Leaving Old Friends Behind

As our departure looms closer, we are grateful for friends and family who have helped us pack and clean.  What a blessing to have plenty of storage space and accomodating renters who can work around our furniture, or most of it.  The day after Frank moved the bunkbed downstairs, he found himself with a strained back, unable to put on his own socks.  Coincidence?  He thinks so. 

You can learn a lot about someone by the stuff they accumulate.  As my eyes sweep across the bookshelves, I feel like I am reliving the ups and downs of our lives.  Titles in the Marriage section start with A Fulness of Joy followed by What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew about Women, and even more down-to-earth, Dealing with Differences in Marriage.  In the parenting section, I see 365 TV Free Activities and the Eyre's series on teaching children charity, responsibility, sensitivity, and joy; later acquisitions include When your Child is Strong-Willed and I Didn't Plan to Be a Witch.  Early sources of  personal enrichment were Gardening for Dummies, Immortal Poems of the English Language, and 501 Traditional Quilt Blocks.  These have given way to titles like If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard, and (I'm not making this up!) Confessions of an Unbalanced Woman.

But some titles have stayed on my shelf for decades.  These are the ones that are especially hard to leave behind.  Covey's The Divine Center has been on my shelf since I was sixteen (sorry, Pat, I still have your book).  I doubt I'll ever outgrow Bonds that Make Us Free; just thinking that I don't need to reread it means it's probably time to reread it.  Again.

It's even harder for Frank to choose which books to take.  His whole purpose in going to Jerusalem is to share with the Study Abroad all the things he has learned from his voluminous library.  Because we only have two suitcases each, we are only bringing a handful of children's books, an illustrated Book of Mormon reader, journals and scriptures, and resources about the Holy Land or the languages we hope to learn.  So that means a lot of dear old friends will be left behind.



(Care to comment on a few books you couldn't live without?)

Anticipating an Adventure

If you're visiting this page, then you probably already know that we will be living in Jerusalem for a year while Frank teaches at the BYU Jerusalem Center. Our school-aged kids will go to the Anglican International School at Jerusalem, and we anticipate they will learn a lot from the multicultural student body, small class sizes, and a rigorous IB curriculum. They will learn either Hebrew or Arabic and Bible studies along with their other classes.


Frank attended the Study Abroad program as an undergraduate for six months, and he is looking forward to having family home evenings on our balcony overlooking the city. I have never left the country before (unless you count Niagara Falls), and I am looking forward to the stretching we will all be doing so far out of our comfort zone. In addition to the spiritual and historical experiences, I hope we will all meet interesting people, pick up Hebrew and Arabic phrases, and learn to love more varieties of food. Our daughters are excited about living in the Jerusalem Center (a door is being built to connect two apartments) and hanging out with college students and our "Jerusalem cousins," the Muhlesteins. The youngest ones haven't flown in an airplane before, so we're hoping the novelty helps them through some of the 16 hour flight. 

We think we are prepared for some of the differences, but in reality I'm sure we have no clue what we are in for. Frank's schedule will be packed, church is on Saturday, driving will be a challenge and also an area we must economize, and friends and family will be far away. But we are comforted by many factors. First, we genuinely like our family. We have fun together and we get things done when we work together. So we'll be with some of our best friends. Second, we are confident that our experiences will help our family grow in ways we might not have if we didn't jump at this chance. Third, we believe the faith that holds us together here will sustain us there. If we can feel near to God as we try to follow him in America, surely we can do the same in Jerusalem. And fourth, we hope many of you will keep in touch electronically. You can email us at our old address.  Send a message to jerusalemjudds@gmail.com if you don't know our old address.