CURRENT NEWS, GALLERIES AND COMMENTARY

January 16, 2006: We are saddened to note the sudden passing of Philip Berg, a loving and caring husband, father and friend of the JUC community.  Phil succumbed instantly to a heart attack at his home here in Jerusalem early Monday morning, January 16.  Phil received his M.A. from JUC in 1996 and served tirelessly and selflessly as campus manager for many years.  He met and married his lovely wife Martha while at JUC.  They have five young children, Asher, Adam, Nathan, Sara and Anna, ranging in age from 7 years to 3 months.  For the last few years, Phil has been working for Shevet Achim, a humanitarian organization which brings infants and children from Iraq and the Palestinian Territories in need of life-saving heart surgery to Israel to receive medical care at the region's finest hospitals.  Phil’s dedication has been instrumental in saving lives.  Phil will be buried later this week in Jerusalem; specific arrangements are currently pending.  Please remember Martha and their children in your prayers.  May his memory be for a blessing.  Martha can be reached at the following email address:  <<bergs@shevet.org>>

December 14, 2005, Jerusalem, Israel: The calendar says that Christmas is less than two weeks away but you sure couldn’t tell it by looking out the window. Jerusalem has been experiencing an unusually warm and dry fall and early winter, and the early rains (Deut 11:l4) have barely made an impression on the landscape around us. Add to that the normal lack of decorations for the season on the streets or in the shops of Jerusalem, and the overall feel of things says that it could just as well be September or March. But perhaps there is something authentic about it this way. Christmas is first of all the reality of God entering space and time, an historical event that is recorded beautifully in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. How that event might be remembered and “kept” two thousand years later is detail, packages of tradition that, while immensely important, do nothing to alter the reality of the actual event itself. And so in Jerusalem this year, we have a chance to exercise the kind of faith that knows that something is, without the clutter that says that Christmas isn’t Christmas without sleigh bills and tinsel. After all, other than the divine birth of Jesus the Son of God, that first Christmas was just another day, with all the comings and goings typical of everyday in first century Judea. Is Christmas lost in the earthy flow of life, even though that’s precisely how it first came? Or is this a chance to realize that God inhabits even the mundane? My family and I are decorating our home for Christmas this week, and the touch of color does indeed bring a kind of warmth of heart and soul to a place that is just home the rest of the year. We will attend a Christmas service or two in a few days, and have a special meal on-campus for ourselves and a few students who are away from their own homes on the holiday. Christmas is kept, and in the keeping of it we erect signposts that point back to the reality of the first Christmas in nearby Bethlehem, and ahead to the reality of the risen Christ in our lives. Does it need to be more?

I would like to offer a special thank-you to all of you who have donated time, money and effort to the ministry of Jerusalem University College during 2005. The list of names is too long to list here, but please be assured that you are known and not forgotten. Together we look forward to 2006 and renewing the ministry that God has given us together.

The fall semester is over and most students have returned to the States. A few are staying on for a time to do some extra traveling in the land before Christmas, and three (from Columbia International University) will be in Amman Jordan doing ministry in the Christian Arab community there before returning for our spring semester. During the fall semester several students worked with the Gypsies in Jerusalem’s Old City, and others were at the American School in Beit Jala running a Bible Club for Junior high girls and a Basketball club for Junior high boys.

Twenty-five students and I spent the first week of December in Egypt on the field study for the semester course Ancient Egypt and the Biblical World. Our itinerary was almost the same as our trip last year, with the addition of the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid at Dashur. We traveled up and down the Nile, from Cairo to Aswan and back, and through the Sinai, climbing to the turquoise mines of Serabit el-Khadim (mined by the Egyptians of the New Kingdom) and Mt. Sinai for sunrise. Every student who took the course for academic credit presented some research on a pharaoh of the New Kingdom at a site relevant to that pharaoh. A good time was had by all.

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It looks as though we will have a sharp rise in the number of short-term students during this academic year. In October and November we had two pastor-parishioner groups, one from the Vancouver BC area and one from the Seattle area (Auburn, WA). Over 65 students are enrolled in the upcoming January course Geographical and Historical Settings of the Bible, most of whom are from Westminster Seminary, Asbury Seminary and Central Christian College. Eastern Mennonite University will be making their every-third-semester trip to JUC in February, and Denver Seminary, Western Seminary, Wheaton College, Simpson University, Gordon College and Northwestern College are all planning on bringing groups this summer, in May and June.  

As our enrollment numbers continue to rise, we will be instituting a more stringent application procedure for all semester students, both graduates and undergraduates, including those from associated schools. All application forms are being revised to reflect our desire to build a school that will serve students who are highly-motivated, focused and academically competent. It is our desire that JUC build its reputation as a school known for excellence, for a challenging curriculum, for facilitating life-changing experiences inside and outside of the classroom, and for fostering an environment of spiritual growth. Because enrollment will be limited to approximately 65 semester students, admission into all semester programs will become more competitive. We take overseas studies seriously, and seek to attract students who do the same.