Week 29: We are the Pirates who don't do Anything

Raking, raking, and more raking. We spent half the week raking up lots and clearing the pine needles. It was hard work and my allergies weren’t a fan of it, but it was awesome to see the difference it makes. Plus the money went to our Israel trip which we already spent. The rest of the week was spent working on quilt squares, or should I say quilt miscellaneous shapes. Everything from a normal square to a mickey mouse shaped patch. They are starting to look really good. I can’t wait to see the whole thing finished! Our quilts background is scenery of Hume Lake, which is awesome! All the other quilts just have boarders in different fabrics.

Thursday night we had our last theme dinner. It was pirate themed, Arrrg! We all dressed up like pirates and had seafood for dinner. After dinner, we went on a big treasure hunt. We divided into 5 teams and each team got a rhyming clue and a map of Hume. We ran/walked around main camp searching for the staff person with our next clue. It was a lot of fun. They took us everywhere from the dock to the finish at the Ponderosa high adventure course. They first place team won the ability to wear sweats all day in the building on Friday (which a huge deal to a Joshua student!). Then we had a chance to go up in the trees on the high adventure course. They also kept Hume n’ Beans open late for us to go grab a hot drink. Afterwards, we had free time until curfew, so Michelle and I went up to our pause family’s house and hung out there for a while. Shiloh and Jessica showed up, too. Great day, but it was exhausting.

This weekend I worked SS. First time since like early March! Getting ready for summer. Friday was insanely difficult though. I worked with Dylan, which wouldn’t have been my first choice… or second. But I got through it without losing my mind and murdering anyone. Then Saturday was another normal day. And then there was Sunday. Oh, Sunday… I started not feeling good around 9:00 and by 10:30 I was feeling dizzy. I don’t know why because I had eaten breakfast and a snack during my break plus I was drinking lots of water. I went to lunch and sat down before getting food, hoping I might feel better before I ate. I didn’t. I started feeling worse and worse. I was zoning out and I started crying for no reason. I went to walk down stairs to go get some fresh air, when suddenly I felt faint and collapsed. Tim was there and he caught me before I hit the ground, thankfully. It was really weird. Kip was there to help me get downstairs and suddenly I was surrounded by 4 EMTs. That’s the great thing about Hume is that there are EMTs EVERYWHERE! I went back to the building early, missing the rest of work. Since then I’ve been stuck in my room sleeping and reading… Can’t wait for tomorrow.

Week 28: Whining and Dining

Um, so seriously, what am I supposed to write a full page about? This week was slightly uneventful. Monday and Tuesday we basically did nothing except recover and write papers. Wednesday and Thursday were half spent raking pine needles. Nothing too exciting there. Mrs. Carrie did open up her car and blast music for us to listen to while we worked though, which was awesome. Thursday night was pause, and we celebrated Trevor. We ate lasagna and I made brownies. After we ate, the girls went to a women’s prayer thing and then learned the opener with Megan for the Women’s Conference this weekend. That was a lot of fun. The boys went out to the paintball arena and played Assassin and Zombie Apocalypse. Our speaker this week’s name was Preston and he is the co-author of Erasing Hell which he wrote with the one and only Francis Chan in response to Love Wins by Rob Bell. He went through the book Love Wins with us and explained some things that really challenged our thinking in the book. The book itself is pretty good, although very misguided at points.

 (Is this a full page yet? No? fine…)

This weekend I worked as a dining host. This women’s conference had about 575 women. It was insane, but good. There weren’t as many crazies this time as last time. There was, however, 22 special diet ladies which made put the kitchen in a frenzy. I forgot how much I don’t like being a dining host. Don’t get me wrong, I love serving and interacting with the guests. It’s the other dining hosts I can’t stand. Even though they are my Joshua siblings, when it comes to work I seriously do not like most of them. It frustrates me beyond belief that they can’t do what they are asked exactly as they were told to do it. And when I’m trying to do something and they want to do it a different way than I’m already doing it, it stressed me out. Urg! Flip a table! Anyway, that was my little work rant. I needed to vent a little (and fill up this page).

I’m crazy exhausted now. Then tomorrow we are back to raking pine needles at 8am. Whoopie… only 2 more weeks. I can do this.

Week 27: Adullam to Zebulon

(I will post pictures as soon as I can!)

In all honestly, I seriously don’t remember much about spring break besides going to the beach with friends, getting Firestone, and having a Passover Seder with my family. That was really cool though. We went through a symbolic Christian take on a Jewish tradition. But that’s basically all I remember from spring break.

On to more important things like, of I don’t know, ISRAEL!!! What the crap? It’s been seven months already? What is happening? Anyway, Israel was great. No it was beyond great. It was freaking fantastically unbelievably awesome! Of course it did come with hard parts and things I regret already, and possibly will regret the rest of my life… So since I already wrote most of the stuff I did down in my notebook, and it would take FOREVER to write about everything I did, I’m going to use this post to highlight the awesome moments in Israel and the not so awesome moments in Israel.

