The official online Fjord
Archive for July, 2006
July 30, 2006 at 3:55 pm · Filed under Israel 2006
Day 4 in pictures.
The day started on the Temple Mount, also known as the Haram esh-Sherif. The area is relatively quiet and has some nice groups of trees. Originally, the site was home to Solomon’s temple, but Titus destroyed it in 70 AD. The two most important present-day structures on the site are the El-Aksa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock from 688 to 691. It is probably built on the site of the Holy of Holies, and Muslim tradition holds that it was the place that Muhammad ascended into Heaven. The Dome of the Rock has a beautiful gold-plated dome that is visible from just about any high point in Jerusalem. The El-Aksa isn’t quite as “shiny,” but is still impressive. It is supposedly the site where Muhammad landed at the end of his night journey to Jerusalem. The El-Aksa is more of a community worship place for Muslims and the Dome of the Rock is more of a shrine.
We had to leave the Temple Mount sooner than we would have liked to because it was prayer time. Next, we went to see the Sheep Pool and the Pool of Bethesda. The real treat of this area was the Church of St. Anne (the mother of Mary) that is built near the Pool of Bethesda. It dates back to the 11th century and was built by the Crusaders. It has amazing domes and awesome acoustics. Mishi tried to get the group to sing “Hallejiah,” but we didn’t really know what we were doing, so it didn’t go so well. I was disappointed that we weren’t going to get to hear the acoustics put to full use, but just as we were about to leave, another group came in. This group happened to have two ladies that obviously knew what they were doing. They sang a beautiful rendition of a choral piece. It was amazing.
Then it was off to Hezekiah’s tunnel. King Hezekiah built the tunnel so he could have a secure water supply when the Assyrians attacked him. It’s about 1750 ft. long and travels in a big S shape. We actually got to go through the tunnel, which was a lot of fun, the water was ankle to knee deep the whole time.
As soon as we got out of the other side, we quickly made our way to Bethlehem. This part of the tour was somewhat complicated because Bethlehem is no longer in Israel. The Palestinian National Authority controls it. So, we had to leave Mishi and our tour bus behind after we crossed the security checkpoint. We got a new tour guide that I was not as impressed with. He owns the largest olive wood factory in Bethlehem and wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to buy souvenirs. We almost had more time in the gift shop then we did at the Church of the Nativity, which was our next stop.
The Church of the Nativity, like the Holy Sepulchre is another example of a Holy site that has been way over-decorated and is controlled by several religious factions that don’t get along with each other. The place was stuffed with icons and religious symbols. It seems like if they could find something shiny and had room to shove it in somewhere, they put it in. Their sense of decoration doesn’t always make sense either. On the main platform of the church, numerous decorations had to share space with two pillar-style butane heaters. Also, the ornate columns and fancy curtain surrounding the entrance to the cave of the nativity were lit by a naked halogen bulb suspended on its own electric wire.
As the bus took us to exit the region controlled by Palestine, there were a few tense moments while our tour guide negotiated with the guards while Israeli soldiers pointed their guns straight at the driver of the bus. After a few loud proclamations of how much he loved President Bush, we made it through just fine. It felt good to be back with Mishi.
The final stop was The Garden Tomb. Unlike the other Holy Sites we’d seen, this was much quieter. This is partly because it is a fairly recent site; the land was purchased only about 120 years ago. Also, it is run by a group from England, so I felt more at home; there wasn’t a culture gap to bridge. Instead of building an over-decorated church on top of the site, they just made a very nice garden around it. Instead of telling us a hard to believe tradition, our tour guide gave us a list of archaeological observations and gave a disclaimer that they still didn’t know for sure if it was the right place. Hymns sang by other tour groups drifted through the air and birds softly sang in the background. It was very peaceful. After seeing the tomb, we had a short communion ceremony. Diane bought everyone in the group a communion cup made out of olive tree wood, so that made it even more special. Unfortunately, after doing some reading and talking to people when I got back that night, it seems that there isn’t much archaeological evidence in favor of The Garden Tomb being the actual location. That’s okay, the guide even pointed out what I mentioned earlier: we don’t worship places of things, and we don’t look for the living among the dead. He is not here, He is risen!
