Greetings from Kibbutz Tzuba

While Rae and the kids are enjoying the beaches of Tel Aviv, I am tucked away in the Judean hills here at Kibbutz Tzuba studying Hebrew. An old college friend (Jason Dausman) has met me here from Afghanistan to take the class with me. We are in class for 4 hours each morning with all instruction and discussion in Biblical Hebrew and then we spend the afternoon studying and listening to recordings. There are people here from all over the world taking the class with us and I was surprised that some of them are BibleWorks users that I already know via email (including the guy from the Czech Republic). Kibbutz Tzuba sits on top of a hill just a few miles west of Jerusalem. The ruins of a crusader fortress looks down on us from an adjacent hill. We eat in the kibbutz dinning hall with the kibbutz residents and other guests. We are the only non-Jews here. It is very interesting but so far studying hasn't left us much time to explore. Tomorrow we will go on our first field trip to the Dead Sea and Qumran. I am really looking forward to that but even more I'm looking forward to seeing Rae and the kids this weekend in Tel Aviv. I missed the last hour of my first class because I came down with a fever. I went back to my room and slept for the next 16 hours and woke up feeling much better. Our number one assignment each day is to get 8 hours of sleep, so I guess I'm actually ahead of the class now. I miss you all.