Friday September 6th, 2013
Today was the first day we started actual classes at the BYU Jerusalem Center. Although we are in a foreign country as tourists we are often reminded how we are still in college and not just here on vacation. With that being said we are taking 18 credits total which include Pediatric/Labor and Delivery Nursing, Old Testament, New Testament, a Field Trip Course, Intro to Arabic, Jewish Civilization, and Islamic/Arabic Civilization. Luckily we are starting slow and are only being introduced to the Old Testament with Brother Belnap and Nursing with Sister Garbett. In our Old Testament class we strive to read about and learn more on the history involving the places we will come to visit while in Jerusalem. In Nursing we are doing course work for Pediatrics (our Labor/Delivery was done in a crash course in America) and then completing clinical hours. We will be working in 4 local hospitals for clinicals and will be observing and assisting in anyway allowed. The first hospital that we saw was called the Red Crescent Hospital with a focus in maternity. This hospital has 40 beds yet delivers 300 babies each month. This picture is of the Red Crescent Hospital and as you can see it is kind of sketchy, made me thankful I won't be having babies in Jerusalem.
After class was done I had a unique opportunity to sneak out of the Center early (don't worry I didn't really sneak, we have really good security). Lauren Law (a fellow Nursing Student) invited me to a night in the Old City with her Uncle who was in town for business and also with Lindsey Hawkins. Because of conflicts in the Muslim areas of the Old City our site seeing was restricted but we were able to go to a very special place. We ended up going to St. Helen's Cistern which was right in the center of the city, down an alley by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. After winding down some really narrow and scary steps into a dark cavern we reached the end where there was water, a random raft that someone had thrown in thinking they were funny, and another family who were humming a beautiful tune. At first we didn't know where the sound was coming from but we could here a ringing off the cistern walls that added to the beauty of the dark cave. Lauren's uncle then told us that in St. Helen's time there wasn't clean water in Jerusalem so instead they carved this cistern out of the rock (crazy!!!) and put a whole in the top so they could catch the fresh rain and use it throughout the winter. After the family left we then (Lindsey, Lauren, and I) sang I Am a Child of God. Although we may not be famous singers, the sound ringing from the cistern walls was so beautiful and the Spirit was so strong it sent chills up and down my arms. It was truly a testimony builder for me that it doesn't matter how beautiful your surroundings are as long as you are worthy to have the Spirit with you. It also was great to be able to sing of our divine identity in a land so full of different religions.
We then were able to try a traditional Holy Land dish called Lamb Shawarma, which was a pita filled with lamb meat, a coleslaw lettuce stuff, and hummus and cost 25 shekels. It was really good but I could have gone with just the meat. We also found out not to say we would just drink water because instead of it being free, like America, we instead bought a bottle of water for about 10 shekels. By the way 3.4-3.7 shekels is equal to 1 U.S. dollar, depending on the day and the Money Ex-changers. We than wound our way through Jaffa gate toward West Jerusalem that I told you about during our initial tour, except this time I was able to take a few photos of our group, some fun globes outside the city which were for a Global Warming Awareness campaign that I thought were creative (picturing Lindsey), and those fun pillow seats in the park all pictured below!
I'm so glad that you posted some pictures. It looks so cool!
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