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nambini
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Country: United States
State: Hawaii
Metro: Honolulu
Birthday: 3/19/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: art. film. theology. social justice. traveling. writing. languages. the color blue. fashion design. middle eastern studies.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Film/Theology
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
5/18/2002
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| dearest friends,
it has been a while since i have written and with my first blog entry
in quite sometime, i beg a favor of you. i am trying desperately to
graduate, so help me please. this will take a few minutes and i
will be forever grateful.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=769453388094
please please forward that to friends if you can. if you get an
email from me too, just ignore it. seriously, i need help.
thank y'all... more to come since life will be, uh, moving along come
may. :)
shalom,
kris
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| So much of being here has been an epic battle with God, a
crying out in frustration and surrender and hope and the deepest
hurt. But there is something majestic about the mercies of
Yeshua. Kama tov Ata.
Today was one of those days, born from frustration and hurt, alone with
God in my hotel room, boldly arguing the value of His Word.
Thankfully God is not one to quit, an Abba who never leaves his
frustrated child despite her pathetic outbursts of anger.
Two days into our 3 day field study in the middle of the Negev and I
was not happy.
And then at the end of today I found myself sitting atop a giant hill
in Qumran, a crazy hike up a steep face, sitting looking into the great
expanse of the Transjordan, the Dead Sea, the sloping hills of the
Judean Wildrness... and the sound of the wind was a whisper passing
through my mind... this is Eternity...
We read Ezekiel 37 I think about the living waters. I love
reading through the Psalms when we are on our hikes. This is the
beauty of God. This is what God said was tov. He said it was good. These mountains are the creation of God.
And I was content, a word I hardly use these days.
I spent the day laughing, fulfilled, basking in the blessings of God,
of great company, learning and hiking and running up and down massive
structures. Masada. En Gedi. The Dead Sea. Qumran.
Shephelah. Beer Sheva. Arad. Mamshish. Avdad. The Elah
Valley where David fought Goliath. We wandered through the massive
buildings of Herod the Great, heard the stories of the Essenes and
Zealots, read Psalm 23 by the pools of En Gedi and then jumped in and
swam through the waterfall. We crawled on our bellies through
dusty caves in Avdad, much like the ones David hid in when he ran from
Saul. We sat (yes sat) in the Dead Sea and felt the slimy
water. And we hiked our asses off, which is basically what this
whole semester has been. We had dance parties in the largest
Nabatean winepress in the country. I spent the whole day in
hiking shoes and a bathing suit (and shorts and a shirt) and I found
myself more at home than I am in Hawaii. Mountains and water...
And we finally came home to Jerusalem and all I wanted was my precious
internet... and yet, oddly today, there is something incredibly
unfulfilling about the structures of man. I am excited to come
home to LA and yet also scared. I spend so much time
outside, to content to marvel at the natural creation of God. I
am afraid to be put back into buildings.
That was beauty. Today was a good day... Abba, Ata tov.
A few visuals of the days goneby. The rest is going on facebook.
Psalm 90 (Matt's afraid of heights. Emilee, Jeremy, Matt, Chad... and our gorgeous view at the end of the day)
Psalm 63 (Shortly after taking
this picture, we all said to hell with it and jumped in. The best
part was that most people went in wearing their regular clothes.
The best part of the day, I think. You can totally imagine David
and his men coming here to cool off... acting just like the undergrad
boys...)
Masada (We hiked down that bitch. Yes we did. And it was awesome. All of it. Awesome)
Shalom.
| | |
| It's already week 2 being here in Jerusalem and it feels like I've been
here for months. The city streets are becoming familiar, as are
names and faces. Culture shock has been slowly waning while
the emptiness of missing loved ones continues to grow.
The question, "Why Jerusalem?" is one that I cannot answer today or
maybe ever. But it falls wayside to the similar kind of
bizarre fancies that one finds themself acquiring in the awkward years
of adolesence. France as a child and Israel in my older
years. It is my short term form of aliyah,
the pilgrimage many Jews make home to Israel. Perhaps. Or
maybe it began even years ago with a stubborn man who I admire greatly
presenting me with his brilliant but agnostic worldview on Jesus and
the Bible, the questions that I have spent the rest of my life trying
to answer... but only finding more questions.
So here I am, in the middle of the world, of sorts. The game
board of an epic game of cat and mouse, where giant nations bully
smaller ones, where bombs are exchanged where words have failed, where
religion was born and beautified and divided and entombed and
reborn... This is where life begins. There is no
other city on earth that has quite the heartbeat of this city,
irregular, impatient, unsteady, but enthralling and utterly
captivating.
Where else can I stand in a country that much of the region doesn't
believe should be in existence, and find numerous religious
groups bicker like children over projected archeological fact,
where what you wear is what you are, and guns are a token of safety and
politics is a game of the people. So, Why Jerusalem? I don't
know. But if ever there was a place of hurt and tension, of
miscommunication and rich histories, of ancient beauty and rapid
modernization, of passion and movement, resistance and strict
conservativism.