Following another amazing dinner, Wayco, Michael, Jenn, Anna, and I went out on the town looking for trouble. The city was fairly alive as it was the night before Purim, the festival celebrating the story of Esther. Somehow, this got turned into a weird mix of Mardi Gras and Halloween for the Jews, so there were lots of parties and crazy people dressed up in even crazier costumes. It was fun to just walk through all that. We also went through the ultra-conservative Orthodox section of town. We passed signs warning us not to enter if we were not modestly dressed (no short sleeves, no tight fitting jeans for the girls, etc). The place was very run down, but it was at least refreshing to be out of the “tourist” areas. None of the signs had any English on them at all. We ended the night by stopping at the same place for coffee as we did last night, Cafe Hillel. I had a surprisingly good Green Lemongrass tea.
Day 4 in pictures.
July 22, 2006 at 2:20 pm · Filed under Israel 2006
Day 3 in pictures.
5:20 a.m. came quickly enough this morning after less than six hours of sleep. But this was somewhat made up for by an incredible breakfast. I thought the stuff they had out for us yesterday morning was pretty amazing, but they added even more items this morning (like eggs and more pastries) that the Sabbath prevented them from making last time.
After Mishi’s threats last night of making everyone that was late this morning take a cab, we were all on time and left for the Western Wall Tunnel before 7 a.m. The tunnel we went through was through some of the arches that would have supported the walkways onto the temple mount in previous centuries. The current level of the ground outside the temple mount is on top of several layers of destruction, so to get to the actual base means you have to go underground. Some of the stones we saw near the base of the Western Wall weighed over 600 tons, which is particularly impressive considering they how they had to cut the rocks and bring them to the wall. The workers would chisel away at a section of rock, then fill those holes with dry wood and pour water on the wood. The expansion of the wood caused the rock to break free. The process reminded me of how people in Kansas cut those nice stone pillars you see in so many driveways by using the expansion of water when it turns to ice. After the rocks were cut, they were transported using a variety of methods including pulley systems and rolling logs underneath the rocks.
When we got to the end of the tunnel, we went through the Hasmonean water canal that joins the tunnel. The water canal looks like a tunnel, but they actually just carved the pit straight down from the surface and then covered it with stones. The modern-day city lies on top of these stones now. When Herod the Great built his temple mount, he no longer wanted to use the canal, so he dammed it up causing all of the water to be stored in a cistern outside the walls. We exited the canal through this area and then went up onto the street again.
From here, we visited two of the churches at the start of the Via Dolorosa (which means “the way of agony”). The Chapel of the Flagellation is where tradition places the beating of Jesus and has a dome with around it and small stain glass windows representing drops of blood. The Chapel of the Condemnation is where tradition has Jesus being condemned and has beautiful marble pillars and stain glass windows. Like much of the Via Dolorosa, it is unlikely that either of these events actually took place here. However, Mishi and Dr. Hummel made the great point that the important thing with sites like these isn’t the historical validity of these being the exact locations. The important thing is that they are devotional spots. As Christians, we don’t worship the stones Jesus walked on, or particular places where events of his life happened. But, being close to these things does provide a powerful reminder of what happened and allows us to make an easier mental connection between the stories of the Bible and the reality of life.
After visiting those two chapels, we walked the Via Dolorosa, stopping at most of the 14 stations for a brief explanation of what the traditional event that happened there was. Near the ninth station, we went into a Coptic chapel. The Coptic Church originated in Egypt and was actually the first church to have a monastery. The end of the Via Dolorosa is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is where tradition (and apparently a good amount of archaeological evidence) places Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.
We entered through the roof of the building, which is home to an Ethiopian monastery. One thing that is interesting about the Ethiopian church is that the rulers of Ethiopia (until recently) claimed to be descendants of David. They explain this by saying that when the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, she had an illegitimate son by him. This story figures prominently in their church history.
