savoy096

A view from the side of the road on our way to Eilat in Mitzpe Ramon.  Not far from B7!  When I was growing up, my family loved to travel. We were homeschooled, so the flexibility of our schedule (and the portability of our school) allowed us to leave for different places often. I loved these adventures, and I believe it was those early trips with my family and church that helped feed my interest in other cultures, and lead me on the path to this school. I can remember, on those trips, being torn about whether or not to spend my money on something, or whether or not to do some side activity that was being offered. My dad always said, “Just remember, we’re not coming back tomorrow.” That advice, along with much more from Dad, has always stuck with me. I guess it was kind of his way of saying carpe diem. It always encouraged me to take advantage of the opportunities I had before me. The Red Sea at dusk One of the many breathtaking views from Masada So, my wife and I have been t...

After we got married when folks asked Nathan and me what our future plans were, we would respond, “ We are planning on going to medical school.” Upon getting accepted to medical schools we would say, “ We got accepted to….” Almost always people would respond in a surprised tone, “You’re BOTH going to medical school?” Well, we aren’t both students in medical school (we’ll let the Boricks give their wisdom on that!), but since we began, that phrase has become more and more real. Indeed, WE are going to medical school. Besides the fact that we have taken part in this one flesh union, we are both affected by Nathan’s attendance to MSIH. While I do not have the responsibilities of completing homework, studying for exams, and going to class every day, I still bear the weight that comes with those responsibilities. Oftentimes, after a long day apart from my husband, I don’t want to let him study. Many a morning, I am tempted to coerce Nathan into missing class. Upon his arrival home the first...

I am thrilled to be February blogger of the month, as today was a very blog-able day.  Since moving here, I’ve found myself saying yes to things I would normally say no to. Do you feel like getting up at the crack of dawn to run a race? Of course not. Do you feel like getting up at the crack of dawn to run the lowest race on earth? Sign me up! And so, this morning, about 10 classmates and I awoke at the wee hour of 4:30am to drive to the Dead Sea to run the Ein Gedi Dead Sea half marathon (or for the less bipedaly inclined, myself included, a 10K). As we rolled out of Beer Sheva in the dark, four friends and I sandwiched into our clownishly petite Nissan Micra rental, we felt like deviant children sneaking out of the city we love to hate, as if it were a stern and disapproving parent. As we drove up past Omer, and eventually down through the Wadi as the sun crept slowly up behind burnt red mountain plateaus, we munched on nuts and banana chips and talked about the improbability of ...

As I sit here and ponder what to write, I am reminded of all the questions I had when I was preparing for starting at MSIH. You know, crucial things, like, “Will there be Dr. Pepper?” (Sadly no, except for on rare occasions.) “Will there be other people from the south?” (Again, mostly no, except for a classmate from Texas, which is basically its own country anyway.) “Will the language come naturally?” (Absolutely not.) But the most important question I had was, “Will my wife be okay?” Now let me preface this with a comment, there are a variety of marriage situations that students come to MSIH with. Some are married with their spouse back in the States. Some have a spouse who can do work from a remote location, like Israel. Some are able to immigrate, and their spouses can work or study in Israel. Some, like my aforementioned Texan friend, have four children whom they homeschool, and stay plenty busy. In some marriages, both spouses are students! My wife, Kate, and I, are in none of the...

This past week was a week of small victories. These undersized accomplishments demand no recording in the great history books of noble deeds, and I myself will probably forget about them entirely within a single trip around the sun. In other words, it was an average week. But, I have been learning over the past several years and up to now not to trivialize these small victories. One must grow to love the ongoing travail of life that together they comprise. If you care to know what these victories were, read on from here. If not, skip to the paragraph beginning with, “As you can see…” During the week I… Was pleased that I owned a wool coat for a stretch of some wet, chilly weather in Beer Sheva, Answered a question about the wet, chilly weather in Hebrew to a neighbor who asked me as he was leaving his apartment, Saw a different neighbor, Meir, in the Soroka Hospital cafeteria during lunch and understood (mostly) what he was telling me in Hebrew about visiting his elderly mother in the ...