Last Sunday our contact planned a great day for us in Jerusalem. The plan: head to the city, spend a few hours at the Holocaust Museum, then head into the Old City for a bit of sight-seeing before heading home. Unexpectedly, God decided to throw us a couple curve balls. I stole Dan Snyder and Don Brensinger’s idea in an attempt to try a replay our day for you.
6:30am Wake up to my alarm. Hit the snooze.
6:55 Wake up attempt #2. Lay in my bed staring at the way the light comes in through the door to our balcony. I thank God that I have a balcony right now and decide to make an art project out of it later (I‘m a nerd. I know, I know. Stop judging me.)
7:00 Try and analyze my dream about Paul chasing down Britney Spears.
7:10 Decide I need therapy and hop out of bed.
7:11 Just like every other morning, Higgs asks what time it is. I tell her. She groans.
7:15 I perform my daily morning ritual, including trying to be as quiet as possible but typically knocking something metal over.
7:45 Grab the pre-packed lunch labeled “Loo-Ren”, my new alias, and pack my bag. Throw in the video camera last minute (which will prove to be a brilliant move later…).
7:50 Head out the door, coffee in hand, and get super excited about being picked up by the van right at our door.
7:59 Still waiting on the van while our driver, Abraham, sets the world record for slowest cigarette smoked.
8:00 With record achieved, we drive about 5 minutes to pick up Teams Mosaic and Phoenix, but continue waiting for Team Sofia. Meanwhile Higgs and I share our dreams in hopes of having some sane light shed on them. No luck.
8:15 Adventure to Jerusalem begins!
8:20 Nicole and I have conversations while both of us face forward to avoid motion sickness.
9:30 Come to a border crossing and become really confused because we didn’t plan on leaving the country.
9:34 I try and hand our passports to the heavily-armed guard who is now on our van and am ignored.
9:35 I sit quietly as our driver and Rambo have a little chat.
9:45:00 We’re relieved for approximately 30 seconds as the van pulls away…
9:45:30 …until Abraham uses some colorful language to communicate his feelings about Israel and we pull a U-ie within the Checkpoint
9:46 We pull to the side of the road and our driver hops out, walking towards the armed guards.
9:47 I hear Higgs start praying that she doesn’t get strip-searched. I add in my own “Amen”.
9:50 Super-sketch guy walks up to the van, opens the door, takes something out of the van, and walks off. In spite of his shadiness, none of us question him due to the automatic weapon strapped to his back.
9:55 A few of us decide we have to pee and brave the legion of guards to find a toilet.
9:57 We communicate “bathroom?” to the guards armed with AK47s by holding up toilet paper with little pink hearts on it.
10:00 Bladder pressure released.
[10:00 Time we were supposed to arrive at the museum]
10:02 Traffic through the checkpoint is completely halted as 5 American girls scamper across all lanes to get back to their van.
10:05 The driver of our 2nd van pulls our van, then the 2nd one, through the checkpoint and parks us there.
10:07 Theorizing begins about what happened to poor Abraham.
10:13 I share my new mantra, “all that really matters is I love Jesus and Jesus loves me,” in hopes of easing some frustrations.
10:15 Jenn comes to visit from the other bus. She says that our driver has been arrested. Awesome. (She knows this because she speaks freaking Hebrew.)
10:17 The driver of the other van comes to play charades and tells us what Jenn just summed up. He holds his wrists with each one of his hands (handcuffs?) and then holds up 3 fingers. Some decide that means we’ll be there for 30 minutes; others think 3 hours. The pessimists pray he doesn’t mean 3 days and the comedians decide he wants us to feel free to smoke 3 cigarettes.
10:25 I get out and decide to document some of the hilarity.
10:35 Making multi-armed shadow people down the hill entertains us for a bit.
10:45 Sudoku and Crossword puzzle partying begins. Craziness immediately follows.
11:00 Birkleigh sets off the van’s alarm.
11:05 Tres gets off to stretch and lays down on the pavement next to the van to nap. Comfy.
11:10 I remember my delicious lunch and snack on some treats. I vow to marry the Quaker Oatmeal man in hopes of getting an unlimited supply of granola bars.
11:15 Ralph has to get up again as Paul gets off for the 231st time.
11:25 Casey asks everyone what their theme song would be. Higgs sticks with “She’s A Manic” while Birkleigh muses it over for a few minutes before deciding on “Pour Some Sugar on Me”.
11:30 Higgs, Stacy, and I serenade the group with one of our brilliantly rewritten Christmas songs.
11:45 We‘re free!
No just kidding…still waiting…
12:00pm We get off to brave the restroom again but are told by the other driver that its time to leave.
12:05 We hop on the van, anxiously waiting Abraham’s return. But, alas, no sign of him.
12:08 A complete stranger walks up out of nowhere, jumps into the driver’s seat, and takes off. We deduce that he’s our new driver, Speedy Gonzales, and just to make this little game even funner, he speaks ZERO English.
12:10 We head back towards home, the opposite direction we should be going in. SG pulls U-ie #2 and we head back towards Jerusalem.
12:15 SG takes a questionable right turn to avoid the checkpoint we just spent 2 hours visiting.
12:17 He asks for a phone, even though he has 2 of his own. We think maybe he needs to talk to someone to get directions?
12:18 Paul and Tres discover that they are both out of minutes on their phones…something new and different.
12:19 We are thrilled to realize that SG actually doesn’t even know where we’re supposed to be going. Nicole and Higgs try to remember the name of the Holocaust Museum and make some strange noises in their attempts to say it in Hebrew.