I would like to start this off saying that I spent 10 days in Israel and many said I couldn’t do it, many teased me and tried to force it upon me, but I never fell ONCE in Israel! That’s right, Hannah Pettey did NOT fall in Israel! (I did fall off a bus in Turkey, but that doesn’t count…)

Okay so the first day, one of the things we did was visit the Adullam caves, possibly the ones David hid in. That was really freaky. I was crawling on my hands and knees for like 20 minutes in a very tiny, hot, stuffy tunnel. Needless to say, I was a little panicked at times.  There were a couple spots where I had to lay flat on my stomach and pull myself with my arms. I had to keep pushing myself to not stop and just keep moving. If I would have stopped, I would have had a complete melt down and no one would really be able to help. A cool thing though was listening to Chad read Psalms 57 in one of the rooms of the tunnels. Coming out of the tunnel was one of the best feelings ever. The rest of the day was spent exploring underground pigeon houses, cisterns, olive presses, and singing in the Bell Caves. This was also the day where we went to the riverbed where David chose his 5 smooth stones to fight against Goliath and hiked in Azekah.

Day two was mostly spent in the Wilderness of Zin. After visiting Tel Arad (where most of the time it is 100 degrees, for us it was raining and we were all freezing), we walked through Ein Avdat. It was a giant canyon with a spring flowing through the middle. Rich talked about how amazing it is that all these trees are thriving because their roots are planted in the water so they can suck up lots of water and are sustained through the dry seasons. Something I know I should be doing, planting my roots in God’s word so that I will be sustained through the dry seasons. We hiked/climbed up out of the canyon and began wandering through the desert. Not for 40 years like the Israelites, but it felt pretty close… It’s cool to be able to actually see what it was like for them to just wander around for 40 years until God gave them the promise land. It would get real old REAL quick. Oh, also, we rode camels. No big deal. Back at the hotel, we got to swim in the Dead Sea, also known as the Salt Sea due to its high salt content (6 to 8 times more than the ocean), which was way fun, but word to the wise: Do NOT get it in your eyes!!! I seriously thought I was going to go blind in my right eye. Not cool.

Masada. Probably the most excruciating thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I blacked out part way up the mountain, and started hyperventilating. Julian was so awesome though. He stuck by my side the whole time and carried my stuff for me. It probably wouldn’t be as hard if it was just trails, but I was like a mile worth of stairs, which killed my lungs. Yay asthma. Not. I can really look back at that and be proud though, because  there would be no way I would have been able to make it to the top seven months ago. Seriously a God thing. Of course, I did take the gondola down though! We also hiked in Ein Gedi and Qumran (location where the Dead Sea Scroll were found) on the third day. This was also the day when I found out that the Israeli money I had was too old for them to accept. Boo.

Day four we went to the top of Mt Arbel and sat on the shore at Tabgha. We visited Capernaum, which was really hard for me. I stood in a synagogue that Jesus himself stood and spoke, but I was so frustrated because I couldn’t comprehend it. I wrote a note/prayer and stuck it in the wall behind the synagogue, among thousands of other notes. I was still really upset that I couldn’t grasp the fact that I was stand in such an important spot in the Bible. For some reason I thought that going to Israel and coming to these places would be like magical and everything would somehow be super holy and whatnot, but it wasn’t. And that’s what frustrated me. We also visited Chorazin and walked to the top of the Mount of Beatitudes, where Kelsey (staff, not student) recited the entire sermon on the mount speech from memory. It was really awesome.

Day 5 was a good day, going to Qatzrin, a military bunker on the boarder of Israel and Syria, Caesarea Philippi, and Dan (the city, not the tribe). But the best part of the day was at the end, when we drove to the Jordan River and sixteen of my Joshua brothers  and sisters were baptized! It was really amazing to watch all of them make a public declaration of faith in front of everyone. The sixteen included Taylor, Brandon, Mic, Hedi, Lindsay, Ryan, Brad, Daniel, Antonio, Sharon, Lauryn, Eric, Mallory, Alex, Julian, and Stephen.

A boat ride across the Sea of Galilee on day 6? Um, yes please! What a great way to start the day. As we made our way out, we were given time to reflect on everything and just experience the Galilee. It was chilly and had rained a little bit, when all of the sudden the sun broke through the clouds and gave me a vivid picture of what the disciples must have seen when Jesus walked on water. It seemed like the water was choppy  and dark everywhere except the one spot where the sun was shining a ways from the boat. It was insane. I felt like I was just dropped right into the middle of a Bible story. That was the moment I started getting it. Brett gave an awesome talk on Matthew 14. He talked about how Peter was scared when he saw the wind and cried out to Jesus and how we will see wind in our lives and be scared but we shouldn’t hesitate to cry out for help. One thing he said that really stuck with me was “Peter died with Sh’ma on his lips. What will be on your lips when you die?” To finish up the boat ride, Ronen taught us a dance to a Jewish song and we had a dance party ending with the Harlem Shake. I miss music. The rest of the day we spent exploring Kursi, Beth She’an, and Gilboa.

