This past week, the group and I
were in Galilee. We spent one night in Nazareth, another night camping on the
Akhziv Beach, and 5 nights in Galilee at the En Gev Holiday Resort. My birthday
occurred on day 5 of our Galilee trip, but day 3 of actually staying in En Gev.
At the beginning of the day we
hiked through the Nahal Zevitan, but best of all we cliff jumped for like an
hour and it was so much fun! On the hike up to the cliffs where we jumped, I
tripped so many times, but thankfully I always tripped onto a big fat rock so I
didn’t plummet over the side of the cliff. Cliff jumping was a birthday present
in and of itself. I loved it so much and just took advantage of every moment.
There was a small cliff and a medium height cliff and both were fun to jump
off! I loved the thrill of falling through the air!
After cliff jumping, I,
surprisingly, wasn’t worried about my hair being crazy messy and frizzy so when
Zach asked me for my hairtie, I gave it to him and watched him do a funny
ponytail. Katie and I made sure it looked presentable haha. We ate lunch by the
place we were originally supposed to hike. They made Em (Emalee, my roommate)
and I go first in line. It was both of our birthdays together! I turned 20 and
she turned 21. We both agreed that it was nice to have another person with the
same birthday as you because everything is so much less awkward because you get
to do the awkward things that people make you do together.
I almost fell backward out of my
seat at the picnic table at lunch. That would have been bad. They had lunchmeat
sandwiches and nutella. So yummy! We also went up onto a tell that day but I’m
not really sure what the name of the tell was. I was super tired but I was also
having a ton of fun! After that, we went over and tubed down the Jordan River. The above picture is Claire, Katie, and I right before we tubed down the Jordan River. When going down the river, my tube got caught in a tree at the beginning and I went under and came up
coughing like crazy. I’m glad I didn’t die. As you can tell, weird scary
experiences were a big part of day.
After we got out of the Jordan
River, we went over to a spot that was pretty close to where we got out and we
ran off the cliff right by into the water. It was so much fun! It was the first
time I have really run since I got hurt. Sure it hurt but I have missed running
soooo much! I went off four times and each time was just more fun!
When we got back, I swam in the Sea
of Galilee with some people than got out to get ready for dinner. I also was
able to play cards for like 5 minutes somewhere in there. We packed our lunches
for the next day before heading off to our dinner. I was so thankful for our
food in Galilee. It was such a blessing!
At dinner, I sat across from Em
with the Montoya-Ortegas, Abe, and Zach closeby. That night they have ice cream
and coffee for our birthday and Em and I had so much fun! After the party with
everyone, the girls pulled us aside for a special birthday party that they had
planned for both of us. It was one of the sweetest things ever! The party had
yummy goodies and every girl just said things that blessed both of us! I loved
my birthday and later that night we swam in the Sea of Galilee again! Galilee
was amazing and I love IBEX. Sure there have been times where I’m not on cloud
9 here, but for the most part I just love all the experiences and I love
sharing it with everyone! This week we had 2 days of classes and today was our
1st of 3 days of archaeological excavations. Today one of the
archaeologists told me that it must not be my first time excavating and was
surprised when I told him it was my first time. I was shocked because I totally
thought I would be failing at the archaeological digging, but he thought I was
doing really well! Yay! It will be a fun week!
This is Kaitlyn and I last week in Caesarea Philippi which is where Peter witnesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God!
