Have migrated the blog over the tumblr.

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 :)

Employment Success!

Major praise report:

We have just officially accepted offers to teach at Village Christian Academy in Fayetteville, North Carolina!!

It's pretty perfect, actually. Jon was offered a position as a Bible teacher for 10/12th grade (hey... isn't that one of the things we came here for?), and Kasey was... well, Kasey's going to be doing the exact same thing she's been doing in Jerusalem: teaching 7/8th grade science!

We're super excited and looking forward to what the new year (and our return to the States) will bring.

NORTH CAROLINA - HO!

Heading out in 52, 51, 50, 49...

24; 52; 56.

It's hard to believe that when we first arrived in Jerusalem, we had 678 days to go before we headed home. Exams for Jon, 24 school days for Kasey, and 52 days until we leave the country for home!

Jon is very quickly approaching the end of his Masters degree. He has finals this week on Tuesday and Friday, and two comprehensive exams, each roughly two weeks apart and completed around the first couple of days in June. He soon hopes to demand the title Master Harkness (lol).

The 24 days of school for Kasey will move quickly. May has only 3 weeks of instruction, followed by review and finals. Finals end on June 2nd and graduation is the 5th.

Kasey has to be at school on the 4th to help hand out report cards. That night, we will head to the airport to pick Jon's parents up at 3 am (the same day as graduation). The Harknesses will be here until the 22nd, when we will (finally) depart for North America. We will all be traveling to Poland for one leg of the flight. Our layover is twice as long as theirs, as our final destinations are different. After about 7 hours in Warsaw, we will travel to Chicago for our next layover. We arrive after 9 pm, and don't depart until 7 am. There will be lots of sleeping at the airport. From Chicago, we head to St. Louis (which will hopefully be reconstructed after the recent tornado disaster).

We plan to spend several days in St. Louis acting as the wedding photographers in our friends' wedding. We met Jeff and Maryann in Jerusalem at The Jerusalem Schools and not only became good friends with them, but watched them meet and fall in love. We took their engagement photos last month and are so happy and excited for them :)

We have concocted a crazy plan upon arriving in St. Louis. Apparently we will step off the plane and head directly to a water park. This is on the 23rd. The wedding is on the 25th, and we head out on the morning of the 26th. Before noon, we'll be with Kasey's family in San Diego.

Because the reality of our departure has become more apparent as it approaches, we have been trying to make the most of the time we have left. On Palm Sunday, we participated in the Palm Sunday Walk, which commemorates Jesus entering Jerusalem by following a familiar path to the one he would have followed from the Mount of Olives into the Old City through the Lions Gate.

We also attended a Passover dinner at a Messianic Jewish village.

Time is passing quickly, and as we rapidly approach our departure date, we have been reflecting on how extremely blessed we are to have spent two years here broadening our horizons and serving the Lord.

Prayer Requests:

• Patience and focus as we near the end -- Jon in his studies, and Kasey in her ministry with the Jerusalem Schools.
• Safety.
• Safe travel for the "Harkni" clan.
• Employment upon our return to the States (which looks promising!).
• Our finances are dwindling.

Praise Reports:

• WE MADE IT! :)

Christmas

Greetings! Time for the Christmas update!

Our Christmas was far more comfortable this year than it was last year. Once it passed Thanksgiving, we set up our Christmas decorations and created a Christmas songs playlist on our iTunes. We also volunteered to co-host the first Christmas party among our volunteer community (along with our neighbors, Nick and Angel [and baby Moira]), which was a great success.

Kasey wound up being sick the last week of school (Dec. 20-23) and spent the first day of her illness alternating napping on the bathroom floor and, well… being ill. She became more coherent on the 22^nd, but woke up on the 23^rd with a bad migraine, so her Christmas break began (unhappily) several days earlier than the other teachers at school.

On Christmas eve, we traveled to Bethlehem. It’s a tradition for the volunteers at The Jerusalem Schools (and supposedly the sister school in Bethlehem) to head to Manger Square to carol on Christmas eve. After a very long, confusing trip to Manger Square (and not joined by the Bethlehem volunteers), we split off into two groups so that one group (made up mostly of the men in the group who had driven… and Kasey) could park the cars and the other could wait for us to catch up with them before heading to the square.