The seventh day was probably one of the best days! We went to Nazareth, Megiddo (the site of Armageddon), and Mt. Carmel. But my favorite part was Caesarea. We walked through the Hippodrome where they would have horse races and the giant theater. We even got to sit in the very room where Paul gave his plea for Christ! It was so cool to sit among the ruins and close my eye as I listened to Sal read the Bible passage. They gave us time to go down to the water, where Herod’s swimming pool was and we found pieces of marble washed up on the shore years and years after the destruction of the palace. We also found pieces of ancient pottery, sea glass, and I found a little fossil! I could have spent days in Caesarea! The water is a really pretty teal color and getting to explore all over the beach was one of the best moments ever!

However, day eight was a really hard day. It started out at Yad Vashern, the holocaust museum. There was one room dedicated to the children who died in the holocaust that has a candle that burns in the center of the room and the room is covered in mirrors to reflect millions of flickering candles to represent the millions of children. You can also hear them read names of the children in several different languages. I heard it would take years and years to go through them all. The hardest part for me was seeing a video in which they were bull dozing lifeless bodies into pits. That made me feel incredibly sick to my stomach. I was in such an awful mood the rest of the day. Even when we went to the Wailing Wall, I couldn’t shake off the funk I was in. I began to get really irritable and closed off from everyone. I kept questioning how something like the holocaust could be part of God’s plan. But later, someone talked to me about it and as bad as it sounds, if the holocaust never happened, Israel would not exist, not like it does today.

The next day we visited David’s City in Jerusalem. We walked through Hezekiah’s Tunnel, which was really nerve-wracking for me. It was a small tunnel filled almost knee deep with water that was completely dark. I was near tears by the half-way point. I started reciting the sh’ma in my head over and over to help calm myself down enough to get out to the Pool of Siloam. But after that we went through an underground ancient sewer that was hot and stuffy. That was worse than Hezekiah’s Tunnel. It wasn’t a good day for me. We also went to the Western Wall and Herodium, which was actually really cool.

The last day of the trip, we went to Bethesda, which is where Jesus healed the invalid who had been sick for 38 years. We sang the Doxology in St. Anne’s and then walked to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  Getting there wasn’t fun, though, as I don’t do very well in large crowds in small streets. I was feeling nauseous and had a headache. When we got there, I couldn’t help but think about what God thinks about it. It’s supposed to be the sight of Jesus’s tomb but it seemed so touristy. I wondered if it angered or saddened God to see these people rubbing clothes and crosses on the supposed rock that Jesus was anointed on. I figured God knows the heart of each of these people and knows their intentions. It was a very beautiful place, but a place that was very catholic that was caused fights and hatred between churches. It seemed everything was more about the material aspect than the spiritual aspect. But one important thing that I heard to apply to my life was not to build a shrine to Joshua in my heart after Joshua is over.

So, that’s basically Israel in a nutshell. There is so much more to it though that I can’t put into words and a lot of things that I won’t understand or realize until later on in life. I can’t wait for that.

We flew home (it was Sunday for like 34 hours) and Tim, Stephen, Shelby, and I stayed at Sara’s house before driving back up to Hume. I’m glad to be back. Only 3 more weeks in the building before summer staff begins! Crazy. 

I seem to be running behind...

To everyone who is looking forward to hearing about my trip to Israel, I'm sorry! I've been crazy busy ever since I got back raking pine needles and working on making our class quilt plus working on the weekends but I will have it up this week plus photos if it kills me! (someone hold me to my word!) Until then, thanks for being patient!

Off to Israel!

Today I leave to spend 2 weeks studying and experiencing Israel! I'll get to float in the Dead Sea and take rocks from the place where David picked up rocks to fight Goliath. It's going to be amazing! I'll be sure to tell you all about it here along with Spring Break as soon as I get back!

להתראות ושלום להיות איתך מאלוהים

Week 26: Tests, Tours, and Tea

This is from last week! Sorry about being lazy in getting these up on time!

Tests, tests, and more tests! This week we had “finals week.” Monday was our Pauline Epistles: Corinthians test. I got a 96%, whoop whoop! Only missed 2! Then on Tuesday we had our Israel Prep final, which I got a 167/163 on! Extra credit for the win! And then on Thursday we had our final Philippians test on chapter 4, which I also passed! It was definitely a stressful but very rewarding week.

