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We made it! We arrived around 5:30pm Monday night, ate supper and went to bed. The weird thing is that we woke up around 2am and could not go back to sleep due to the infamous jet-lag. The apartment we are staying in is in downtown Jerusalem and right across from the Supreme Court and the Kinesset (Israeli Parliament). We are only going to be in this apartment for about a month so we are enjoying the view as I am typing this post.
Kelsey and I have responsibilities with the celebration of The Feast of Tabernacles and started some of those duties today. Kelsey will be helping out with Registration and I will be shooting video of the preparations as well as the event. Please pray that our equipment makes it here all in one piece. We have heard some horror stories of people shipping stuff from the States. Anyway…enjoy the videos below.
Here is a video we shot in Atlanta before our 13.5 hour flight into Tel Aviv.
This the will be our office for the next 7 month.
Well, it’s Saturday night and we’re almost all packed up and ready to go… Our flight departs tomorrow at 5:00 PM and we’ll arrive in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem on Monday at 5:30 PM Israeli time. We’ve been able to take care of lots of details regarding shipping our video equipment, extra airline baggage and customs information. It all still seems surreal, and I think it will really hit us tomorrow. Please pray for a smooth transition.
We’ve had a blast here in TX! It’s been jam-packed with: lots of hang time with the fam, working on FocalPoint stuff, Ft. Worth Zoo, visits with friends, Trail Dust, SingStar, Piranha Killer Sushi, Mansfield Pecan Festival, errands, washing machine moving, sinus infection, Jax’s baby dedication and first birthday, football throwing, and did I mention… lots of great time with the fam!
Here is a sampling of photos from the two weeks we’ve been here…
a little SingStar action!
can we say “frogger!”? of course the guys would decide to haul the washing machine across the busy highway at rush hour…
much love,
kelsey & jon
We’ve had a great visit here in Monroe, LA with my family. Been spending our days finishing up some FocalPoint work, visiting with wonderful friends, seeing extended family members, working around the house and eating some great food!
Me, Bev (Mom), Morgan (Brother)
Me & Lea
Yogi!
We also had a great visit with Jon’s grandparents, Momma Olivia & Papa. Papa was harvesting his soybean fields and trying to salvage what he could after hurricane Gustav came through. It was great going to Jon’s hometown church with Momma Olivia and seeing some of the people who were part of his childhood. On a side note Jon wants you to know that even though he is wet in the picture he is using pull-ups now. I’m a big kid now!!!
Jon & Moo
Israel::
We’re officially flying to Tel Aviv, Israel from DFW on September 28th! The airfares are booked and we’ll be going over initially with a tourist visa for 90 days and then we will be able to reevaluate in December. We’ll either get another 90-day tourist visa at that point or be granted our volunteer work visas. The Ministry of Interior in Israel has changed leadership and been much more restrictive on visas lately. There are a few other people that have been trying to make their way over to work longer term with the ICEJ, but are having trouble because they must get their work volunteer work visas in order to go. The ICEJ has a meeting with the Ministry of Interior in late September and they hope to gain some new insight into the visa situation.
My dad, Harper, is a college professor and we’re going to sit in on one of his Masters classes tomorrow morning and then are headed to Mansfield, TX (DFW) to have some great family time with the Bufkins. We can’t wait to see our nephews, Sawyer and Jax!
Praying for safe travels and last minute details to come together well!
Camp David ::
We headed to Tyler, TX last Friday to hang out with family over the Labor Day weekend. My Uncle David owns a great piece of property in Tyler that the whole family has invaded. 🙂 We also had a fun party on Saturday night in celebration of Uncle David’s 50th birthday! Our friends Nathan & Jessica Wright, from Memphis, drove down with us to hang out as well. Here are a few pictures from the weekend:
Camp David
Some good ole skeet shootin
Country goes Hi-Tech with WiFi!!
Trying to not be eaten alive by mosquitoes...
LA & Gustav ::
We’re in Louisiana staying with my parents and brother: Harper, Bev & Morgan. It’s been great visiting so far. We’re working on finishing up a wedding editing project and catching up with friends and family. We’re headed to see Jon’s grandparents, who live about an hour away, this weekend.
We survived Gustav with just a short power outage and some minor flooding in the area. South LA was hit with bad flooding and major power outages. There are lots of evacuees still staying in the Monroe area.
Israel ::
We’re currently waiting on our long term volunteer work Visas to be granted, so please pray for a quick return of that! Also, Jon and I have been doing a Bible study based on six of the Jewish feasts/celebrations. It’s so interesting and we can’t wait to experience some of them in person!
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