We had to wait for two separate processions to go by before we could enter The Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There are six groups that use the church (Latin Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, and Ethiopians) and none of them get along with each other. That’s why the two processions were separate. The church itself was very busy, both in people and decorations. I’ve never seen as many religious icons, lamps, candles, paintings, sculptures, etc. as were in the small space of that building. There were also enough people that movement was impossible at times. Despite the crowds, I was able to see the display over the traditional site of Jesus’ crucifixion, and the Stone of the Anointing, where his body may have been cleaned before burial. Unfortunately, there were too may people and too little time to see the tomb itself, but we’ll get to see an alternative location tomorrow. I wish they wouldn’t put so much ornate decoration over these sites. I could barely see the stone of Golgotha underneath the elaborate display they had on top of it.
After another short shopping break, we had some pizza for lunch. The toppings were a little bit different, but the overall taste was very familiar.
Next on our tour was the new Holocaust Museum. The pictures, videos, and displays were very moving, as I expected them to be. But, I’d already seen much of this before; I knew about the Holocaust and I’d already heard many of the gruesome stories, so I didn’t expect the experience to be that unique. However, it was very memorable. Not because of the displays, though they were very well done, but because of who else was in the museum. One moment I’d be bumping into other tourists, just like any museum in the States, but the next I’d be reading a display standing next to an Orthodox Jew, and the next, I’d find myself in the middle of one of several large groups of Israeli military students. These were people about my age that were serving their required military service. One thing that makes military service in Israel different is that there is a large education component. I didn’t fully understand this until I was in the museum. The Israeli government wants these people to have a very good understanding of their heritage and where they came from. Seeing that many people in full military uniform going through the museum gave me a strong impression that the purpose was to make sure that nothing like the Holocaust ever happens again. And, with that kind of education, I don’t think it will.
After dinner, we went to the Jerusalem University College to hear a short lecture about the history of the city and get a tour of the campus. The campus was very nice and we even got a special tour of the Jerusalem Protestant Cemetery. We saw the grave of Petri, who invented typology (the method used to identify what time period a piece of pottery is from), and even got to climb around on some pre-Herodian wall ruins looking for the old Essene gate which was supposed to be somewhere around there .
Then we walked back to the hotel, stopping at a coffee shop on the way. Walking back to the hotel at midnight on a non-Sabbath day gave a better feel for what the city is really like. I actually enjoyed the nightlife atmosphere and wouldn’t mind living here for a while. If my major was history instead of CSE, I’d sign up for the program at the Jerusalem University College (which is a sister school to LETU, so all the credits would transfer) as soon as I got back.
Day 3 in pictures.
July 20, 2006 at 10:10 pm · Filed under Wycliffe
Dear Family and Friends,
Things are going great here in Dallas! We are continuing to make steady progress on the FieldWorks Language Explorer program. In the weeks since I last wrote you, we have made many significant improvements.
This last week, we prepared a “test release” of our software in order to get feedback and testing on the many recent changes we have made. This test release will allow us to get feedback from a wider range of people than our usual internal testing and is just one of the many things we’re doing to make sure the finished product will be as useful to field workers as it can possibly be.
In the weeks leading up to the test release, we did our best to resolve any serious, crash-causing bugs. This was a great opportunity for me to become more experienced with some of the more complicated internals of the program, and I was able to fix a number of important bugs.
The “Help” links project I mentioned in the previous update is nearly complete. With almost 450 working help links, I usually only have to make help-related changes every few days. My current projects cover a wide range of areas. I’ve been working on everything from making small wording changes in dialog boxes to debugging hashmap corruption deep inside the C++ GUI generation code.
I know some of you are probably curious about what a typical work day looks like for me. So, to help with that, I brought a camera to work last week and took a few pictures.
Every morning starts with the entire department gathering for a brief devotion and a time of prayer. After that, we have a stand up meeting where everyone gives a summary of what they’ve been working on. Here, Eric explains the progress he made on an issue the day before. Shown in this picture are: Mike, Arin, Susanna, Eric, Michael, and Dan.
