Fall Students Arrive, Abu Ghosh, Tel Aviv, Jordan River

 

The fall students arrived on September 10th.  After around two weeks of no students, it felt good again to have the halls filled with the buzz and energy of these students.  Now all we have to do is learn 94 new names.  Each year three faculty members come over from BYU and teach classes here for one year.  Those professors and their families arrived in August.  The new faculty members are Dr. Luke Drake and their family.  Dr. Amy Easton-Flake and their family and Dr. Mark Ellison and his wife Lauren.  The Drakes and the Flakes have 7 children.  Six are in Primary and one in Young Women.  There is little playground on the premises for the young ones.  The children attend an Anglican school here and they all are happy with the program.  The following picture is all of the Service Couples and all of the Professors who are currently serving in the Jerusalem Center.  Except for Dr. Eric Huntsman and his family, who took this picture, this is the entire US staff that will live in the Center for the next year supporting the students.  The real support for us and the students is the outstanding administration and service staff who keep this building safe, maintained and in beautiful shape.

During the break, I was called to be the Branch Executive Secretary. The Branch President is ending a two-year assignment here at the State Department near the end of the year.  He lost his two Councilors during the break.  One was a departing Professor and the other was a departing student. There are probably only 30 branch members living here so the 94 students swell our meeting attendance significantly and require calling many students rapidly to keep the Branch functioning.  Needless to say, it has been a busy two weeks.

The weather is finally cooling slightly from the low 90's to the mid 80's.  It is feeling much cooler on the outside portion of the tours we conduct for the visitors. The last week was the start of the important religious holidays for the Jewish people.  This coming Monday is Yom Kippur.  The staff here has warned us not to even think about driving on that day.  The Jewish neighborhoods have no cars moving and many people walk or ride their bikes on the roads. Pomegranates ripen here around this time and are one of the foods that are part of their holiday menu.  We have a tree outside near our patio.

Every Sunday, Leah plays the bells at the Carillon, which is located in the YMCA building, The building has several floors of hotel rooms in addition to newly remodeled athletic facilities.  It is right across the street from the King David Hotel which is the most famous (and expensive) hotel in town.  Organists at the Jerusalem Center have always gone once per week and provided beautiful bell recitals right in the downtown area. 

YMCA Lobby

This is the bell tower.  The bells are located in the three arched openings on each side of the tower.  The keyboard is located one floor below and when Leah pushes down on the keys, it physically pulls a cable that connects to a hammer and strikes the bell.  You can see the cables in this picture.

This is the King David Hotel right across the street.

A few years ago, Condoleezza Rice was staying at the hotel and heard that the BYU Jerusalem Center was providing the concert.  She wrote a letter to the Center thanking them for the beautiful concert - a very classy act.

During the time the students were away and recently, we have been able to see some new areas with our fellow Service Couples on our day off. We visited a small town called Abu Ghosh which is around 15 miles west of Jerusalem.  It is famous as being where the Road to Emaus started.  After being here for a few months I have an observation, I was not expecting to see. The area around Jerusalem is very hilly.  There are very few level places.  In my mind, I always imagined the Road to Emaus as a level straight road. 

We visited a Crusader Church which was very different in design from other church visits.

We also visited the Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant Church.  You can see a representation of Mary standing on and protecting the Ark of the Covenant on top of this Church.

Also in this town, there was a relatively new mosque that has and interesting design.

Now for the lunch spot, non-other than the Elvis Diner which was totally Elvis and claimed the best burgers around.  The lunch was good, but it was very interesting and way out of character for other restaurants we have seen.

Last week, we needed to go to Tel Aviv to take care of some paperwork to extend our visas for our stay.  Tel Aviv is the biggest city in Israel and the skyline is filled with many cool and modern looking tall buildings.  It is a major tech center for Israel.  The traffic was super heavy navigating.  We had a quick lunch after our appointment and hit the road early for our return to beat the traffic (which I think is impossible).

With the arrival of the students, Leah is beginning choir rehearsals for our December Christmas Concert.  The Director of the faculty at the Center is Dr. Eric Huntsman, a longtime professor at BYU.  He has been a member of the Tabernacle Choir for 18 years and she is grateful he is helping out with the rehearsals. It seems early to start but the students have foreign trips and will be gone several weeks during their Semester.

Yesterday, we were able to travel all the way North to the Lebanon border.  The main purpose for the trip was a float trip down the headwaters of the Jordon River upstream of the Sea of Galilee.  It was very fun and beautiful.  No one took their phones because we were not sure how bumpy it would be.  As it turned out, it was very smooth except for one short spot.  Luckily, we met some very cool Palestinians on other rafts who took some pictures for us.  

After the trip, we went up to a new city right on the border of Lebanon that is being developed and is quite modern.  It is called Ghajar.  Here are some pictures.