{"id":848,"date":"2011-01-27T18:35:02","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T22:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crosscultural\/?p=848"},"modified":"2011-01-27T18:35:02","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T22:35:02","slug":"damascus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/2011\/01\/27\/damascus\/","title":{"rendered":"Damascus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Middle<\/a>I never thought that I could love a big city; that was before we came to Damascus. \u00a0I feel as if I can’t explain the wonders of this culture without showing someone in person. \u00a0I looked through all of the pictures we took, and I don’t think a single one of them does the city justice. \u00a0In the ever new stream of stimuli, I can only describe a fraction of what this city is like. \u00a0The magnificence of Damascus is soaked into every area of life–the cityscape itself, the history, the people, the activity and vibrance!<\/p>\n

Last Thursday, we as a group retraced Saul\u2019s adventure in Damascus. We read the history of Saul\u2019s vision on the road to Damascus, walked into the Old City and read of Saul\u2019s companions leading him by the hand into Damascus, read of Ananias\u2019 part in Saul\u2019s conversion story in Ananias\u2019 home, re-enacted Paul\u2019s escape from Damascus by sliding down a pole from a second story youth hostel (perhaps like the home where Paul stayed?), and finally ended our journey at the Bob Kissan church, which commemorates Paul\u2019s escape.<\/p>\n

\"Passing<\/a> This past Saturday we were free of Arabic classes and ready to explore deeper into the city. \u00a0We conquered the steep mountain roads of Mount Qasyoom, one of the mountains on the border of Damascus. \u00a0Once we reached our destination, we looked out over a city that stretched from one horizon to the other. \u00a0I was dumbfounded! \u00a0It was incredible to see the city climbing up the side of Mount Qasyoom, to guess which dark splotch was the Old City and the abbey where we lived, and to know that in every square of the entire city there were bikes, taxis and buses surging through the streets; Muslims and Christians walking side by side; yummy shwarma, falafel, and cheese-stuffed breads baking on every street; and other intricacies of the culture going on that we have not yet noticed. \u00a0 All of this was happening from one horizon to the other.<\/p>\n

We are all incredibly thankful for the opportunity to be in this vibrant city. \u00a0As we travel from Damascus to Lebanon from Thursday until Sunday, our group is excited to experience another part of Middle Eastern culture.<\/p>\n

-Aly Zimmerman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I never thought that I could love a big city; that was before we came to Damascus. \u00a0I feel as if I can’t explain the wonders of this culture without showing someone in person. \u00a0I looked through all of the pictures we took, and I don’t think a single one of them does the city....<\/p>

Read more about Damascus<\/span><\/path><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4004],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-syria-palestine-and-israel-2011","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":854,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions\/854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}