Except that the second group (women and tiny children) wandered off into Manger Square without all the men (and Kasey). We really didn’t understand the scale of the celebration that goes on in Manger Square over Christmas, and the second group undoubtedly overestimated our skill of navigating the exact same path through thousands of people that they had.

By the time that we had parked the cars and made it to the square, we were thoroughly stressed out. There were literally thousands and thousands of people crowded in a fairly small area, and we had NO idea where to go. All we saw was the official stage at the front of the square. Most of us had assumed that by “caroling” we were going to be standing in a corner, singing to passersby for half an hour, going relatively unnoticed.

Oh no. This was the same stage that, moments before we went on (supposedly), the Palestinian president gave a speech. It was a pretty big stinking deal.

Luckily we had an administrator from the Bethlehem School with us who is Arab, so she pushed her way toward the stage (we grabbed each others’ coats and scaled walls and shoved through people and tripped over medians *cough*Jon*cough* to follow her), argued her way backstage… then promptly walked us to the opposite side of the stage and back into the crowd, next to the stage, but still in the crowd. They are… somewhat unorganized over here.

Meanwhile, the second group (the one with the women and children) had gotten stuck in the middle of the crowd, and everyone had in some form or another gotten trampled or groped, and they were all traumatized. They eventually made their way to the opposite side of the stage from us, and then after waiting and arguing with the soldiers guarding the backstage, they were finally able to make their way over to us… bringing with them Eddie James, who they had met in the crowd and convinced to carol with us.

After standing for a very long time in the crowd, and Jon having to fend off men who were hitting on Kasey left and right, and one of the guys in our group nearly getting accidentally engaged, and families reuniting after a long separation in the crowd, and lots of tears and frustration, someone called out that we were on, and we shoved our way onto the stage.

There was a lot of cheering, and lots of roses were thrown onto the stage (one even beaned our leader in the back of the head), we sang carols for half an hour, and then we were done. It was far easier pushing our way out of the square than it was to push our way in.

We ate at a chicken place in Beit Jalla and then headed home.

Though we attempted to watch The Santa Clause before we went to bed, Jon fell asleep, and Kasey was nodding off at the end, as it was well after midnight.

Jon woke up super early the next morning to make a surprise breakfast for Kasey: eggs, toast, and BACON. We munched on that while we Skyped with Kasey’s family (Jamie’s boyfriend, Kuro, and our now San Diego-dwelling kitty, Polly, included).

After breakfast and our chat, we opened presents, and were definitely spoiled (both families had sent bunches of presents).

We relaxed and played cards through the rest of the morning and the afternoon. In the evening, we had a Christmas dinner with all the volunteers who had stayed in the country for Christmas.

Nick and Angel left us with their car while they went home for the holidays, so we spent our days after Christmas making use of the mobility (it’s ridiculously difficult to get out of the neighborhood for long without one). We didn’t make any huge trips (except for a quick trip to IKEA), but had lots of fun jetting around Jerusalem easily with friends.

As our holiday (or Kasey’s, at least) comes to a close, we look forward to the next 5 months – the only time remaining in our 2-year Middle Eastern experience. Kasey has already planned out what she will teach and is a little daunted by the lack of holidays in this semester (fall semester contains something like 6, whereas spring semester contains 2). Jon has 3 classes left – Archaeology of Jerusalem, Hebrew, a history seminar – and 2 comprehensive exams – Hebrew and Historical Geography. We’re both taking our last big breaths before we dive into the semester and work our butts off (apparently necessary to this post: Jon has become MORE good-looking in the past few months… just FYI… this is awkward…).

We’re shopping for plane tickets home for June. At the moment it will take about $1700 for both plane tickets, and we still need to find that money somewhere. We have a good chunk of it, but unfortunately it is in the shekels that we have saved this year, and not in a bank account accessible by credit card. Tricky. We’re trying to figure out the best course of action before too much time passes and the prices go up.