This is a strange and distant land, but my God, it is beautiful, and
there is no better place on earth to study the Word of God and to watch
people live out a faith that could literally get them shot. Where
someone could hate me so deeply simply because of the place where I was
born, or how I look, or perhaps because I happen to live in the wrong
part of the Middle East. It's craziness I tell you... The
stories we've heard. This is after all, where it all began,
with Isaac and Ishmael. What a beautiful story.
Shalom y'all.
| | |
| Though I can't profess myself to be the most dedicated of pacifists, I
hardly find the retaliation of bombs and rockets to be
productive. The Israel-Lebanon crisis seems to pique my
interest these days, mostly because the fate of my semester rests in
the unfolding tension between Israel and her terrorists enemies.
BBC wrote an article about the anti-war protestors in Jerusalem, a
minority amidst the overwhelming 90% support of the current offensive
against Hezbollah. Such protestors face the harsh criticism of
their fellow countrymen that claim they don't value the lives of their
people.
I guess that is where my source of confusion comes from. Wouldn't
those who desire an unconditional ceasefire value the lives of their
countrymen even more? Why is a American pacifist considered
unpatriotic? Because we don't support war? Can't we support
the troops by not advocating violent retaliations and saving the lives
of our soldiers and other innocent civilians?
Color me naive, but I honestly don't understand.
Whatever. Anyway, war is among many things I fail to
understand. Most recently, I am slightly baffled by Americas
blind support of Israel in their attacks on Hezbollah, while 300+
Lebanese civilians and the infrastructure of a once lively
country. I caught snippets of rational for such a
disproportionate retaliation by Israel... They want to destroy as much
as they can before the UN intervenes, they are taking extreme
precautions to avoid killing civilians in their effort to destroy
Hezbollah, etc. etc. But then maybe it fits the Israel is backed
by the superpower that is in a 'war against terrorism' as I think it
was made fairly clear by the jokes at the G8 summit.
But then, is pacificsm an ideal that we should strive for but settle
for war if we fail to reach the mark? Is war a necessary evil
that weighs the lives of the innocent as pennies cast into a wishing
well? I don't know. But I'd like to one day stand by a
president who isn't marked by his obscure exercise of
power. I think it's all an act anyway. I'm sure he's
a lot more sly than we think he is... Oh George.
Anyhoo, glad to know that after a year at Wheaton, I will be able to
talk about politics in a more...uh... balanced setting and not be
condemned to hell for my 'flaming liberal' perspective. Blah.
PS: sites of interest: This is the Israeli Ministry of Foreign
Affairs article about Counter-terrorism FAQ's which I found interesting
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/Behind+the+Headlines/Israels+counter+terrorist+campaign+-+FAQ+18-Jul-2006.htm
And this is BBC's article on the anti-war protests in Israel.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5208718.stm
| | |
| i regret to say that i never paid such close attention to BBC as i have
in the last few weeks. it's my homepage, but i find myself
keeping a close watch on the quickly shifting headlines and hoping that
it doesn't pop up on the front page of the honolulu star bulletin.
americans in lebanon are being evacuated to cyprus. but what of the lebanese...
a lot has been on my mind recently. aside from travel vaccinations,
medical insurance, and attempting to learn a dash of basic hebrew from
rosetta stone. my mom has been eagerly trying to discourage my
desire to travel to jerusalem for the last 2 years and when i finally
managed to ease her mind about the entire situation, fighting escalates
as my departure date arrives.
i wonder why people laugh when i tell them where i'm going, why they
sneer, or give those quizzical looks. why are you going
THERE?
my father is one of the few people that is as excited as i am...
probably because his hunger for change and adventure is what has
encouraged my own. i'm glad he doesn't worry because that's all
anyone else does. but then i wonder...
i started writing another screenplay. it was just to get my mind going
at first but now it is an honest quest. some pseudo politcal,
scientific, fantasy piece about patriotism, globalization, and
humanitarianism... write what you know... those words echo in my
mind. and so i write... my main character is a young, irrational,
empassioned girl. she is, in my mind, the manifestation of the
desires and beliefs of all my close friends and i.
we, this inclusive 'we' means you as well, are passionate people. about
politics, culture, art, religion, knitting, what have you. we
hate, we love, we have strong opinions. we are americans, many of
us, yet we often say it with a bitter remnant of hurt and
disgust. we are christians too but we are almost ashamed to claim
the title. and the truth is, many of us are also comfortably
wealthy, well educated, and incredibly blessed.
so i wonder... what is it like to grow up in a place where bombs and
missiles and fighting are normal? what is it like to be a
christian where it means something more than a fish on your car or some
piece of metal you wear on your neck or maybe the fact that you refuse
to say certain words and watch certain movies? what would it be
like to grow up in a place where many liberties are not yet won?
what would it be like to gaze upon the same hills that jesus himself
once saw and to believe in the miracles of the Almight God?
i don't know. BUT, for a child of such little faith, who has
grown up in comfort and security, would it kill everyone for me to
venture past the boundaries of logical safety? maybe i will come
to love my country or at least be thankful for what i have... maybe i
will really internalize the miracles of Christ instead of just read
them... what refinement was ever gained without the fire?
i just pray that it isn't all cancelled, which no one living there
seems to expect will happen. i don't know. i honestly,
don't know. but mostly i wonder, how at such a young age, i have become
so anxious and ungrateful for the gift of life itself.
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