As this is our last week here, I’m feeling a lot of mixed feelings. Especially this week, we’ve been focusing on the theme of gratitude. As I write this, we’re getting ready to have our final celebration tonight. It’ll be a great opportunity to celebrate everyone who helped make this trip possible and have a great time together. Over the past week, we’ve also spent time saying goodbye to our new friends here. These include George, who owns a small shop nearby, the Citadel, a local restaurant we like to go to, and Baquon, the local dance group. I’ve been thinking a lot about just how welcoming everyone is here. Everyone seems to want us to come back. This is just such a friendly place, and I’m going to miss being here. As we get ready to leave, we’ve also been thinking about how we’ll keep talking about what we’ve learned. The people here really inspire us with their resilience and resistance, and we hope to continue that in our own lives. It’s been a great honor that we’ve had so many locals tell us their stories, and it is our responsibility to share them. We have been so blessed by the hospitality and generosity given to us.

-Evan K. 

This week we had the pleasure of traveling to Jericho, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea. Like all places here, there’s a lot of history in Jericho. We got to visit Hisham’s Palace and took a cable car up to the Mount of Temptation to visit a monastery and have a wonderful meal. At the Jordan River we saw what is remembered as where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Being there was really cool (and so was the water). We didn’t spend much time there but it was worthwhile nonetheless. At the Dead Sea, we got the chance to float effortlessly among the salty waves. It stung our mosquito bites and burned our eyes if we were unfortunate enough to be struck that way. The cool mud on the floor of the sea offered us relief from the hot sun and left us feeling smooth. We also wrapped up our final group presentations this week. It was a semi-stressful final period of preparation for it but it was really cool to hear what our group mates had been researching the past few weeks. I thought everyone had really strong presentations to share and I learned a lot on the day of the presentations. My time here seriously flew by and this final week has felt very bittersweet. I have a lot to look forward to back in the States but I’m going to miss so many things about this journey and this place. I really hope to return one day.

–Seth S.