12:21 Stop and ask for directions once.
12:22 Pull U-ie #3.
12:25 Stop and ask for directions twice.
12:30 Drive for a few minutes before coming to Checkpoint #2.
12:31 We realize when we see a sign saying “Farewell” and the guards ask for our passports that we might be accidentally entering Jordan or Palestine (neither of which are good decisions, especially as a group of 40+ Christian missionaries).
12:33 We pull through the barriers, our passports being held hostage, and pull U-ie #4.
12:34 We sit and wait. Strange, I know.
12:39 We zip back through the gate, grab our passports, and decide that our inadvertent attempt to cross the border has ended in an epic-failure.
12:40 Speed Racer decides to audition for NASCAR by pinning the Speedometer’s needle and practicing his hair-pin turns.
12:45 Concerns arise when street signs are no longer in Hebrew.
12:47 Nicole asks the driver where we are. His answer: Bethlehem.
12:48 “Craaaaaaap” runs through everyone’s minds (Quick info: Bethlehem is actually a Palestinian territory and we were highly advised by our contact to avoid it completely. If you‘ve been living under a rock for the past, well forever, Israel and Palestine aren‘t exactly BFFs).
12:50 Nicole and I slightly regret praying that God would let us visit Bethlehem in spite of the countless warnings against it.
12:52 The Nativity Hotel claims its place in my personal dictionary as the premier definition of irony. Come on, that’s funny.
12:53 Our vans pull up to a huge barbed-wired steel wall, aka Checkpoint #3.
12:55 We have a blast playing the Q&A-Passport-Juggle Game with the guards. They win…
12:58 …but as a consolation prize, they kindly let us proceed on our merry way.
1:08 U-ies #5, 6, 7, and 8 are pulled as Speedy McSpeederson tries to find the museum.
1:11 We finally arrive at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem!
1:13 We notice that there are an unusually large number of Israeli soldiers hanging around.
1:14 Then we notice the extremely comforting pile of guns cast aside as the soldiers take their lunch break.
1:15 Jenn, our wise sage, informs us that the army does a lot of training there…at the Holocaust Museum…
1:20 The Bathroom Brigade sets out again in hunt for much needed facilities and discover the other 2 teams and our contact waiting for us inside.
1:27 We follow the sweet smell of our drug of choice, COFFEE!, and find a little café. But we have to hold off on getting some because you can’t take it inside.
1:30 Back outside, Joe confesses his desire for one of the soldiers’ sandwiches. We discuss possible strategy and Kung-Fu moves but conclude that, in just about every situation, gun always wins.
1:40 Joe and Grant go dumpster diving and feast on some halves of soldiers’ lunches.
1:45 Plan for museum devised: about 15 minutes of free time then head in on your own.
1:50 Coffee purchased.
1:55 Plan re-arranged: we have to go in as a group. Now.
1:57 Coffee chugged.
2:00 Somehow Nicole and I can’t find anyone so we head in on our own.
2:05 [insert super emotional Holocaust tour here].
3:00 I’m hurried through the last section of the museum because we have to go.
3:03 Nicole and I walk cautiously behind a large group of soldiers on our way out, discussing how every one of them look like their 12 years old yet have been given very large automatic weapons.
3:05 She successfully lifts my mood by commenting “I mean our guys (on the Squad) look older but try and picture what would happen if any of them were given one of those guns.”
3:15 I get super emotional about the African tourist group that walks by dressed in colorful fabrics and ask Jesus to hurry up and get me to Africa.
3:30 After bidding Team Sofia a fond farewell, we hunt down our vans.
3:45 A splendid game of Tetris: Van Style ensues.
4:00 We set out for home and quickly discover that our driver loves the sound of the horn so much he likes to honk every time we stop.
4:05 Nap #1.
4:30 I wake up and decide Israel has some of the most beautiful sunsets ever. Gold Star, God.
4:35 We breeze through Checkpoint #4 without even stopping and realize it’s the same one we spent 2 hours at earlier in the day.
4:40 Nap #2.
5:00 I decide I’m really cool when I wake up and still have my sunglasses on even though it’s pitch-black outside.
5:15 Checkpoint #5 greets us warmly.
5:17 After handing over our passports we are directed towards a shady building and are all asked to step out of the vehicle. Always a good sign.
5:18 Higgs resumes her anti-strip-search prayers.
5:20 All 45 of us march off the van, proceed through metal detectors, and have our bags searched.
5:21 Israeli GI Joe asks if we have any knives . We do…about 12.
5:25 Just about everyone that has their big pack with them is asked to dig something out of the bottom of it.
5:30 The guards kindly allow us to sit in the waiting room, or what we would refer to back home as the janitor’s closet.
5:32 The male guards are perplexed as to what in the world LaurenM’s curling iron and straightener could possibly be and treat them as weapons. A female guard quickly translates what they are.
5:40 Right about the time Matt gets his big pack repacked, Xena comes on duty and demands that he unpacks the entire thing again.
5:43 LaurenM returns from the rickety bathroom and tries explains why her shoes are now wet. And yellow.
5:45 We pile back into our respective vans and, with our passports safely back in our possession, drive off into the night.
6:50 Paul communicates to the driver where everyone needs to go solely through hand gestures.
7:00 Home sweet home.
8:00 Stacy and Higgs redeem our day with Quesadillas for dinner. Ole!
10:30pm While on a prayer walk Stacy and Higgs ask God to give them just one shooting star. Going above and beyond (as usual), He gives them TWELVE!
