Fayetteville

We spent three fantastic weeks at Kasey's parents' house relaxing, readjusting to American time zones, seeing movies (HARRY POTTER!), and eating good food.

Inevitably, though, vacations come to an end, and we had jobs to get to. So, we set out on our road trip to North Carolina, Polly in tow :)

When we arrived, we spent a couple of days in our new house, getting situated, and then Jon's family showed up unexpectedly, with all of our things we'd stored with them!! They stayed for a few days and explored our new home, and then they headed home.

We are now settled into Fayetteville and our jobs at VCA. We were extremely blessed that, when we told the school we had no furniture, they made it their mission to furnish our apartment. We have literally all the furniture we could want! It's been pretty amazing to see how God continues to provide for us.

And Polly appreciates that she still has stairs to play on :)

We're baaaack.

We spent two awesome weeks touring with Jon's family, and then, on June 22nd, we left Israel. The security at the airport went extremely smoothly -- not exactly what we were expecting after two years. Normally, people we know who have traveled home have been the teachers from Beit Hanina (Arab community), who have it stamped in their passport that they are volunteers in East Jerusalem. Their security encounters usually include a full search of their luggage and often a strip-search.

Since we were technically in the country to get Jon's Masters degree, and traveling with family, however, we passed straight through. We got a 4 am snack from the McDonalds at the airport, and then off we went... only half an hour late!

We flew first to Poland, where we ate our first out-of-Israel food: SAUSAGE! :) As you can see, Kasey is super excited about this, and both of us felt that the food had an AMAZING amount of flavor to it.

The family was set to leave earlier than us, but their flight was delayed a couple of hours. We hung out with them until they left, and our plane should have boarded immediately after theirs cleared the gate. We actually boarded our plane 2 1/2 hours after we were meant to.

We arrived in Chicago on time, miraculously. We were a little antsy about reentering the country, but less than two minutes after approaching the customs desk, we strolled on through! At this point, we were pretty sure that our entire trip would go smoothly.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

We arrived in Chicago at 9pm, which apparently is bad. All the ticket counters were closed for the night and we were unable to recheck our bags or pass through security into the terminal. We spent almost 7 hours waiting for the terminal to open (they had red-eye flights that people were unable to check in for, btw). It was very cold.

Early the next morning, we rechecked our bags and went through security. I got my first Starbucks (YEY!), and Jon tried to nap before we boarded our plane to St. Louis, which boarded about an hour late (are you beginning to see a pattern?).

We stayed in St. Louis for 3 days. The last day there was spent being the photographers at Jeff and Maryann's wedding, which was gorgeous!

The day after the wedding, we flew to Houston to catch a connecting flight to San Diego. Our flight left around an hour+ late because the pilot that was scheduled to fly our plane was also scheduled to be in New Orleans, not Houston. We took off, flew about an hour, then the pilot announced that one of our engines seemed to be failing and we'd head back to make an emergency landing in Houston. That was the near-death experience of that day... we were escorted by emergency vehicles and everything. Pretty impressive.

But that also meant that we spent about 3 hours after that waiting for another plane and the same pilot, who had to undergo drug and alcohol testing thanks to a comment from one of the passengers. THEN we flew to San Diego.

Five hours late, we were finally with Kasey's family!

It has been a glorious three week vacation, which has included a pool, an old dog, our beautiful kitty Polly, lots of food, trips around San Diego, and Kasey officially (and FINALLY) changing her last name so all paperwork reflects our marriage... oh, and of course, the last Harry Potter movie midnight showing...

(Lupin and Tonks)

Now we're down to 2 1/2 days left in San Diego. On Tuesday, we'll begin our cross-country trek to North Carolina, along the way visiting friends (including Jeff and Maryann). We begin our new jobs at Village Christian Academy in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on July 27th.

To anyone else, moving with no money, no furniture, and not even any pieces of a kitchen (plates? tupperware? coffee pot? can opener?), would seem to be daunting and nearly impossible. We feel that's one more thing our time in Israel has equipped us for. We trust Him totally, and are ready to patiently work toward the things we need.