We will also very soon begin sending out our applications to teach in schools across America. Hopefully, out of the list of 350 schools we have built, we will find some success (AKA: JOBS when we get home!).

Also to look forward to in June: Jon’s family is planning to visit for our last 2 weeks in the country. We’ll get a chance to re-see everything before we take off, and Jon’s family will get the full Israel experience.

*deep breath*

Here we go!

Prayer Requests:

• Energy and enthusiasm for the coming semester.
• $$ for plane tickets.
• Safety.
• Jobs.

Praise Reports:

• We had an awesome fall semester!
• The scholarships Jon has earned.
• Our safety over the past year and a half.
• Experiences and friends to last a lifetime! :)

Medicine

Jon here!

Story to tell that I thought should be shared.

Kasey has been sick literally her entire time off (not cool at all). BUT, yesterday our friends had some CHEERY flavored NyQuil for Kasey to use (apparently it is non-existant in this entire country).

Now just on an obvious note. We all know that Cherry flavor tastes like death just died in your mouth... nobody wants to come near the stuff let a lone drink it.

Anyway, she took it once in the morning (2 Tbl) and then 6 hours later at night WHERE (and this is my point) she filled the cap lid (I'm watching her the whole time) and started to drink it. You'd THINK she would just down the whole thing all at once to get it over with like a normal scared human being... but no.

She pours some into her mouth and swallows it, not once, not twice, BUT THREE TIMES!!! Taking breaths in between. While I was watching her, her face continued to shrivle up on every gulp, she was trying to plug her nose but by her facial expression it was not working. By the end she looked like she was going to throw it all up but she did not :)

I was seriously amazed! She took like 3 punches to the head of the Cherry flavor! I started laughing and said "YOU ARE TOUGH!!!" And told her to quickly drink water, but instead she went to the sink and washed out the cup with soap... and Didn't drink any water.

I may never forget this night of awesome.

Hello all :)

A couple of things have happened this past week:

1) Jon got a scholarship for his spring semester!! WOO HOO!!

2) Kasey got a week off!! WOO HOO!!

3) Jon got a couple of grades back that were decent!! WOO HOO!!

4) Kasey got a REALLY bad cold during her entire week off :( :( BOO HOO!!


Jon only has about two weeks left of his fall semester… o MY gosh! Then he gets a full 2 months off for his “Christmas break”. It’s ridiculous and nobody enjoys being off for that long of period in this school (M.A. Students).

During that time off, Jon will be studying Hebrew (and somewhat re-learning it as he has not had a Hebrew class in the past 7 months)… it really helped that they did that :P

Kasey goes back to work on the 23rd (Tuesday) BUT then it’s only a month until she gets her Christmas break, which will be well needed… especially after being SICK this past week.

Jon’s grandma is in Israel right about now. We are meeting up with her Monday night, because she wanted to see us while she is in Jerusalem. We are taking her out to a nice restaurant in west Jerusalem, because she wanted to take us out for a nice dinner :D It will be lots of fun!!

It’s crazy!! We only have 7 months left!! What the what!?


Prayer Requests:

-Financial Aid
-That Kasey would stop being sick
-That Jon would do great in his last 2 weeks of the fall semester (Final exams are coming up)


Praise Report:

-Jon has been doing very well in all his classes

November

(Kasey here)

Hola, all.

An update has been requested and so here I am.

There’s not a whole lot to tell at the moment. Jon is working hard at school. He’s writing about a paper a week, and on Nov. 12th, he’s taking his New Testament comprehensive exam. Before graduating from JUC, all M.A. students have to take comprehensive exams that cover all of the (1) Old Testament, (2) New Testament, (3) Historical Geography, and (4) Hebrew. They’re pretty daunting and a lot of people put them all off until the last second.

Jon got his Old Testament exam done last spring. He’ll take the New Testament one this month, and then the Historical Geography and Hebrew exams, he’ll take at the very end of the exam period in May. The professors who write the exams will ask questions like “What does 1 John 2:4 say?” and “Is from Psalms 2, 21, 53, or 97?” Studying for them is understandably a huge job, and hard to squeeze into all the other class work that’s assigned.