On Wednesday, the staff took us all down to Fresno for the day. Of course I got in Bretts van, it’s the best van. We drove to Fresno Pacific University to tour the campus. This is the first year that they are doing a scholarship for Joshua students taking classes for credit through Moody Bible Institute (like me!) They’re giving an $8000 scholarship ($2000/per year) to those going to FPU after Joshua. They are also taking most of our credits as class credits instead of elective credits. That would be super awesome if I end up going there. After the tour, we all got to hang out at Riverpark for a few hours. Kelsey met me at Teazers (world market teahouse) after her last exam. I miss her a lot. It’s nice though that she lives so close to me right now. I can go see her on my weekends off and such. She might come up here and stay for a couple days after Israel (which by the way, is in a week!!!!)

The Hume Variety Show was Thursday night, and my pause dad, Scott, and brothers, Dylan and Dayton, were in it. We went for pause night to watch. It was so cute! The show was a fundraiser for the Hume Charter School. Dylan played Mr. Tumnus in a Narnia skit, and Dayton and Scott did a stomp routine. There were also a few Le Mis songs, a scene from The Hunger Games, and a song from my favorite movie, Moulin Rouge! It was a great talent filled night plus I got to try Turkish delight! When the show ended, we went back to the house and played games until it was time to go back to the building.

I finally get to go home this week! I’m stoked to see my family! But first Lem Usita and Fred Blackburn are coming up from San Diego Christian College to run a scholarship thing for us. Usually you have to go the SDCC to be eligible for the scholarship, but Joshua has really good connections with them so they are coming here so that we don’t have to miss it due to school. So this weekend I’m doing that, and it pretty much guarantees a $1000 scholarship but I have a chance of up to a full ride scholarship, too! Afterwards, I’ll drive to Thousand Oaks with Stephen and Sara where we will spend the night at Stephen’s house before I drive home Sunday morning! I can’t wait! I’m ready for some down time after a long week. I haven’t seen my family since before New Year’s. Then I’ll be hopping on a 16 hour plane ride to the Holy Land! It still doesn’t seem real to me that I will be in Jesus land in just over a week. It’s so weird to think about. We’ll get to hike Masada, float in the Dead Sea, and (hopefully) ride Gamlas! Or “camels” in English!

Shalom!

Week 25: Princess for a Day

Monday marked the start of our third, and last, preview. Our preview’s name is Lacey and I found out she lives like an hour away from me! She was super awesome, asked lots of questions and she and I had a lot in common. I really hope she gets accepted into the next Joshua class! We even talked about hanging out sometime!

Tuesday I spent the afternoon playing football down on the lower lawn with some Joshua students and a couple preview students. At one point, Hedi and Bella tried to tackle me and I ended up landing on my head and doing a summersault . I had an amazing bruise on my forehead for a couple days. Thank God it was a bruise and not a concussion!  For girls night we had a ton of fun doing a Paula Abdul workout video. It was great and super funny as some of us are a bit more coordinated than others.

Wednesday night was spent at the ice rink playing broom hockey for the last time this year. It was fun playing with only Joshua students. Apparently I fall down a lot in broom hockey, although I’ve never really noticed! But it was a lot of fun. Bummers that it’s over.

Thursday we celebrated Purim so all the girls dressed up like princesses and the boys dressed up in crazy outfits. Everything from Frodo to mimes! I dressed up as an African princess. We ate dinner and then changed into nice clothes to do a Passover Seder. It’s like a really extensive and symbolic communion. I enjoyed it a lot and want to do it over Easter break with my family!

So this weekend nobody worked, so what did I do? I spent my time, like a good student, studying for the 3 major tests I have coming up next week…. HAHA just kidding! Friday I spent playing board games and trolling around on the computers for the most part. Saturday was super awesome though. I slept in until 11. After lunch in Pondy, I came back up and played a little dress up. I’m trying to figure out different things to do with my hair now that it’s getting longer and I’m really into ‘40’s rockabilly looks right now so I pinned my hair up. Having the whole day to myself, I did my makeup and dressed the part too and did a little photo shoot with Shiloh. Afterwards I changed to go down for dinner, but kept my hair and makeup. When I got back to the building, I took it all off and changed into hiking clothes. Then Stephen, Sara, Shelby, Morgan, and I hiked down to the tree house (three story tree house with rope bridges to 2 different decks!) and played Shadows Over Camelot, a super nerdy board game. We also played a round of Magic, to teach Shelby how to play. It was such a great day!

Sunday was more of a lazy day. I went to lunch and came up to my pause families house where I sat and studied for 4 ½ hours (with a Facebook distraction every now and then). After dinner, we went to church which was just worship and communion. It was a nice change. Tomorrow kicks off the final week before break and ISRAEL!!!! I seriously can’t believe it’s coming up so fast! This is ridiculous, I’ve been in Joshua for nearly 7 months. Time is flying by and incredible speeds, but at the same time this week isn’t going fast enough!