After all, when there's a time of need, that's when He provides.

Prayer Requests:

• God's continued provision during our transition to NC. It will be quite the financial stretch.
• Safe and enjoyable road trip -- California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina -- WOW.
• That Polly makes a good traveling kitty.
• That we will find a way to move everything we stored in Calgary to NC.
• That our new jobs at VCA go well!

Praise Reports:

• We accomplished what we set out to do! Now for the next adventure :)

From Kasey

Hello all! :)

It’s been a pretty nice couple of weeks. Jon and I are used to the swing of things this time around, I think, so it doesn’t feel as hectic this year.

Until Ramadan ends, my school day only goes until 1 o’clock. I’ve been consistently staying at least 2 hours after school to grade and prep for the next day. I even got locked inside the school one day because I stayed so late! Lol. It’s hard work being a teacher. Most of the students assume that teachers hang out during our free periods and do the same at the end of school when they leave. Little do they know that teachers arrive at the school long before they do, work hurriedly during “free periods” to prep, get copies, and grade (oh, and sometimes eat, unless we’ve run out of money/food), we leave long after the students go home, and we bring work home with us. I think this year, I’ll designate Sunday as a full day off, with no school work/work allowed.

Of course, I tried that last weekend and it really didn’t go as planned. I edit documents/emails/letters/etc. for a woman at the UN, and usually she emails them to me during the week. She went on vacation through the month of August, however, and arrived back on the 30th to find that someone had requested she send an official report to the Secretary General (of whatever) on September 1st. She received the necessary extension, but that caused a quick scuffle to compile all the necessary information. I got sent the report early on Sunday afternoon with a note to edit it immediately because the new deadline was Monday.

The thing was 27 single-spaced pages of straight reporting! It took me almost 4 hours to complete. By Sunday evening I was worn out and had a headache, and I woke up on Monday with a migraine, which is just fantastic in a school building with artificial light and screaming children, let me tell you. Still, SHEKELS!!

My migraines usually dissipate in about 2-3 hours, which helped on Monday because I’m also tutoring a student once a week in math (Good deeds! Shekels!), and I don’t think I would have been much help slumped over my desk. :) (BTW Laurel, I’m saving the pills for days when my migraines are too much to deal with, because pretty much every morning I have some level of migraine.)

Jon’s excited to go back to school. He just got one of his final papers back last week and found out that he got a 100%. He’s got it in his mind that he’s just an average student, but he’s really not. He just didn’t apply himself to school before. I hope he realizes soon how smart he is – he’s worked so hard over the past few years and as much as I tease him, he’s actually pretty brilliant :) Makes me proud that I’m his wife. (Don’t tell him I told you.)

We found out today that I get 5 days off for the Eid (the end-of-Ramadan holiday), which is AWESOME!! I’m going to JUC with Jon one day so that I can get some writing done, and then on one day, I plan on working ahead on schoolwork. I want to be ahead on my lesson plans and worksheets so that I won’t have to come up with everything last minute. It helps that I’m already familiar with the material this year. This looks promising.

<3 Kasey


Prayer Request
o We made the pretty daunting decision to survive on my school income this year. After paying our rent, it leaves us with $400. We budgeted it carefully, and most of our food will wind up being pita, hummus, and veggies. All the money I’m earning from editing and tutoring is being saved for tuition, but it really won’t amount to that much by the time our last tuition payment is due. The point is: we need money. Desperately. Soon. Please pray. (And donate, if you feel led to! ;) )

Praise Report
o God is generous!! People keep feeding us for random reasons. Even our landlady keeps accosting us with food. It’s good to know that God’s aware of how empty our cupboards are.
o Polly has been living comfortably (and energetically) in San Diego with my family for over 2 months now. Even though we miss our cute little kitty terribly (and I have nothing to practice my “mommy instincts” on), we’re so grateful that she adjusted well and that she doesn’t seem to have lost her craziness. She still goes “mum” before she attacks people J We love hearing the stories of her antics :D

Sickness

(Kasey here)

The past couple of days have been AWFUL. Thursday night Jon came home from class early because I emailed him about the ringworm, and then we watched a movie and had something to eat. We didn't wind up getting to bed until after one, and we woke up the next day at about 5:30 to take showers.

