We are getting so close to our flight home! Justin & I are getting very excited to be back with our families, but there is also a sadness that our amazing trip is coming to the end. 

      To be honest, I am very excited to be done with the digging part of our trip. It is an amazing experience! We are finding pottery and stones that are massive (and maybe important!).... that all come from the time of the Bible! I will keep you posted if we find anything super interesting. Justin has found a few legs to little figurines! 

      We have also been thinking and praying lots about where God is calling us after school is done. I have talked to a few different people with TESOL opportunities and Justin has talked to some who recommended varies masters program. So many options, and we are becoming more and more excited for what our future holds! 

     Not a long update, but soon we will be packing up. Some prayer requests would be for our safety in travel, on friday we start a multiple day traveling journey! The exiting customs of Israel are long, so pray that we get through quickly and without hassle. We have so many amazing things to process and think about! Love all of you and see you in less than a week!

Leah & Justin Lechner

Hello Everyone!

We have finally found some time to update you on what we are doing in our last two weeks. Our group has dove head first into some super nerdy archeology. We are uncovering a housing complex from the Iron Age II, which in non-complex language means an Israelite city in the northern Kingdom of Israel during the time of Jereboam II or Ahab! We have had great luck with finding things, which apparently is not normal... :). I don’t mind, if we are digging in the dirt at least we are finding something!

What Justin & I have found already:

• a destruction level, from the attack of the Assyrians on Isreal (proven by ash and burned brick that we have found)
• a piece of burned flint, and a piece of regular flint!
• Justin found a few huge pieces of pottery right next to a small oven that we uncovered half of! 
• I found a small “juglet” all the way intact (except where I pick-axed it... oops) this was a big deal, they all got pictures and hovered around... I felt awesome :) (I will put a picture on facebook tomorrow or later tonight!
• lots of pottery handles and pieces! 
• some really old glass (pretty blue color!)

We are having some fun... but we are also tired and very ready to go home and see our families. Our typical day consists of 16 + hours of scheduled time. I know, its crazy. We get up at 5:00am and start digging until 9:00... we eat breakfast and dig again until 11 when we get fruit break. We then dig until 1. We eat after that and have a time to shower and nap for about an hour. At 4:30 we wash and read pottery, looking at the edges in order to see what period they are from. We have seen evidence of burning and edges that help us date the walls and other things we find.at 6:00 we go to lectures, given by the grad students we are digging with. They are sometimes a bit over our heads :) After that we eat at 7 or 8 and are usually sleeping by 10:00, if not earlier. (Yes even Justin is going to bed this EARLY!)

We dig until next week friday and fly out late that night and arrive in Chicago at 6:00pm that time (we loose 7 hours on our way back). We hope to be up in Michigan on Sunday afternoon... and we will be craving some cheeseburgers and some hamballs (hint mothers?!) :)

Prayer Requests:

• strength to move dirt and keep moving
• desire to keep digging, when we desire to nap
• homesickness, for us to enjoy where we are.
• that our group will continue to bond and not pull apart (it has been over a month!)

Love all of you guys,

Leah & Justin Lechner

       I know it has been a while since either of us has had time to update. Here we have limited internet access and busy days. Since Sunday our group has been staying in Bethlehem at the Alexandria Hotel. Our hotel is right downtown Bethlehem. We hear a lot of Arabic, have had lots of rice and shwarma (meat from a rotating stick?), and have tried our best to take in all that we are hearing and seeing.

       Our main topic and discussion since arriving in Bethlehem is the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. This complicated problem is often misunderstood by those of us from America... and even being here I am still trying to wrap my mind around what life looks like here for the everyday Palestinian and the everyday Israeli.

             Freshest in my mind today is the ‘everyday’ Israeli. Today we spent our time back in Jerusalem (passing quickly through the checkpoints... blond hair and an American passport helps with that). Our two main stops were the Holocaust Museam (Vad Yashem) and the Knesset, which is their ‘congress’. Words cannot describe what you see as you walk through the museum here. Story after story is told of those who died, were tortured, or experimented on. The Jews around Europe and Russia were entrapped in Ghettos before being sent to death camps or mass graves... I heard a story today of a young girl who got missed while standing next to the mass grave and crawled out alive. She  was only 7 years old. After you get out of the museum you see the land that the Jews have made for themselves. They are militarily strong. You see soldiers everywhere with large guns and proud smiles. Their message is clear, we have our own land and this can never happen to us again without a fight.

          Our other days in Bethlehem have been conversations with Palestinian Christians and others who live daily within the constraints of the Bethlehem walls. Our tour guide could not go with us to Jerusalem, he was denied a visa to enter the city. We walked past houses that were isolated from their farm land, owned by their families for hundreds of years. Those who live close to the wall may not open their second floor windows or even stand near them, they need to be closed up at all times. Every house in Palestine has a water tank on top, Israel can shut down the water any time they desire.... which is sometimes for 20 days in a row in the summer. 

I have more thoughts and opinions, but now it’s time to head off to class.

Pray for us as we observe and act as agents of peace,

Leah & Justin