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After our week at the kibbutz and at Oranim College, we made our way to the small city of Nazareth for the next stage of our adventure. We are staying in the middle of the old city in a nice hostel with nice people, but then again, when aren’t the people nice here? We spent....

Last week was packed with opportunities to learn more about Israeli culture with the Oranim program.  We stayed in Kibbutz Ramat HaShofem, one of the first kibbutzim set up in Israel.  The original kibbutz system was set up with a mix of socialist and zionist ideals, focused on communal living.  This kibbutz has lost many....

This has been such a powerful week for me. On Sunday Olivia, Steve, Andre, Ben and I returned from our week of free travel in Egypt. We found our way back to Old City, Jerusalem and to the Ecce Homo Convent. Thus began our week. We spent our free time on Sunday evening exploring the....

While many of our group chose to plan ahead and have a relaxing time, James, Tim, and I decided to leave much of our trip open-ended. The first day we spent at Tim’s uncle’s house in a town near Tel Aviv. All the people in that family were characters, and we had a good time....

This past week we have been staying at Jerusalem University College (JUC) and begun studying Biblical geography, history, and archaeology. The transition from Palestine to Israel has been tough for me, but JUC is a wonderful place to be staying and I wish we could be here for more than two weeks. The JUC campus....

We have reached the end of our stay in Palestine, or the Occupied Territories, or the West Bank, or the Disputed Territories, or Occupied Palestine. Many names for the same small strip of land. I have spent the last week in Beit Sahour, a Christian village near Bethlehem. The group has scattered, for evenings at....

Although many of us were not quite ready to say goodbye to Damascus, we were all excited for what was to lie ahead in Jordan. We spent the first two days in the capital of Jordan, Amman, where we had time to explore the city and meet with the MCC representatives in Jordan. We got....

Sa’lam Everyone! Sadly we had to say goodbye to Syria this week. We had our last Arabic class Wednesday where we had our final exam which was just a short conversation with our teachers. I’m happy to say that we all passed the class and are now at level one. It’s sad to be leaving....

Marhaba! We’re back from Lebanon safely, and I’m in the dormitories at St. Elias Monastery again in Syria. It’s good to be ‘home.’ That’s right; our place in Damascus, Syria now feels somewhat like home. Damascus is familiar to us, with more or less some semblance of routine: wake up, eat breakfast, then hop on a....

I never thought that I could love a big city; that was before we came to Damascus.  I feel as if I can’t explain the wonders of this culture without showing someone in person.  I looked through all of the pictures we took, and I don’t think a single one of them does the city....