We went to JUC and on the walk, my chest started seizing up and I wasn't able to take anything more than a couple of shallow breaths a minute. We sat down a while until my chest relaxed, and then we went slowly the rest of the way. After Jon went to class, it took almost a full 2 1/2 hours for my breathing to become normal again. I spent a bunch of the time with my arm resting on a styrofoam cup filled with ice -- I have a HUGE spider bite on the same arm where I have the ringworm; ice was the only thing keeping me from going insane. Because of our lack of sleep I was completely exhausted. I had an ugly headache and my eyes hurt from how much I'd cried the night before. When Jon was done with class he had planned to take me to the Wailing Wall, but it was SO hot and I already wasn't feeling well, so we wandered through the 'upper room' that symbolizes where the Last Supper was held, went past David's tomb, and then went home.

We got home a little after noon and called Mrs. Eula (an older volunteer lady who works at the school and who is our designated driver) and asked if she could take us to the pharmacy. She was just getting out of the shower and needed to do her hair, so we had to wait about an hour and a half. Jon got on the computer to check facebook and talk to his dad, and I fell asleep sitting on the couch next to him.

Mrs. Eula brought us to the pharmacy, and the women working there gave me a cream to apply to the ringworm and an antibacterial soap that's good for skin infections. When we got home I applied it, and Jon gave Polly a bath with the soap. Poor kitten was all traumatized again. I kept her wrapped in a towel on my lap, head covered and all, while Jon made dinner -- chicken and mashed potatoes. om nom nom.

We watched Zombieland and ate until we were WAY too full. We'd been invited to a movie night at the Robert's (volunteer) place with him and Julie (english teacher) and Jeff (her husband) and a few other people (all volunteers), so we headed over... Julie and Jeff brought us a full Shabbat dinner -- shepherd's pie, potato salad, hulas bread and grape juice for a communion, and butter cookies and m&m cookies. Jon and I were kind of disappointed that we didn't know there was going to be food. Why feed yourself when you're going to be fed for free?!

We all ate and hung out and it was nice to just be relaxing with everyone. Most people left before the movie started. We let Jeff and Julie pick, because they were the only ones who hadn't seen our collection before. Julie saw Bewitched in our folder and said was "So raunchy!" which... isn't true whatsoever. But she picked Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, so that was acceptable.

I was coughing a lot during the movie. About a half hour from the end, all of a sudden the muscles in my chest and back, around my lungs, seized and I couldn't breathe at all. Every attempt was extremely painful. I asked Jon to rub my back and showed him where. After he'd been massaging the muscles for a couple of minutes, they relaxed, but my chest was still tight. I was glad that the movie was over -- we packed up, thanked Julie and Jeff for the food, and Robert for having us over, and left right away.

We were in bed by 10. Jon rubbed my back until I fell to sleep and then made sure I laid flat on my back most of the night. We figured that the combination of the ringworm and all the insect bites, my immune system had been weakened and I'd gotten a cold, so my body was just a big disaster and that's why I felt so awful.

Today I was supposed to go into school to supervise the PSAT, but I felt SO gross when I woke up that Jon called Shane and asked if I could stay home. I felt sick to my stomach and dizzy and had a headache. I kept alternating between being way too hot and shivering I was so cold. Jon said I felt the same as last night, when my skin had been burning up.

I feel a lot better now that I've gotten some sleep, but I still feel under the weather. A little while ago I lost my voice and I sound exactly like that guy on 30 Rock who's speaking to Jack Donaghy and says, "You have to leave GE."

"What?"

"Visiting hours--were over--some time ago. You have to leave GE. Geriatric Extended Care."

"... what's wrong with your voice?"

