6:00 AM

that's the time tomorrow we have to be on the bus headed for Jordan. goodness. we will be in Jordan for 4 days with our physical settings class. should be good. i will post if i can. miss you all between now and then. :)

daily life pics take 2

post office (building on the left with the arched windows) -
box from nico i picked up yesterday at the post office - thanks friend!!
looking out our bedroom window (towards the pre-school)

looking out our other bedroom window (towards the street)
just up from our house - notice the pile of trash - where i put my trash. (just a week after the new trash system was instituted we went back to the old way... )
shops just up from our apartment - towards one of the two main streets in the arab quarter
sign on the main street which signals our street

main street (notice the youth hostel/tea house sign)

street where i buy my groceries in the old city (man with the yellow shirt is standing across from the shop - i am standing at john's sandwich shop - for those of you who love a good john's sandwich).

the shuke - outdoor jewish market - where i buy all our fresh foods, meats, cookies, humus, nuts, etc...

eggs! we buy one crate of eggs each week (got to get protein somehow and meat is expensive here)
more pics to come. still taking requests :)

REMISSION!!

thank you jesus!!

dad's PET scan came out showing NO more signs of cancer!! he has his 5th chemo treatment thursday and hopes to just have one more after that. radiation will follow the conclusion of the chemo treatments.

thank you for your prayers. our family feels very much supported from all sides in this process. please continue to pray for dad, mom and janae, gabe and brooke. and us as we are physically distant during this process. we are incredibly thankful for this good news and the Lord's healing of dad's body.

pic of tim and kurtis

notice the sign :)

MAIL!!!!

i love mail! i love it for many reasons. the first of which is i am a gift-giver/receiver in my love language. the first runner up reason is i love feeling connected to people and home. i think this is the reason i love comments on my blog so much and emails from friends. and i think it is the reason i am addicted to checking everyone else's blogs too.

so today my day was totally made because i got three pieces of mail!! i got a note that nico sent me a box. (thank you sweet friend!! - i will pick it up this afternoon). and kurtis and erin both put letters in my box. which leads to a side note funny story:

a few nights ago we played games at kurtis and erin's house. we each picked what our reward would be if we were the winners of the games. every game my reward was mandatory mail given to me by each of them during the following week. needless to say - i did not win. erin won poker and we will all be watching juno some time soon. kurtis won the other two games (catan and beans) and because of that tim had to wear a sign on their field study the following day that said, "i suck at catan and kurtis is the king." he also had to say, "kurtis is king" every time the professor said, "pseudopigrypha" (which apparently he says quite often). tim was a great sport. i will post a picture of him and the sign soon. (i forgot the external hard drive today - so no luck with the pic right now). everyone in class, including tim and the prof, thought it was hilarious. my favorite story of the day was at one point the professor said pseudopigrypha 3 times in a matter of 5 minutes and tim had to weave his way through the class saying quietly, "kurtis is king" trying to get closer to kurtis (as to not make quite as much of a scene) and kurtis at the same time walked farther and farther away from tim. haha. good times.

so to those of you who have sent me mail again a HUGE thank you. i love it. for those of you who are thinking currently about the idea of sending me mail - just know i will be so happy and thankful and excited to receive it if you do. :)

community

nothing is sweet or easy about community. community is a fellowship of people who do not hide their joys and sorrows but make them visible to each other in a gesture of hope. in community we say, "life is full of gains and losses, joys and sorrows, ups and downs - but we do not have to live it alone. we want to drink our cup together and thus celebrate the truth that the wounds of our individual lives, which seem intolerable when lived alone, become sources of healing when we live them as part of a fellowship of mutual care."

henri nouwen

thank you all for loving us well through this season of transition. a season of unexpected challenge. a season of healing. a season of hope.

first post dedicated to daily life pics :)

ok, so these pictures may have been taken by my mom... but brooke's comment reminded me of them. thought you all might want to see me hanging laundry from the roof of our apartment and the view while i do it. :)
(and no worries brooke - i will still take pics from our windows too).

back to "normal" life

whelp i am once again in the library. have not been here for a while, which is strange because the first month or so we were here i was often enjoying the nice sun-lit room.

