.
Life is a journey. Full of many stories. I mean, that’s sort of what this place is all about isn’t it? We talk about the stories of people of faith who have gone before us on these ancient paths. Now we have more stories of our own to tell - on those same ancient paths.
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