"I was struck by lightning--as a child. They made a movie--about me. You have to leave GE."

Ugh. The older ringworms seem to be clearing up. The one on my hand seems to be drying out, which is how Marian said they have to go. And my spider bite isn't swollen anymore. By tomorrow I hope to be okay, and definitely completely fine by Monday. But I REALLY hope that breathing issue is gone forever. I don't know how asthma feels, but I'd guess it's something like that.

Tonight is church and there's going to be pizza afterward. Kind of sucks that I won't be up to eating much because I was REALLY looking forward to chowing down on pizza. At least at this point is looks like I'll be able to make it there.

Prayer requests:

• My health -- that I'd feel all better soon and that the ringworm would go away with a reappearance.
• Polly's ringworm -- it's a big deal for us to be able to get someone to drive us to the store, let alone the pet clinic on the other side of the Old City. Hopefully this soap we're bathing her in works. She had another bath today.
• Jon's health -- hopefully he doesn't get any infection or anything from all of this.

A Kasey update

(Kasey here)

School is going pretty well this week. I've had the 9th graders twice every day 3 days this week. They're awesome and I love them, but they require more constant supervision to be kept under control, and that wears you out fast. And the other day, I didn't have just half of them. I had them ALL. OMG.

Besides being tired at the end of the day, I'm keeping on top of my subjects and my classes are going well. I seem to be well-liked (as much as you can like a teacher). Next week I'm being featured in the first edition of the school paper. Guess why. They think I look like Angelina Jolie. ALL of them. So much so that when Kristen (my office mate, and their teacher) kindly tried to steer them toward something more interesting/relevant, they insisted on me. I tell you, it's my claim to fame here. Also, that I can bend my thumbs backwards. That put me a step up in the guys' books.

Polly is doing well. They other night she fell in the toilet and was just a general disaster, so Jon gave her a bath. For as fascinated as she is by water, baths are now in her book Not Okay. I was in the other room, but from the sounds of panic and the desperation with which she fought back, I'm pretty sure that she was honestly afraid for her life. When the Bath of Hell was over, Jon came out carrying a towel. He handed me the towel, and turns out it was a cat burrito.

The cat in the burrito had the biggest eyes I've ever seen and her ears were laid flat back on her head. She kept reaching out of the twoel with one paw to hold onto my shoulder sans claws.

I finally sat down on the floor with her and let her out of the towel... but she tried to climb back in. She was shaking really badly. I tried sitting her on the couch by herself, but she walked in quaky circles with her back curled like she was about to spit, and then she fell off the edge and came back to huddle in my lap. She wouldn't sit still unless she was curled up in the teeniest ball possible in my lap and I covered her with my hands. VERY traumatic evening that, by the next morning, she seemed to have forgotten. She acts a lot more like a cat, though (cleaning herself, minding her litter, mostly ignoring people food). I think we might have driven her back to her catty roots.

Jon's on a field study this weekend. He left this morning at 5:30 and won't be home till late Monday, so it's just me and Polly. He did, however, rent me Fiddler on the Roof before he left :D I've been dying to watch it since I got here.

I coached basketball this afternoon since I had nothing else to do. I know nothing about basketball, nor do I really want to, but it went pretty well. I'm about to head home (and drag a buttload of grading with me). I have a couple hours until I have to be back for volunteer!church.

Oh yeah, and they asked me if I'd like to sing sometimes for church.

AND we might have been given an internet miracle.

So my life is going bizarrely well on this side of the world.

Prayer requests

• Please pray for Jon's safety and his peace of mind. He misses me a lot when he's gone, and even though this is an awesome experience, he'll have a hard time with it.
• My safety. I'm on my own for a full 3 days.
• Miracles! We did our budget last week and it was extremely discouraging.

Praises

• The internet miracle, which we will tell you about if it works out.
• Our apartment was finally finished and we are moved in except for a few things (we have yet to be able to make an IKEA run)
• Yey school! No huge disasters yet, which is promising :)
• We're healthy. Unless you count my left forearm which has 8 bug bites on it. From at least 4 different kinds of unseen critters. I am itchy.

