June 15

We have landed! After 13 hours and countless movies to watch we are now in Atlanta. Will be home after breakfast! Happy to be home. Love and Faith Katherine

June 13th

Today was our last day and we spent it having a great time. We started our day at the smile center, where we went on Saturday. We helped them with their greenhouse and ate a nice lunch. Afterwards we headed to Jerusalem to the old city. We visited the garden of gethsemmenne and the upper room where we had communion together. We also met with a woman who talked to us about the Israeli and palastenian conflict.and gave us an idea for starting a youth movement back at home to share with others about what is really going on and try to help. Then tonight we had a goodbye dinner at Abdullah's house. Burgers and chicken!
Tomorrow we will head to the airport around 7 PM. And our flight is scheduled to take off at 11:20 PM and we will arrive around 5:30 AM weds. Morning in atlanta.
We will try to update this blog tomorrow if we can get wifi. But if not then we will all see u weds!!!
Love and faith
Us :)

June 12th

Today the girls went to the Lutheran church service while Jacob and soren's family invited them to their evangelical church. The lutheran service was of course in arabic but we had our bulletin in English so we tried to follow along. Today is a "rest day" and spending time with our families. Tomorrow we have a lot planned and tomorrow night we are having a goodbye party at mp's host family's house.
Love and faith, Elizabeth and Katherine

June 11th

Today we went to the smile center for the mentally retarded children in the area. It was a lot of fun. We danced with them and they loved it!! Then we went to our homes for the afternoon and had some much needed rest. Then later we went to the Lutheran school and met some of the kids and did a fun team building activity. Lastly we went to this restaurant and had BBQ and French fries we were so excited!!! :)
Tomorrow is church and a day with our host families!
Love and faith Katherine and elizabeth

June 10

This morning we went back to the elderly home. We made candy bags for a traditional palestinian wedding. After joining them for lunch we stopped by a wholesale olive wood store and surprisingly we bought a lot. Seeing as in the past two years we have sold more products than the store can hold. We made a quick stop at a local dessert shop where we tried the local delicacy that we cannot pronounce or type... But it was good!!! Elizabeth loved it as you can tell! Then we went to the local refugee camp where we spoke with young palestinians. It was a real eye opener to many who did not understand before, the situation they were in. Ater dinner with our host families we went to a local "culture shock" concert. Little did we know it was the "culture" of America that was supposedly "shocking" the locals. To us it just felt like a weird recreation of our music with ascents that made it impossible to understand their rap.
Love and Faith Katherine and Elizabeth

June 9th

Today started our day of mission work. We began the morning at the elderly center in Beit Sahor. They were delighted to see us. We said hello to all them(mostly women)and shook their hands. We taught them how to play spoons which was a lot of fun, but difficult because of the language barrier(they knew no English!).It was great to see them laugh and smile with us while we played cards. We served them lunch and helped the staff clean the kitchen. After the elderly home we went to the church of the nativity and saw where the manger laid and all the beautiful mosaics. We took a quick trip shopping at a jewelry and olive wood store. Then we went to shepherd's field and had a little time to reflect and paint and draw the beautiful scenes we were seeing. This was important because it will mean more then any picture. We ended our tour at the palestenian peace center where a man spoke to us about the civil unrest in Israel. We went to our homes and ate a quick dinner and then went to MaryPat and Donnette's host family's home because they invited us for dessert. Abdullah is the man's name and he was very inspirational to all of us and we are excited to share our stories about him with y'all.
Tomorrow we will be visiting with the elderly again and shop in the afternoon around bethlehem!
Love and faith Elizabeth and Katherine :)

June 8th

Today we went to the old city in Jerusalem. We saw the dome of the rock first. And toured around the Muslim quarter. Then we went to the church of st. Anne where we sang Jesus loves me and Mary pat didn't sound as bad as usual! After that we went on the via dolorosa. We went to all 14 stations where Jesus carried the cross. Halfway through we went to lunch at a little cafe and ate falalfas again...! (we seem to have these a lot!!) we finished our tour at the garden tomb where we had our own communion. Katherine and Jacob served as elders for us. Our tour guide Issa invited us to have juice at his mother-in-law's house where we met his wife, two kids, brother in law and mother in law. They were all very nice and gracious to have us over.now we are all at our family's homes ending the night with a delicious dinner and getting to know our families better.
Tomorrow we plan to go work with the elderly and tour around bethlehem.

Love and faith,
Katherine and Elizabeth :)

June 7 (second)

I officially have wifi at my host house so there will be more posts for sure. Everyone has been settling into their host homes. Elizabeth and I have found that our host family are wonderful people with great stories and huge hearts. Tomorrow is Jerusalem with many holy sights and gardens. Information overload is awaiting and we can't wait!
Love and Faith Katherine

June 7

Today has been so full and it's only 2:14. We started with waking up in a Bedouin Tent to find a wonderful breakfast with everything in that culture you can imagine. After the breakfast we climbed and looked down The Romone Crater. After a short coffee break we made our way to the Camel rides. We learned Jacob is not allergic! Now we are trying the pizza at the local mall here (in the desert!) Will inform later on if it's comparable to the ones at home.
Love and Faith Katherine

June 6

It's about 9:15 here. We are at a local cafe where everyone is ordering something with plenty of caffeine to get us through the day ahead! Today is the dead sea and spending the night in a tent in the desert! Camel rides are tomorrow. We shall all see if Jacob is alergec it shall be hilarious to figure out! We stayed with nuns the past two nights where they were amazingly helpful and English speaking. So far we have seen a lot and learned even more. Will update when we can!
Love and Faith Katherine
Ps:thanks Morgan for the previous update because this is our first wifi experience while here!

We made it!

Everything is going great, we made it here safely, will update again!

JUNE 3 :)

We are leaving. We can't  believe the day has finally come that our bags are in the bus and we have said goodbye to our parents. Leaving for Atlanta within the hour. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I will be posting as much as I can. Parents please be patient because everyone knows we have no idea our WiFi capabilities. This is actually happening..
Love and Faith Katherine

May 30th

We have weighed and packed all of our bags for the trip. As a service to the community the group worked the tornado relief donation at our church today from 9-4. Thank you to everyone for your generous donations.
Love and Faith Katherine

May 29th

Hello everyone. I decided to give y'all a little information that I was asked multiple times Sunday. The whole group is leaving Friday, June 3rd. We will drive to Atlanta in our wonderful bus to board a flight to Tel Aviv. We are all very excited and everyone is packed and ready! Now all that's left to do is to make is to Friday and make our dream a reality.
Thanks to everyone for their prayers and support!
Love and Faith Katherine.