Jericho, Arab Night, and Midterms

Midterms guys. Woof. This week has been crazy preparing for tests in all of my classes except Arabic. My Arabic teacher is calling me "Mr. Hair" now and asks me often how long it takes me to do it in the morning. Luckily my roommate Sam has my back and tells him it only takes me a minute. Axe Putty guys - it works. It's hilarious every time he brings it up though. Yesterday he asked me to respond to a question in Arabic. When it took me a few seconds to respond he interrupted and said to the class in his thick Arabic accent,"This is a perfect example of a guy who spends too much time on his hair and not enough time studying." I died haha. 

So Turkey recovery happened earlier this week. Here's what my room looked like pre-Turkey...

And here's what it looked like one day after getting back from Turkey....

Yeah... Luckily we have cleaning checks every Thursday. 

So after church on Sunday (I gave a talk!) we just relaxed and took pictures. 

With Emma, Olivia, Matt, Lauren, and Dean. 

Olivia snapped this gem :)

Monday we went to Jericho! It's the oldest city in the world and it's 850 feet below sea level. Here are some pics! 

Selfie with Kasdyn and Jordan

Right below our shadows is a tower that dates back to 8000 BC. That's the oldest structure in the world.

After Jericho we went to the Judean Wilderness where the Good Samaritan would have walked and where Christ was tempted after fasting for 40 days. This was the highlight of the field trip for me. 

Walking along the desert mountain ridge. 

Brother Anderson taught us while we sat up on the desert ridges. 

I thought this was a cool shot. 

We also had Arab Night this week! Everyone could dress up but with midterms and everything I didn't get around to picking anything up. And then I was pretty much the only one there not dressed up... Whoops. It was still awesome. 

Here's a big group picture of people wearing Arabic clothing. 

Here in Jerusalem (as in most predominantly Muslim communities) there is a call to prayer five times a day. There are people paid to recite the call to prayer (which sounds like singing) over a loud speaker so everyone knows when to turn to Mecca and pray. 

A father and son came and sang from the Koran for us and we got to ask questions. It was so cool!! Singing the call to prayer has been passed down in their family for over 500 years. They memorized the entire Koran before they were seven years old. There was so much feeling in what they were saying even though it was in Arabic. 

After that we ate traditional Arabic food. Yum. 

In line with Mackenzie. And Abby :)

Lots of delicious food...

The chefs! They make the BEST food :)

Then we learned some traditional Arabic dance moves :) 

It was a fun night! 

By the end I was super tired from eating so much and dancing. And I still had to finish a paper for Old Testament. I wrote about the lens through which I've been reading the Old Testament which has been helping me get the most out of it. I don't know if you knew but there's some crazy stuff in there! 

Well, I survived midterms. Now it's time to PARTY! It's my birthday tomorrow after all :)