<3

Jon Here…

Hello all. This week was pretty awesome. Kasey and I went to Tel Aviv on Sunday with a group of friends and went to the beach. Extremely nice beach! The water was very warm; you could just walk in and be instantly used to the temperature. After we swam around a bit we headed out further to go onto some rocks where we chilled, looked out to sea, guessed where Greece was (I’m pretty sure we found it…but you cannot see it). I found a place to jump off so Kasey and I did dives off of our spot. It was fun. We swam back and by then it was getting around lunch and our bodies desired food, specifically burgers because we walked by a burger joint on our way down to the beach.

Kasey and I, and a couple more people, came with us. We took orders for others as well so that they could sit and watch our stuff. Kasey and I went to this Jewish fast food place (the symbol was a bull…whatever that means). It took a while for them to understand us and for us to understand them and then to get our food. BUT once we did, it tasted glorious. I have to admit (even in the states) my favorite meal to eat on the beach is a burger, fries and coke. Something about life just seems more simple and alive when you have this combination :P I guess for me it’s cow and water…

After lunch we had a couple more hours to chill on the Med. It was a Jewish holiday and they literally shut everything down, even the beach! So we swam a bit more, went to the rocks again, jumped off and then took off. It was a VERY good Sunday and I plan on doing it again when we can. To be honest it probably won’t happen till after Christmas, because I don’t have that many weekends off anymore.

Monday I had off, so I dropped Kasey off at work and then me and Keith (maintenance guy) fixed up our new apartment. When he was doing something else I was cleaning a bit of the place. But after Kasey got home we chillaxed because it was my day off.

Tuesday we officially moved into our new apartment. It was still really dusty, even after sweeping and cleaning it. We moved all our stuff over there that night and pretty much just crashed. However! I have a story about our first meal in the apartment!

We really wanted Hot dogs! So I got a big bag full of hotdogs out of the freezer and started opening the top. This bag was full of hot dogs and air as well, so when I started opening it up the bottom burst open and all the hotdogs went all over the floor. Kasey started laughing, but when we looked down Polly was running all over the floor trying to get one! I picked them all up but she was already all over this one hotdog and was not acting normal over this thing. It was like cat nip times 10. She was chowing down on this hotdog to the extreme so we left it for her. We washed off the hotdogs, cooked some and had a really good meal.

The aftermath of Polly was that the next day her butt was exploding. Mass cat pooping. She had such a terrible time the next day when we were away that she started eating her cat food on a regular basis. The hotdog changed her into a somewhat normal kitten. So we were happy about that. The bad part was that she tracked poop all over our sheets and they had to be washed.

Wednesday and Thursday we continued to unpack and cleaning up. But on Friday Kasey and I went to JUC together (Kasey watched a movie…the one with the girl from Transformers and she is the devil…I know, I Know…you can judge away :P). But we went to the New City, went to a coffee place called “The Coffee Bean”. This was SUCH a good place! They had about 10 differnet fraps from you to choose from and even more coffee. It was glorious. We then got some cat litter (stuff that didn’t smell). Walked around, found a place to sit and made our budget for every month…this was not good, haha. After that we had lunch together at this really nice place, with the most amazing, biggest tuna salad we have ever had. AND it was only $8. So we were happy about that. All the pics of Friday can be sene on Facebook. Then we went home and watched LOTR’s (we are doing a marathon very slowly).

Saturday Kasey went to work, and I did homework at my new desk at our new apartment. I got a lot done. We went to church that evening and after church a nice couple holds a time of fellowship for everyone which includes food! They are always fun, and the food is even better :P I actually had my first boiled egg at this thing…it wasn’t too bad. Except that it was only a half a boiled egg with no yoke in it. They used the yoke to make a mix and then they put it on half the egg. I only had one, and went for seconds but they were all eaten. Sad day. O well.