as tim and i walked to school today we talked about the strange reality that even though the end of school is only a month away we are just into our second half of time here. and yet it feels like we have been here a while. have settled in and made a life for ourselves. patterns, familiarity, a sense of belonging. i am thankful for each of these things.

tim and i are headed to the market after he gets out of class. for we have very little food in our house. i will try not to buy too much, because in just a handful of days we are headed away again. saturday we leave for 4 days to jordan. our last physical settings field study trip. crazy. like all of the field trips we both are looking forward to this one. this will actually be our first of two field trips to jordan. for tim's culteral backgrounds class we will go to jordan for 3 days at the end of april.

i imagine this last month of school will feel full. tim has papers to write, tests to study for. we are hoping to go the beach one day with erin and kurtis. field trips, class, well you get the idea.

also i am beginning to think and plan for our return home. looking up rental truck prices, plane ticket prices, thinking about my birthday :) not trying to rush mentally to the future - more than anything making sure we have enough money to make it all happen.

my latest mission (telling you all in hopes you will keep me accountable) is to capture pictures of our daily life. the street where we live, franswa and elena, jamil and his wife, zac, etc... many of you have asked for such pictures before and now that life is more calm i am taking on the task. let me know if you have any specific picture requests.

well that's about it. life. and life is good.

and daily thankful to be here and this incredible opportunity.

the horse and his boy

tim and i recently finished the horse and his boy by C.S. Lewis in our reading of the Narnia books together. often we read before bed and often i fall asleep within a few minutes. so it has taken us a while to get to this point. i wanted to share a bit of it with you.

"Who are you?" he said, scarcely above a whisper.

"One who has wanted long for you to speak," said the Thing. Its voice was not loud, but very large and deep.

"Are you - are you a giant?" asked Shasta.

"You might call me a giant," said the Large Voice. "But I am not like the creatures you call giants."

"I can't see you at all," said Shasta, after staring very hard. Then (for an even more terrible idea had come into his head) he said, almost in a scream, "You're not - not something dead, are you? Oh please - please go away. What harm have I ever done you? Oh, I am the unluckiest person in the whole world."

Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. "There," it said, "that is not the breath of a ghost. Tell me your sorrows."

Shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by a fisherman. And then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the Tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. And he told about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis. And also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat.

"I do not call you unfortunate," said the Large Voice.

"Don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" said Shasta.

"There was only one lion," said the Voice.

"What on earth do you mean? I've just told you there were at least two the first night and -"

"There was only one: but he was swift of foot."

"How do you know?"

"I was the lion." And Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. "I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you."

"Who are you?" asked Shasta.

"Myself," said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again "Myself," loud and clear and gay: and then the third time "Myself," whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.

Shasta was no longer afraid... but a new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too... while he had been talking to the Thing he had not been noticing anything else... he knew the night was over at last.

... he turned and saw, pacing beside him, taller than the horse, a Lion... it was from the lion that the light came. No-one ever saw anything more terrible or beautiful... he couldn't say anything but then he didn't want to say anything, and he knew he needn't say anything.

The High King above all kings stooped towards him. Its mane, and some strange and solemn perfume that hung about the mane, was all round him. It touched his forehead with its tongue. He lifted his face and their eyes met. Then instantly the pale brightness of the Lion rolled themselves together into a swirling glory and gathered themselves up and disappeared. He was alone with the horse on a grassy hillside under a blue sky. And there were birds singing.

May the One who is with us, even when we don't know it or feel it or even realize, reveal His nearness to us today. May we respond to His calling - May we tell Him our story, even though He already knows and was there. May we stop to listen to His voice, for He desires to speak to us. and May we know in a more intimate way who He is and the love He speaks over us.

an official amendment

dad would like the record set straight. he currently is not "left in the dust" as originally posted. but he mathematically has no possible chance of winning. but second place is still a legitimate chance.

a rivalry in our family

final four. even far from home our attention is on college basketball.

every year the knipp men face off in a winner takes dinner and movie bracket (paid for by those whose choices weren't so great). rumor has it gabe and tim are fighting it out to the bitter end, with ken left in the distance with no hope of recovery. and like in all good wars it will come down to the final moments. gabe cheering for North Carolina and tim cheering for UCLA.

