Day 106

Tuesday. The 13th of December.

This morning my class got to leave a whole fifteen minutes later than Harpers group. We all walked down the Garden of Gethsemane. We went into the Church of All Nations, which holds the 'stone of agony.' We then went into the newer side of the garden and had a devotional and sang. Vans then picked us up and took us to St. Peter's in Gallicantu. It is where the palace of Caiaphas could have been, he was the high priest who plotted against Jesus. It was also here that Peter denied Christ three times. Huntsman was a pushing us a bit here, because we had fallen behind schedule and the timing was just off. We kept trying to go into this one holding room, but it was it was always full. So we went outside onto actual first century steps and had our devotional. We then hustled, briskly walked, through the city because most Churches close during lunch time. We first went to the Church of Fagellation and we had a devotinal about Jesus as 'the man of sorrows.' We walked across the compound we were in to the Church of Condemnation where Lauren gave the devotional about culpability (aka who's to blame). We then joined classes and went to St. Anne's, the church next to the Pool of Bethesda. We sang a bunch of songs in the church, we had a nice little crowd of people behind us singing/listening and raising their hands up. We then had two free hours in the Old City until we had to be at any where, so we were allowed to do whatever we wanted until then. Leslie, Kaitlyn and I at our lunches just outside St. Anne's. Then we went to Jaffa Sweets, where we shared some Kanafa. Because Kaitlyn hadn't had it before, it's that weird cheese dessert. She didn't like it, but it is necessary for everyone in the Middle East to experience. We went into a music shop and listened to some Israeli Christmas music, it was pretty awful but entertaining. We made our way over to the Garden Tomb to meet up with our classes after making a couple treat stops. At one gummie shop the store keeper told me that I had beautiful hair and that I should never cut it. Gee thanks. The guides at the Garden Tomb talked to us for a little while, just reminding us of how much they love it when we come. They love the example we set, that and our singing.We split into our classes again and had our final devotional and songs. Kaitlyn and I walked around one last time, then we headed out with Leslie, Katie and Scott (who apparently didn't have any better options). We went over to Alladin's for the last time. He had us take pictures with him and had us hold stacks of money in them. He gave us his email and wants us to send the picture to him. His son's work with him and one of them asked me if I was in the concert the other night. I said yes. And he asked if I was standing in the lower left corner. Yes. Then he asked if I had been wearing a green dress. Yes. He told me I was a great singer. Well thank you sir, slightly creepy but thanks. We went over to Bagdaddi's Olive Wood shop after, he was super chatty too. They all know were leaving so they are all sentimental. He told us how much he loved us and gave us free post cards. I got the cutest little camel pin there. It's adorable. I then made sure we speed walked down the hill to our Arab Costco, Scott and Kaitlyn were making fun of me for walking so fast. But hey I just wanted to make sure we had enough time. A group of five of us had decided in advance to buy the bulk candy and split it up. We decided to spend max 30 shekel each and ended up getting a ton of candy. Except we just had one person pay to make it easier, I bet you can guess who paid. Oh ya me. I can tell you right now I will not be getting paid back by every one. When we got back to the center it was like Halloween. We had ton's of candy and we split it all up/we may have eaten just a bit. We had our class programs after dinner. Huntsman had set it up so that almost all of the students participated, it was centered around Advent. I had to read four set's of pericopes on Love. I pretty much humiliated myself, you think I would be able to read by now. Nope. I had to read one verse over three times, because it just didn't sound right to me. Even though I said it right every time. Ya everyone laughed. Doi. The program was great but it went for two long hours. When it finished we got to eat the scraps of treats that the other class had left for us. The student's then had set up cameras in three rooms where you could go with a group and film anything for our three professors. We got a group of sixish together and made a video for each teacher where we spelt out their names (N is for Nothing trumps Jesus). Afterwards I just went to bed.