I'm in Israel!

So I didn't really introduce my blog in the first post, so I'll do so here. I am currently studying abroad at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, which is in the Arava valley of southern Israel. Before arriving in Israel, I spent about a week and a half in Europe (see my previous post and Steven's blog). I flew into Tel Aviv from London on Monday night and met up with fellow students to board the bus to the institute. On the way, we went through Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and the Dead Sea area. The first thing that struck me was the astounding variety in terrain/landscape going from central to southern Israel - green and hilly to dry and hot. This country is roughly the size of New Jersey, but incredibly diverse.

I didn't know all that much about the Arava Institute (besides what's on the website) before arriving, but now I'm getting a pretty good idea of the place I'll call home for the next four months. The institute is located on Kibbutz Ketura, so we share facilities with 400 other inhabitants of the kibbutz.

View of Kibbutz Ketura from the base of an electrical tower we hiked up to.  The mountains in the distance are in Jordan.

There are ~40 students here from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, the U.S., and Canada. Some have never been in college, while others have graduate degrees. I've met three people who have heard of Olin (small world), one of whom read about Olin in an article - the word is getting out!

So far we've been participating in lots of orientation activities, which I can elaborate on later.  As for the title of this blog, the fact that I'm in the desert should be pretty clear by now, and I also hope to include prayer (requests, praises) in my posts.  "This is my prayer in the desert" comes straight from Hillsong's Desert Song.

Praise: This place is really awesome - unlike anywhere I've ever been.  The bright sun doesn't hurt either :)
Request: Finding a Christian community in this sparsely populated area.