It is Well with My Soul

I am on the cleaning crew at Kaplan Medical Center. This past Thursday we were assigned to cleaning the auditorium. During the coffee break we were able to interact with the hospital staff as they came in for their breaks. We were fortunate to have a couple of English speaking personnel in the room, which helped us to fellowship and laugh together. Of course, there was also food. We had a great time.

When we were cleaning, we changed the words to the song "God Bless America" to "God Bless Israel." It went like this, "God bless Israel, Land that we love, stand beside her and guide her, through the night with your light from above. From Mt. Hermon, to the Sinai, to the Dead Sea, and Galilee, God Bless Israel, your Home Sweet Home, God Bless Israel, your Home Sweet Home." We had done some practicing before we went on break just in case there might be an opportunity for us to sing to them. You guessed it, we were able to sing it to them. They were quite moved by it. In fact, a few had some tears. They were very appreciative, with lots of hugs and words of thankfulness.

Today is Saturday, the Sabbath day for Israel. For our day of rest, we traveled to Beit Guvrin National Park to visit underground caves. Beit Guvrin is half way between Jerusalem and Be'er Sheva and just east of the Gaza Strip. If you were to get an aerial map of this area, you would see small, grass covered limestone hills. They call these hills the Shephelah. While at Beit Guvrin, we walked down into a Sidonian Burial Cave that had 41 burial niches hewn out in the rock into which the dead would be placed. The walls of the central chamber were decorated with colorful paintings and inscriptions. At this park there are 14 sites, but we were only able to visit five. At Site 7 we saw the cave where they raised doves. Also there we saw hundreds of dove coves carved into the limestone walls. There was even an olive press in this cave. Olive growing was a major source of income in this area. First, olives were harvested and brought in. Then they were crushed, squeezed, and the oil and water (squeezed from the olives) were collected.

The most impressive cave was called the Bell Cave. It had massive rooms, carved in bell shapes. We sang the hymn "It is Well with My Soul," and we marveled at the acoustics. The next group to follow us sang the same song only in Korean.

We finished the day driving into Jerusalem to meet with a well-known antiquities dealer. This dealer is very knowledgeable and is currently writing a book on rings that were used as document seals in biblical times. The antiquities dealer allowed us to actually see a seal ring from the time of King David and King Solomon.

All in all, it's been a great couple of days.

Dara Peters
Nebraska