He’ll finish fall semester in the second week of December and the spring semester doesn’t start up until around the first week of February, so he’ll have a nice long break.

It’s pretty much same-old at JHS for me. November 14-21, we’re taking a vacation for Palestinian Independence Day and the Eid Adha, so everyone’s excited about that. Once we get back on the 22nd, we have less than five weeks until Christmas break. Since I’m having my students do projects right before their midterms, and because midterms are right before Christmas (and require reviewing of material), I’m only covering new material until the first week in December, and it’ll be fairly relaxed after that. Our Christmas break will last until about January 8th.

My boss was kind enough to adjust our rent to give us a little more cash, which we’re dutifully saving to try and pay as much as possible of Jon’s tuition. We’re also saving all the money from Kasey’s tutoring and editing job. It still won’t be enough, but we’re doing what we can.

We were recently introduced to Modern Family, which we LOVE and highly recommend. It’s hilarious and full of genuine family warm-fuzzies. We watch and rewatch the episodes all the time.

OH! And we also hosted a Halloween party that was fabulous. We introduced a bunch of our guests to Doctor Who, which for me was like a dream come true, especially when the neighbor family with little girls declared themselves hooked and the girls started running around yelling about “PRISONER ZERO ESCAPING!” for the next couple of weeks. They’re also building them their very own TARDIS out of their heater box ☺ SUCCESS!! (Jon's costume below)

Prayer Requests

• We still need to come up with the rest of Jon's tuition for this semester, all of it for next semester, and enough for plane tickets home. While we and others are working on it, we still need prayer.
• We've been pretty tired lately, especially because the sun now sets before dinner time.

Praise Reports

• We're looking at a couple hundred $$ extra a month because of our adjusted rent.
• Someone (who requested anonymity but does a lot for us) handed me some gift cards to Aroma, the coffee shop, and told me to go on a date with my husband. :)
• We've pretty successfully adjusted to living here. We're definitely looking forward to going home in June, but we've established a good routine and life :)
• We have people working hard to help us through our time here, and blessings keep popping up left and right. WOOT!

The Twelve Weeks of Jon's First Semester!

Since there has been word of me listening to Christmas music before American Thanksgiving, I came up with this new song that works perfectly for all to hear! Sing along with me if you want to enjoy the upcoming Christmas Holiday!!!

(Personally I can’t believed my luck worked out so well in relation to this song… you’ll understand when you finish the song) :P

*It goes in the tune for the 12 Days of Christmas, except that it’s NOW called the “12 Weeks of Jon’ First Semester” :D


On the first week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… 1 paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the second week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… 1 midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the third week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… 1 paper due for History of the Jews, a midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the fourth week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… 1 paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a paper due for History of the Jews, a midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the fifth week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… OOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEEE IN-CLAAAAAAAASSSSS MIDTERM FOR RABBINICAL THOOOOOUUUUUGGGGHHHHTTTTTT, a paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a paper due for History of the Jews, a midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the sixth week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… another paper due for Intertestamental Literature, OOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEEE IN-CLAAAAAAAASSSSS MIDTERM FOR RABBINICAL THOOOOOUUUUUGGGGHHHHTTTTTT, a paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a paper due for History of the Jews, a midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the seventh week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… 1 New Testament Exam due for one of the end of the year exams, another paper due for Intertestamental Literature, OOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEEE IN-CLAAAAAAAASSSSS MIDTERM FOR RABBINICAL THOOOOOUUUUUGGGGHHHHTTTTTT, a paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a paper due for History of the Jews, a midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the eighth week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… 1 final paper due for Prophetic Landscape, a New Testament Exam due for one of the end of the year exams, another paper due for Intertestamental Literature, OOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEEE IN-CLAAAAAAAASSSSS MIDTERM FOR RABBINICAL THOOOOOUUUUUGGGGHHHHTTTTTT, a paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a paper due for History of the Jews, a midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the ninth week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… 1 final paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a final paper due for Prophetic Landscape, a New Testament Exam due for one of the end of the year exams, another paper due for Intertestamental Literature, OOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEEE IN-CLAAAAAAAASSSSS MIDTERM FOR RABBINICAL THOOOOOUUUUUGGGGHHHHTTTTTT, a paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a paper due for History of the Jews, a midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the tenth week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… 1 final exam paper due for Prophetic Landscape, a final paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a final paper due for Prophetic Landscape, a New Testament Exam due for one of the end of the year exams, another paper due for Intertestamental Literature, OOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEEE IN-CLAAAAAAAASSSSS MIDTERM FOR RABBINICAL THOOOOOUUUUUGGGGHHHHTTTTTT, a paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a paper due for History of the Jews, a midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the eleventh week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… 1 final exam due for Rabbinical Thought, a final exam paper due for Prophetic Landscape, a final paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a final paper due for Prophetic Landscape, a New Testament Exam due for one of the end of the year exams, another paper due for Intertestamental Literature, OOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEEE IN-CLAAAAAAAASSSSS MIDTERM FOR RABBINICAL THOOOOOUUUUUGGGGHHHHTTTTTT, a paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a paper due for History of the Jews, a midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamental Literature!