We use sticky notes in conjunction with an issue tracking system called JIRA to organize the tasks that need to be completed. JIRA is good for keeping track of the details and history of an issue, but sticky notes make it easy for us to see what needs to be done at a glance. This picture shows the tasks currently up for grab. When a developer decides to work on a task, they move the sticky note from the white board to their desk.
Here’s a shot of my desk during a typical coding session. You can see a few sticky notes on my monitors. Those are the tasks I selected from the board to work on. To the right, you can also see some of my tea set. I love fine tea, so I brought my tea collection to the office and have started making tea every afternoon for me and a few other tea drinkers in the department.
In order to make communication easier and to facilitate “pair programming,” all of the desks of the core programming team are in one area. This arrangement has worked out very well and really does make it easy to ask people questions and get input on potential solutions to problems.
Please continue to pray for the team as we work on this project. Please also pray for God’s guidance in my future plans. I am seriously considering taking classes at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (their campus is also at the Dallas Center, where I work) after I finish my degree at LeTourneau University. These classes would give me a basic understanding of linguistics and would be useful for a future career with Wycliffe, if I decide to pursue that.
May the Lord bless you.
Some more pictures from the office.
July 11, 2006 at 9:33 pm · Filed under Israel 2006
Day 2 in pictures.
We woke up at 7:00 a.m., had a delicious breakfast which consisted of quite a few things I’d never seen before, then got on the bus and went up to Governor’s Hill, which overlooks the city. The funny thing about Governor’s Hill is that the traditional name for it is the Mount of Ill Advice, and also happens to be the former location of the British headquarters and the current location of the U.N. headquarters. Mishi gave a short speech and Brandon gave his site presentation, which was an overview of the history and geography of Jerusalem.
From the view provided by the hill, it was easy to see how the Kidron and Hinnom valleys bound Jerusalem. They also pointed out where the City of David is (in front of the walls of the Old City, bounded on the right by the Kidron valley and on the left by what is now a street). Because of the challenging geography, Jerusalem would have been a difficult city for David to take from the Jebusites.
Next we went to the Israel Museum. There were many things to look at here, but Mishi took us on a route that emphasized some of the older history of the area. One thing that was interesting to see were the Ossuaries, which were ceramic containers, used a “second burial” in the Neolithic period. After the body had been buried for a year or two, they would remove it from where it was buried (all the flesh would be gone by this time) and place just the bones in one of these containers. We got to see another example of one of these later on in a display on the Mount of Olives. What makes this interesting is that when Joseph of Arimathaea let Jesus be buried in his tomb, he wasn’t giving up his tomb forever. The Jews of that time also used Ossuaries, so Joseph knew that, even if the resurrection didn’t take place, he’d have the tomb back for use in a year or two.
After the museum, we had lunch at a small restaurant/gift shop. The food was Falafels, which are a sort of Pita thing with deep fried, mashed garbanzo beans. They were quite good. After eating, we went downstairs to the gift shop. It was funny to watch some of the people in the group try to haggle with the owners. Some of them got some really good deals. My only haggling consisted of putting the item I wanted to purchase on the counter and the guy saying I could have it for 50 cents less than the marked price.
Then, we went to the Mount of Olives. This was probably my favorite part of the day; I got a lot of context for many of the events of the New Testament, and also for some of the reading we had to do before we came. For instance, I was skimming back over some of the Oxford Guide to The Holy Land after we got back, and instead of being a dry read about how Jesus could have easily chosen to escape from the soldiers coming to arrest him while he was in the garden, it was a personal experience. I had just walked that road. I know that it would have taken only about 10 minutes to go to the top of the mount from where he was; I saw the view of the desert on the other side!