Sunday was our IKEA day! And we both volunteered for a soccer/basketball game near Tel Aviv. We did this because on the e-mail that was sent out to Kasey the school said that they would go to IKEA and a big mall for everyone to do some shopping and eating! So it was a free ride and we asked around and the head people said they had no problem if Kasey and I took off to IKEA to get our stuff for our new apartment. But when we got there, we had no ride because anyone who could drive a standard was not “insured” with the school and those that were “insured” did not know how to drive a standard or they were the coaches and couldn’t get away, the IKEA was like an hour or more walk away.

So Kasey and I were stuck watching high school kids all day. At the end of the day we tried going to a mall, but they went to a different mall that was WAY away from IKEA (a different one that they said) and it was an expensive outlet store that only had a burger King and chip store. We did however drive by IKEA and waved at it. So our Sunday was, in our eyes, a complete waste of day of our day off together (we do not get another one for a couple weeks). We may go to IKEA on Tuesday to get the stuff we needed. We left home around 8am, and got back around 7:30pm. We had Macaroni and Chicken and watch 30 Rock to end our day.

All of you might be seeing stuff on the news about riots and stuff taking place here. Dr. Wright told us today that this weekend and this week are kind of celebration of Israel/independence or something around those lines (I was getting ready when he said this…sorry, hahaha), so this causes A LOT of groups and A LOT of Soldiers and police and still A LOT of Tourists. With big groups come riots…just a fact here. Dr. Wright said that Israel hasn’t had some excitement for some time now, and was smiling when he said it. Honestly I did not know what was going on in the news until I was told because Kasey and I are not around it at all. Dr. Wright also said that the safest thing to do is that if you see a crowd to just not go into it or near it. We are perfectly safe. It will hopefully die out soon. But again, big groups of both cultures bring riots and the news. We are fine.

Prayer Requests:

-Our budget is EXTREMELY low, please pray that we use our money wisely and that God continues to provide. And that we will grow in faith through being here

-Coninuous prayer for our protection in all things

-Kasey the teacher

-Jon the student. He has a 3 day field trip this weekend.

Praise:

-We LOVE our new apartment

The Last two weeks...

Jon Here…

Hello everybody, very sorry for the late post. It’s been a pretty busy two weeks for Kasey and I.

Where do I start…Last week I had two field studies on Saturday and Sunday. We went to Herodian (Herod the Greats Fortress/tomb), Bethlehem, Tel-Aviv, Shiloh (Where the tabernacle was), Geba (Saul’s army against the Philistines) and Michmash (where the Philistine camp was and where Jonathan and his armor bearer slaughtered them). They were very very exciting, but by the time you get home after one of these your mind and body are exhausted. Body because in order to see a good view of the land we usually end up walking up a mountain/large hill and all over the place, and it’s about 80-110 degrees when we do it…so you are extremely sweaty. Mind because after the hikes or even during the teacher is talking non stop where you have to process everything and take down notes. So it drains you very fast, but it’s SO FUN! During the day you don’t really feel it cause you are in the zone, but as soon as you get home you pretty much crash (Kasey can vouch for me :P). OH! And usually after our Physical Settings field studies you have a paper or two that you have to write about the day and your thoughts, AND a test on the next day. So yes, very fun, and they are trying to “weed” us out to see who can and who can’t…let’s hope I can :P But trust me, it’s SO fun and I love every second of it…except Hebrew.

Friday Kasey came with me to JUC and chilled on campus doing whatever for 3 hours while I was in class (I don’t know which one was more boring :P). But after my class was done we went to a coffee place in the new city called “Aroma”. I got a typical frap, and Kasey got a HOT drink that she loved very much. We walked through a new outdoor mall, and into a cool part of the city were there is a big open area for people to sit/walk/eat/etc…very fun place. We were looking for a pet store because we wanted to get a cat. MOST pet stores (all the ones we went to) only have fish and birds for household pets. If you want a dog or cat you have to get them off the street or at a shelter. So we found some flyers and found a really good shelter where we could have our pick of kittens (2-3 months old) and only have to pay for neutering and shots (which have been done already). OH MAN! I just realized that we were going to get McDonalds while we were there, but we didn’t cause we had to book it to the shelter…dangit. Another day, another day…and next time we will take pictures so that you can see where the cool area is.