On the twelfth week of JUC, my professor gave to meeeeee… 1 final exam due for History of the Jews, a final exam due for Rabbinical Thought, a final exam paper due for Prophetic Landscape, a final paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a final paper due for Prophetic Landscape, a New Testament Exam due for one of the end of the year exams, another paper due for Intertestamental Literature, OOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEEE IN-CLAAAAAAAASSSSS MIDTERM FOR RABBINICAL THOOOOOUUUUUGGGGHHHHTTTTTT, a paper due for Rabbinical Thought, a paper due for History of the Jews, a midterm paper due for Prophetic Landscape, and a paper due for Intertestamentaaaaaaaaaaaal Literatuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure!!!!!

Hope you enjoyed that!

If you want a Christmas gift from me this year, I can send you the BOOK that will be completed by the end of this semester.


Merry Early Christmas :D

Another Goofy Story

I had to give you another one that I forgot to post last week.

If anyone has been in a bus that has been jump started, please raise your hand. (My hand is raised)

Last week I was heading home after one of my night classes. We hit the first Arab community and half way through the bus just shuts down. We luckily pulled over at 1 of 2 gas stations that two communities have. This made me feel a bit better as I thought the gas station people... what do you call them? I have no idea... lets call them real men. I thought these real men would find the problem, fix it fast, and send us off, preventing me from walking an hour home.

BUT instead of the real men, about 5-6 guys got out of the bus, went to the back of the bus and started pushing the bus. The bus driver could not jump start it for about 2 blocks. So here is this bus, being pushed by 5-6 guys down a one lane Arab community full of people. They eventually pushed it far enough to a downhill slope where they all jumped in right away. We coasted down this tiny hill WHERE the bus driver was able to jump start the bus. I was laughing during this whole thing, and when the bus first broke down, I looked at this old guy who glared at my laughing and then got off the bus to walk... poor him. I found another teenager who didn't speak any english and we laughed a bit together.

I got home just fine :P

Clutzes

Ok. So this is Jon.

Today for breakfast I made pancakes and coffee. While I was drinking some coffee I tried stirring it by swirling it in my cup. Unfortunately, it spilled all over my shorts. While I was getting up to get a paper towel from the kitchen, I tripped on the computer cord and almost fell over. Kasey then laughed at my misfortune. She sounded like this: "HahahahahahahaooOOHHHAAAAWWWWWW"... while she was laughing she spilled coffee all over HER pillow and HER shorts! I laughed my head off.

We are awesome.

Blessing/Praise

(by Kasey)

This morning, I woke up with a migraine and had to go back to bed for half an hour. I dragged myself out of bed and to school in time for my first class, stopping in the office to clock in and check for copies or notices.

In my box, I found a blank white envelope. The inside was stuffed with cash.

Whoever you are, THANK YOU!

God is good.

