Hope amidst challenges

Hello,

God bless you all! I've been very busy here, but enjoying myself for the most part. I feel like I still have so much to learn about the place here. It's very complicated sometimes.

I started taking Hebrew classes this Sunday, which is great, it'll be two times a week until February. I already missed three classes (that's nine hours worth), so even for me it's challenging. =) But God willing I'll catch up in not too long. It's fun for sure, I'd like to meet more of the people in the class. Another cool thing recently is on Saturday I picked olives all day at a church in Jerusalem, we got so dirty! I didn't realize olive picking entails so much dirt. There were two ladies from Papua New Guinea helping out, along with a Nigerian girl and some other interesting people.

There's a big group of people from Europe and America visiting the college right now (which is the main reason I've been so busy--cleaning and cooking for them), they're with some kind of Christian reconciliation group. I wish I could attend the classes they're getting--it sounds like some really cool stuff. One thing I overheard which I wanted to share was a family who lives about halfway between here and Hebron. They have some property that they've owned for a long, long time, with deeds registered the Palestinian Authority, the Israelis, the Jordanians, the British and even the Ottomans. Yet still they've had challenge after challenge from settlers to prove that the land is really theirs, and not have it taken away. Who knows how much they've had to pay in legal fees just to keep the land that has been theirs for centuries. And yet, what was really tremendous to me was what they want to do with the land--they are planning on building a summer camp center where Israeli and Palestinian kids can get together and build relationships that can lead to peace. Wow! Imagine having to fight so hard just to keep your land from being stolen, and then turning and saying, "We want you to be our guests to help build peace in this land." That's a tremendous testimony. May God bless them.

There's definitely a lot of stuff going on under the surface here, far more than I know. But what gives me real hope is to see people who have been transformed by God's love for them in Jesus, and who can then turn to others and "forgive, as the Lord forgave you."

Love you all, whomever you might be. Pray that God would keep my heart loving Him and loving every single person I come into contact here.

In Jesus,

Seth