We also got to walk through the Garden of Gethsemane (which, by the way, is more accurately described as The Orchard of the Oil Press) and visit The All Nations Church, which is over the rock that Jesus supposedly prayed at while in the garden. Some of the olive trees in the garden were well over a thousand years old (none that date back to Jesus’ time, though) and just being there and knowing that it was this same garden the Jesus went to was amazing!
Our final destination for the night was an antiquities shop in the Old City run by a friend of Mishi. He showed us some pottery and coins, some of which dated back to 4000 BC or so. We also got to walk through some more of the Old City and see what it looks like when more vendors have their shops open.
Dinner was unfamiliar, but excellent once again. Afterwards, we had a short debriefing talk with Dr. Hummel, then I called home, wrote this journal, and now it’s time for bed. We get up at 5:20 a.m. tomorrow.
Day 2 in pictures.
July 4, 2006 at 5:58 pm · Filed under Israel 2006
Day 1 in pictures.
The grand adventure started when I woke up at around 8 a.m. Thursday morning, March 9th. After breakfast, the group boarded one of the LETU buses and we were off to DFW airport.
While we were waiting for our flight, I got to ride the SkyLink tram system, which was fun. There were a few delays with the plane, but nothing too bad and soon we left for Newark, NJ to connect to our flight to Tel Aviv. This was my second commercial flight, and I’d never been in something as large as a 737, so it was all pretty impressive to me. Those jet engines have quite a kick, at least certainly more than LETU’s Dutchess I’ve flown in with Igloo.
For the flight, I sat next to a really nice guy who was flying home to Newark from a business trip. He works for the marketing department (I forget his title exactly, but it sounded pretty high up) of a global flavors and fragrances company. I didn’t know this, but apparently companies like Frito Lay, Listerine, some toothpastes, etc. don’t make their own flavors for their products, they all go to this guy’s company. It’s a $2 billion industry.
We got to Newark just fine, with plenty of time to make the flight to Tel Aviv. It was nighttime, so we couldn’t see much of New York City, but I did see the lights of the Empire State building. The next part of our trip was on a 777 with a particularly loud paint job. I, of course, was even more impressed with this plane. We got two meals, dinner and breakfast, each of us had our own LCD screen (I watched Walk the Line, the movie about Johnny Cash), and there were other large screens scattered throughout the plane that gave status updates of exactly where we were, how fast we were going, and when we would arrive. I even got a decent amount of sleep.
Getting through customs went smoothly (the lady I talked to had “Abu” for her last name!) and we got our bags quickly enough. Immediately after that, we exited the airport, boarded our tour bus, and started getting assaulted with facts about the area by our new tour guide, Mishi.
On our way to Jerusalem, we were briefly accompanied by a large police escort for what Mishi thought was probably someone important in the Palestinian Authority.
Before even going to the hotel, we went to the Western Wall (formerly known as the Wailing Wall) to watch the Jews usher in the Sabbath. The Western Wall is the most holy prayer site in the world for Jews, particularly Orthodox ones. The experience was amazing. Orthodox Jews praying, singing and dancing surrounded us. Most of the talking was in Hebrew. Their clothes and hairstyles were very traditional. Most of the group, myself included, went up to the wall for brief prayer.
Then it was off to the hotel to check in and have a traditional Sabbath dinner. Mishi blessed the food and drink before we started. I don’t know what half the things we ate were, but it was all very good.
Despite Mishi telling us that the city would be very shut down because of the Sabbath, we decided to go out exploring anyway. Dr. Hummel used to live here, so he knew his way around pretty well. Mishi was right about the activity level, there was almost no traffic at all, and not very many people were around. We walked around the area near our hotel, then we went to the Old City through the Jaffa gate. The Old City was similarly dead except a few vendors that tried to sell us their wares. We explored the walls, and walked around part of the ramparts that was open. Then, we finally came back to the hotel.
Now it’s finally time to sleep. The local time is 12:30 a.m., the time back home is 4:30 p.m., and my body is very confused.
Day 1 in pictures.
