the exodus in reverse, and a story of recycling

After the bit of a rough start that our group had to our travel week, the rest of the week went remarkably well. Carmen and Christina had gone back to Jerusalem last Monday to go through the process of replacing Christina's passport, something I have heard can be quite the ordeal. Thanks to your prayers, Carmen and Christina went to the Embassy at 8:30, and Christina had her new passport by 2:30 the same day. Directly after, they returned north to Nazareth and our group was able to spend the rest of the week together as planned. No, our things were not returned, but our group did have an efficient week of traveling around Israel, seeing many of the places that Jesus went in His ministry.

(on the Mount of Beatitudes)

With our pictures, our goal was to gain a better understanding of the biblical locations and how they relate to the scriptures. For this mapping project, we also used many of the images from the post-gospel New Testament locations we visited this last fall in Greece and Turkey. Going to these locations, it amazing to now sense a little more understanding of the context in which many of the passages of the Bible were written. Seeing the places, it was almost unreal to know that Jesus had been in very similar places thousands of years before.

On Tuesday, as a team we were able to drive around the Sea of Galilee, visiting the Jordan River, the Mount of Beatitudes, the Capernaum Area, the Golan Heights (which were very eerie as they were covered in thick fog,) and stopped to wait for sunset on the east side of the sea. Throughout the day, it had been raining, and as we waited to see the sun fall down I questioned whether the rain would let up. We prayed though that God would hold up the rain for us to photograph sunset. Even after praying though I doubted if My prayer had really gone anywhere. Sure enough however, just as Jesus calmed the wind and the waves many years before, He then allowed for the holding up of the water that was falling out of the sky, providing for a beautiful sunset. I enjoy it when God proved my skeptical faith to be wrong.

(after the rain was stopped)

Wednesday of the travel week our group went south, past Jerusalem, to Bethlehem. As we were walking to the hotel we were planning to stay in, it was once again raining heavily, and we were trying to walk as quickly as possible while attempting to stay as dry as possible (something that wasn't working out too well). Soon though, we had a friendly souvenir-shop-owner pulling us into his store to sit down for Arabic coffee. I usually question this, as I have become fairly accustomed to be drawn into these shops only to see that I am requested to buy something. This time though, that was not the case. This man wanted us to sit down, just to talk and hear about our lives, and was just as open to sharing about his, and even helped to set us up to stay at a local guest house, which ended up being a very pleasant place to come home while we were there.

(In the church of the Nativity)

I feel so blessed by this man, but it was hard to hear about the difficulties that he has faced as a Palestinian living in the West Bank. Before the security wall was built, he spoke of how he was allowed to pass back and forth between Jerusalem and Bethlehem as he pleased. Since the wall has been built though, he is almost entirely restricted to Bethlehem, as even within the West Bank itself, there are security checkpoints wherever you go, which makes traveling to nearby towns a hassle. This is problematic when you have family and friends on both sides as this man does. He can get Visa's to come and visit friends in the U.S. or Europe, but has to fly out of Jordan because it is so time consuming to wait for permission to go into Israel to fly from Tel-Aviv. But all the while telling us these things, this man remained un-bitter towards us, and treated us as his friends. Soon he brought out his instruments (drum, tambourine, and violin-type instrument) on which we played together (and I danced) happily, though I'm sure there was no sort of musical structure to our song.




This man was a Godsend to our time in Bethlehem, and I believe was the main reason God had us in Bethlehem. That Thursday we spent the whole day in Bethlehem, trying to get to the biblical sites, and we did so with the help of this friend, who drove us around in his well-broken-in automobile. It rained most of the time we were in Bethlehem. Though the rain was a bummer for picture taking, it wasn't a bummer as it helped us to spend much more time with our newfound friend.

Later in the week our whole school reunited again in Jerusalem, and we left last Saturday to make our reverse-exodus back to where we are now in Cairo, Egypt. This last week we have had some in-depth instruction from our friend here on the use of lighting in photography. It was a lot of fun, and he really impressed me (and all of us I think) with a lot of inspiration for the creative ways I can be using light in my photographs. I think this week will prove to be very influential on the photographs that are yet to be taken in our travels.

(Sayed, a newsprint dealer)

(On the roof of our hotel)

(on the nile)

(These shoes were made for wearing)

Just yesterday a few others and myself wanted to make a visit to an area of Cairo known as Manshiyat Naser, or Garbage City. Most of the people who live in this area sort through the garbage to find the materials that can be recycled and re-sold to make a living. These people live almost literally submerged in the garbage that they sort through. They do have living areas where they can get away from the piles of trash (at least somewhat) but a majority of their lives are spent in the midst of heaps of rubbish. I was interested to see how the garbage business was actually run, and God provided me with the opportunity to meet a real-life garbage dealer.

(wait)

As I was taking pictures of a family in one area, I soon saw that the family was in the process of selling recycled plastic to a couple men, a policeman in street clothes and one man by the name of Sayed (pronounced sayEEd). Sayed offered me a Coke, and told me a little about what he does with the plastic - basically buying the sorted plastic, and selling it to recycling companies in China for about $400 USD per ton (this is the price for white plastic, whereas black is much cheaper as it is a low quality plastic), and spoke of how good of a business it was to be in, as they basically take something that people aren't using (trash) and sell it for money. He was an extremely friendly man, and was very willing to help me understand what the people in Garbage City do with all the "garbage" that they sort. Though this was a short encounter, I was thankful that God provided me the opportunity to understand the people a bit more than I would have otherwise been able to, AND it was cool to see people getting so much use out of the resources that are available to them. It makes me think.

(A deal transpires between cronies)

(Sayed, a dealer of recycled plastics)

We are only in Cairo for a few more days before we will be moving on to Ethiopia. This Friday afternoon we will be flying to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, where we'll be located for around a month. While we're there I am not sure how much access we will have to the internet and communication, but I will be doing my best though to keep you updated on all that we're doing there. I look forward to being in one place for a more extended amount of time. Thank you for all your prayers, and I appreciate your continued interest and involvement in all that God has been and continues to be leading me in.