The whole process of getting a kitten took from about 1pm-7pm (getting home, waiting for the truck, and then find the place, picking out a cat, signing the papers and going home). When we got home with “Polly” Kasey realized that it was infested with flees…it was gross, and it’s making me itch right now. Anyway, we isolated Polly in the Spider bathroom…

Side note:

Kasey has gone into that bathroom a view times and has never seen the brown spider. I have been the only one to see it. So when we put the kitty in there we figured it was dead or it disappeared to somewhere else.

…and went straight to a pet store down the road to get some “Frontline” flea stuff. Kasey was very brave, yes MUCH braver than me, and took care of the cat and put the medicine on the cat and looked for fleas and grossness.

While Kasey was doing that I shut the door to the bathroom so that the cat couldn’t jump out. As soon as I shut the door the BROWN SPIDER darts out and starts running toward me at a tremendous spider speed! I as usual start freaking out and hit the lights to the hallway (they were off) but accidently turned the lights off in the bathroom where Kasey was holding the cat with fleas everywhere. She goes “JON! LIGHTS! I CAN’T SEE!!” I go, while jumping and backing up trying to find the stupid light switch to the bathroom and the hallway say “SPIDER!! THE BROWN SPIDER IS COMING TOWARD ME! I TOLD YOU IT WAS STILL HERE!” So I turn on all the lights, run back into the living room, grab my flip-flop and throw it on top of the demon spider. I don’t trust anything right now so I grab my other flip-flop and hit the other one repeatedly, scared that it got away with it’s lightning speed right before I tried to crush it. I had to start acting like a man so I stopped what I was doing and lifted up the shoe to find that nothing was there! IT got away and was above me ready to bite me!....I’m just kidding, I killed it. It is dead and there is not a soul who saw any of this…not cool.

We had to keep the cat in there from Friday night to about Saturday night (24 hours). On Saturday after church, Kasey went into the spider bathroom and checked for the remaining flees…she only found two! So we were happy and decided to take them off of Polly in the tub. We filled the bath up to a couple of inches thinking that this was going to be a bad experience with the Kitten, BUT to our amazement Polly just jumped in on her own and started walking around and licking the water! We were so happy that we had a cat that enjoys the water. We cleaned her off with shampoo and found out that there were way more fleas than just two left on her…maybe 10 or more. The worst part was when one jumped on Kasey’s thumb and she goes “AAHHH!!” and starts tossing her hand around trying to get it off…right in front of my body/face. So now that the flea is not on her hand and she is ok I am freaking out that it is on my body. I checked and I didn’t find anything. This bathing took about 1 hour to do. After we cleaned everything in the bathroom, and dry off Polly, she runs from the living room and back into the tub where she demands more water to play with. We gave it to her.

We made some Mac’n cheese because we didn’t really eat anything this whole time. Here we find out that Mac’n cheese is like cat nip for Polly…she goes right up to your bowl and will crawl all over your body just to get a hit of the cheese. We were also happy about this, now all that’s left is pizza (she didn’t eat chocolate ice cream or chocolate icing, which was kind of disappointing, but whatever).

Sunday I went all around Benjamin, from Jericho to Gezer (all the way east and west) learning about the land and the importance of it. I just got done writing the test about yesterdays field study. This week for me is really busy. I have a midterm paper to write and a field study on Friday. BUT Kasey and I are hoping to go to the beach in Tel-Aviv on Sunday and swim in the Mediterranean, which will be a fun day if we can manage it.

Prayer Requests:

-Jon has a very busy week this week with school

-Continue praying for Kasey as she teaches and for her students that they will be a blessing to her

-Continue to pray that God provides for us

-Pray for Polly, our new Kitty

Praise Items:

-We are moving into our new apartment on Thursday and will finally get to unpack everything and make it our own!

-We have a pretty awesome kitty