PayPal

Hello everybody :)

We found out last week that Jon's tuition is $1000 more than we expected it to be, based on previous tuition costs. Our original plan was to pay off as much as we could with our remaining loan funds, and then save all the money from Kasey's two extra jobs to pay off the rest by December. Unfortunately, that still wasn't going to give us enough to cover this semester's tuition. We are praying and working on a solution, but since increasing our loan amount or taking out another loan is impossible, we're kind of stuck. Please pray.

And on that note, we've added a PayPal button to our blog. It's the button to the left that says "Donate." If you feel led, PayPal is an easy, fast, and secure way to send us money. All your information is safe. It's just a quicker method than sending checks.


Nothing other than getting the JUC fall semester bill has happened lately for us. Our neighbors had their first baby on the 27th in Bethlehem: Moira Jo Conner. We have not seen her yet, but they live right next to us so we assume we will see her often.

Jon is busy working on 4-6 midterms for the next 2-3 weeks. They are papers with one in class exam. And Kasey is very busy with her 3 jobs to help support us. She teaches full time, tutors whenever she can, and is editing papers for a lady in the U.N. All are very minimum pay and just get us by if that. Jon is really trying to find a Data-Entry job that he can do from here that pays something, so if anyone who reads this knows of a legit place that he can get set up/get job then please share :)

Tonight we are going to the Old City to experience an annual Jewish holiday called Simchat Torah. It’s a HUGE festival and hopefully we will be able to see Jews dancing near the Western Wall holding the Torah and doing crazy things :D We are looking forward to it. It’s going to be massively crowded though, which makes the experience even more exciting :P

September has gone by ridiculously fast. It will probably feel only like a few months by the time we leave here. Also, Jon and Kasey want to work as teachers—Jon wants to teach at a Bible college or High school and Kasey wants to teach at a middle school or high school. IF you know of any Bible colleges or any schools that are looking for teachers or have heard something, please feel free to drop our names and mention it to us so that we can apply.

Remember, we put in a donate button… open 24/7.



Thank you,

Jon & Kasey

Succoth

People on the other side of the world! HEEEEAAAARRRRR MEEEEEEEEEE!!!! You listening? Ok.

Well IF you see on the news anything relating to fire, rioting, or even explosions it is because Sukkoth has begun (tonight) and with celebrations comes disaster in this country. IF we are personally affected by anything other than massive traffic jams, we will let you know.

You have been warned/notified.

Hello all J

Just a quick reminder for all you living on the other side of the world. If you really want to know the seriousness of our lives, don’t take it from our statuses on facebook. We are jokers… hence the initials: J.K. (Just kidding) :P Alright lame joke. BUT Kasey and I usually just use facebook as a kidding around place—stuff we have laughed about by ourselves and felt like sharing with our friends and family, or things that happened during the day that we found amusing or annoying so that you can all enjoy in our randomness or share in our frustration, haha.

If you REALLY want to know what’s going on in our lives on a more personal, real level then read our blog updates. That is why we are trying to update it once a week so all of you know what’s going on over here. If you want a laugh with us or if you want to see pictures or video’s of us then look on facebook, but keep the seriousness of our lives to the Blog.

Thanks!!

P.S. A new update will take place soon :)

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

Hello All :)

It has been LESS than a week since our last update. Nothing much has happened during our first week of work and school. All we can say is that it's going to be a busy semester for Jon and HOPEFULLY a less stressful time for Kasey in her work.

Jon learned from a friend how to make some really good pasta sauce with only tomato's, oil, onions, garlic and random spices. It is glorious and cheap :)

Kasey shaved Jon's head again this week. Next week Jon will shave Kasey's head to make it even....

Oh and also, if you didn't know yet, Jon is starting his PB&J&N diet for the year - Peanut Butter, Jelly, and Nutella :) JUC offers free bread with these condiments for their students. Jon takes advantage of their generosity by having 2-3 square (shape of the bread... Bahahahaaaaaaoooooo ok bad joke) meals a day... AND he never gets sick of them.

We have both been starting to watch the Doctor Who series once again. Aaaaaaand Ramadan is about to end in a week, BUT the Jewish New Year, Rasha-shan or something like that, is starting up this Wednesday unless it already started... if you REALLY want to know the look it up :P

Hope all is well on the other side of the world!