tim won't be alone in his cheering. for faith dogg too is cheering for UCLA. since discovering television faith has become (like her father) addicted to tv. my mom tells me she loves college hoops, which should come as no surprise as she can never get enough fetch, soccer, basketball (anything where a ball is the focus). faith will sit for hours and just watch the tv, which i find hillarious. she only comes and says hello when the commericals come on. needless to say i am glad that within our little family we are cheering for the same team.

defense (danielle) is cheering for KU - as loyalties have been passed from jacob, her boyfrield, to her.

i secretly (and selfishly) hope UCLA wins, for when victory comes to our family we are all very happy. not that we are competative or anything. :)

book tagged by stina

pick up closest book, go to page 123, what are the lines 6-8:

"Then annoint Aaron and his sons. Consecrate them as priests to me. Tell the Israelites, "This will be my holy anointing oil throughout your generations." (The Message, Ex 30:30-33).

i thought tim's journal probably would get me in trouble. :)

rock star

nuff said.

the saga we called spring break

night before we leave: tim is found checking every weather report possible. seems we are looking at a 50/50 risk of rain. which could pose a HUGE problem as we only have shelter for 6 out of 8 people going on the trip...

here we are waiting for the bus... sunny in jerusalem


getting there, day one - bus stop in the middle of no where: spent 20 min fighting with local taxi driver - who tells us the bus we need doesn't exist and the next bus won't come for 2 hours... 30 min late our bus finally arrives (only kyle got a pic of the cranky taxi man)...

while on the bus which will take us to a city near the trail heavy rain begins to fall...


(and who wants to take pictures in the rain)


day one low point: craig doesn't have a raincoat - heavy rain, shlomy is using his tarp as a rain coat. we are all very wet - wondering what we are going to do if it continues to rain...


we connect with the other folks we are hiking with and head towards the trail as the rain is slowing down. we come upon a camp ground where we are offered tents, warm soup, dry fire wood, and hamburgers from a logistics team (whose group of 300 high school students just left for a school to spend a wet night... apparently it is a risk to ask teenagers to sleep outside on a night it might rain. the team had 6 tents set up and reserved for the teachers/leaders of the group and without hesitation offered the tents to us). needless to stay the rain continued to fall but we were dry because of the tents and our bellies were full.


(should have taken pictures of God's provisions. oh well. the pictures are in my heart) :)


day two - omelettes for breakfast - thanks to the eggs, milk, veggies given to us. hiking all day long. good conversation. found a campsite. no more rain.

on top of mt. meron




day 3 - long day. getting towards evening - no campsite with water in view... decided to split up. half of us hitched. half walked another 2 hours. tim and i were picked up within 10 minutes. a nice family who grows mangoes in the northern galilee. we walked to the campsite we were to meet our friends at and found cranky people who wanted to charge way to much money for what they offered. decided to look for another place. wandered through a grain field. found a pirate ship. turned right. came upon a farmer family who lives right on the sea. agreed to pay a small fee to stay on their grass next to the sea of galilee. beautiful night sleep under the stars.

scrambling in the valley (low point for k, highlight for tk)
ruth and i

top row from the left: kyle, shlomi, tk - bottom from the left: ben, steve, craig

tired of hiking. time to hitch. guys hide. put "hot" girl on the road.

wandering the fields in search of a place to sleep. picking grain.

ahoy maties!
can we sleep here? we give you shekels.

day 4 - spent the morning resting, swimming, reading by the sea of galilee. and that was after watching the sunrise. amazing! walked to a bus stop to head back home. and the first bus that comes is headed straight to jerusalem. so good.

waiting for the sun to rise
tk in the am
sunrise by the sea


we slept here.
cliffs of arbel - which we climbed last week.

the team that headed home. (kyle and craig continued on).

me, tk, shlomi, steve, ben, ruth

the end.

tonight shabbat dinner with kurtis and erin. and beans. praise jesus.

we're home

whelp. we are back. tired. slightly burned. sore. but all and all in good shape. pictures will be posted tomorrow and (hopefully) a more full update. God is good and provided in amazing ways!!

also i wanted to give a shout out to greg b. who single handedly skewed the poll and thanks to him the results will have to be disregarded. :) guess a hair cut is on the horizon. haha.

just joking. i told tim tonight i will cut his hair when he asks. and i will leave it alone. he actually came up with a pretty hot way to put a bandana in his hair and looks like a rock star.