July 4, 2006 at 5:56 pm · Filed under Israel 2006
Well, maybe not, but in the coming weeks, you can expect quite a bit of content from my trip to Israel during spring break. I finally have all the photos from the trip on my computer and a little more free time at my disposal to sort through them than during the semester.
I kept a journal for every day of the trip. We were required to do this for the class, but I also wanted to have a good journal so I could remember the trip after it was over. The result of this is a really long journal that I intend to post in its entirety with lots of photos to go with it. So, don’t feel obligated to read the whole thing (does anyone feel obligated to read blog entries?) if you don’t want to.
And without further ado, I shall post the first entry.
The day started on the Temple Mount, also known as the Haram esh-Sherif. The area is relatively quiet and has some nice groups of trees. Originally, the site was home to Solomon’s temple, but Titus destroyed it in 70 AD. The two most important present-day structures on the site are the El-Aksa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock from 688 to 691. It is probably built on the site of the Holy of Holies, and Muslim tradition holds that it was the place that Muhammad ascended into Heaven. The Dome of the Rock has a beautiful gold-plated dome that is visible from just about any high point in Jerusalem. The El-Aksa isn’t quite as “shiny,” but is still impressive. It is supposedly the site where Muhammad landed at the end of his night journey to Jerusalem. The El-Aksa is more of a community worship place for Muslims and the Dome of the Rock is more of a shrine.
Then it was off to Hezekiah’s tunnel. King Hezekiah built the tunnel so he could have a secure water supply when the Assyrians attacked him. It’s about 1750 ft. long and travels in a big S shape. We actually got to go through the tunnel, which was a lot of fun, the water was ankle to knee deep the whole time.
The Church of the Nativity, like the Holy Sepulchre is another example of a Holy site that has been way over-decorated and is controlled by several religious factions that don’t get along with each other. The place was stuffed with icons and religious symbols. It seems like if they could find something shiny and had room to shove it in somewhere, they put it in. Their sense of decoration doesn’t always make sense either. On the main platform of the church, numerous decorations had to share space with two pillar-style butane heaters. Also, the ornate columns and fancy curtain surrounding the entrance to the cave of the nativity were lit by a naked halogen bulb suspended on its own electric wire.
The final stop was The Garden Tomb. Unlike the other Holy Sites we’d seen, this was much quieter. This is partly because it is a fairly recent site; the land was purchased only about 120 years ago. Also, it is run by a group from England, so I felt more at home; there wasn’t a culture gap to bridge. Instead of building an over-decorated church on top of the site, they just made a very nice garden around it. Instead of telling us a hard to believe tradition, our tour guide gave us a list of archaeological observations and gave a disclaimer that they still didn’t know for sure if it was the right place. Hymns sang by other tour groups drifted through the air and birds softly sang in the background. It was very peaceful. After seeing the tomb, we had a short communion ceremony. Diane bought everyone in the group a communion cup made out of olive tree wood, so that made it even more special. Unfortunately, after doing some reading and talking to people when I got back that night, it seems that there isn’t much archaeological evidence in favor of The Garden Tomb being the actual location. That’s okay, the guide even pointed out what I mentioned earlier: we don’t worship places of things, and we don’t look for the living among the dead. He is not here, He is risen!
Following another amazing dinner, Wayco, Michael, Jenn, Anna, and I went out on the town looking for trouble. The city was fairly alive as it was the night before Purim, the festival celebrating the story of Esther. Somehow, this got turned into a weird mix of Mardi Gras and Halloween for the Jews, so there were lots of parties and crazy people dressed up in even crazier costumes. It was fun to just walk through all that. We also went through the ultra-conservative Orthodox section of town. We passed signs warning us not to enter if we were not modestly dressed (no short sleeves, no tight fitting jeans for the girls, etc). The place was very run down, but it was at least refreshing to be out of the “tourist” areas. None of the signs had any English on them at all. We ended the night by stopping at the same place for coffee as we did last night, Cafe Hillel. I had a surprisingly good Green Lemongrass tea.
Hi there. My name is Curtis Hawthorne, but most of my friends call me Fjord.