This is Jon & Kasey signing off! See you all in a week!

Hello Everyone!

Sooooo we have not kept up with the weekly thing. We are sorry. We really want to say that a weekly update will be what’s happening this year, buuuuut who knows. We will try our best.

Jon just started his second year at JUC and had his first class today. The classes that Jon is taking this semester are:

-Rabbinical Thought and Literature

-An introduction to the literature and central themes addressed by the Jewish sages. Particular attention is given to the early periods of rabbinical Judaism (Tannaitic and Amoraic) and to possible parallels to the thoughts and teachings of Jesus and early Christianity.

-Prophetic Landscape

-Learning all about prophetic literature and how the prophets surroundings was integrated into their message

-Inter-Testamental Literature

-A focus on Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha and their contribution to our knowledge of the varieties of religious thought in the Second Temple Period.

-Introduction to Aramaic

-History of the Jews from the medieval times to Modern times (he is auditing

this course so he just has to show up for the classes, no homework or exams)

-An examination of Jewish history from the rise of Christian Europe in the fifth century to the present by addressing such topics as medieval Jewish

communities in Babylonia, Spain, Germany and Poland; Jewish relations with the church and crown; Jewish communal structure; modern changes such as enlightenment, emancipation; new Jewish movements and ideologies; modern anti-Semitism and the Holocaust; Zionism and the rise of Israel.

He is very happy to be back in school and having some organization to his life again. It’s weird to think that Jon is “top dog” so to speak because this school only offers a 2 year program.

Today Jon tried to get out of his Aramaic class by talking to Dr. Wright this morning… it did not work; however, he did have a nice chat with the president of the school (Wright). On a more positive note, Jon got his final history paper back from last semester and got 100% on it! The topic was: Hellenization with a focus on how it influenced Judaism.

On his way home today, Jon ran into a girl that had just arrived in Jerusalem a couple days ago. He helped her buy some veggies and found out she was from Vancouver, B.C. Canada. They had a nice little chat once why they were there. She knew about Trinity Western University—the university that Kasey and Jon graduated from. Just goes to show how small a world we really live in.

Kasey started teaching on Monday (August 30). She had been in ‘teacher orientation’ for about two weeks prior, which is essentially all the teachers getting together to discuss policies and teaching methods, and to get the school ready for the students. Orientation is pretty tiring, since the teachers aren’t just responsible for what they’re teaching, but for preparing their actual school, from moving lockers to hanging posters.

This year, the structure of the school has changed. Each grade is always split into two classes. Last year, each grade would have their classes at the same time. For instance, when one class had biology first period, the other class also had biology. This meant that two teachers taught the same class and each teacher averaged around 5-6 classes. If you’ve never taught before, know this: that’s a LOT of prep work, and extremely exhausting.

This year, the classes are split and occur at different times, meaning that one teacher can teach both classes. Kasey is teaching Life Science and Earth Science (all of the 7^th and 8^th graders), as well as a Study Prep Elective. This narrows her prep work down to only 3 classes instead of 6. The students are also rotating from classroom to classroom this year (whereas last year the teachers had that job), which takes off an enormous amount of stress over moving in-between classes.

Having a less stressful schedule (although she DOES wind up teaching or supervising breaks for 5 hours straight), combined with actually knowing how school goes now, makes this year look promising. (If you’ve missed out, Kasey was homeschooled grades 4-12, so she doesn’t even have her own high school experience to draw from.)

Prayer Requests:

-That we get enough money to pay for Jon’s last semester tuition and plane tickets back to North America – about $5000-6000 depending if Jon gets a scholarship

-For Kasey to have a very fulfilling teaching experience this year

-That Jon study’s hard and well, remembering everything he study’s, etc…

-That God would open doors for job opportunities:

-Jon wants to be a Bible Teacher at a college or university, and/or he would like to teach as a high school teacher

-Kasey wants to teach as a junior high/high school teacher

picture!

We spent the day at the beach in Tel Aviv with our visitor, Joel. This was taken in Old Jaffa (Joppa), facing Tel Aviv.