While in the computer room, I asked Hannah for help on one of the exercises, which she explained amazingly! I could never remember the word for ‘to smoke,’ so Hannah started asking me questions using that word. When I finally remembered the word, I was able to answer her questions and I had the opportunity to tell her the story of how my parents met.
Being able to tell my parents story in Hebrew, with barely any mess ups, made me feel really proud of myself. It gave me a boost of confidence that I could conquer my oral test, which had been set for Wednesday. On top of that, I was able to share how God played a massive part in my parent's meeting and falling in love.
Whenever I have an opportunity to share my faith, I try to not miss it. When Hannah asked me if any of my family members smoked, I had the perfect opportunity to tell her about how my parents living in Spain and how God had spoken to my dad to go to a certain place to meet my mom.
Hannah was definitely surprised when she heard that Elohim had spoken to my dad. Whenever I talk about hearing the Voice of God to Jews, their left stunned because they’ve never heard His voice; this is because they do no have the Holy Spirit living in them. I love seeing their reactions when they realize that the Elohim I’m talking about is, in fact, God.
What surprises me the most, however, is when people continue to ask me questions after establishing that I believe very differently to them. At work this week, one of my co-workers asked me about what my dad teaches and what we believe compared to the Messianics and Christians. Our conversation lasted over 30 minutes!
Some of the questions she asked were a lot deeper than what most people usually ask and she was genuinely interested in knowing more. The conversation didn’t end until she was satisfied that she had understood the meaning of Yeshua’s words, “It is finished!” Unfortunately, I didn’t explain it as simple as I could have and instead went into all the technical stuff about the Bride and Bridegroom.
That was definitely an interesting day at work, but it still didn’t give me the energy I needed. By 5:30pm, I was ready to go home and go to bed, but I still had to finish my homework and start studying for my test. When 6 o’clock came around, I started to feel the devil’s prodding.
I felt like the life was getting sucked out of me and could barely concentrate on cleaning up the packing room. Before I left work, however, I wanted help with my homework because I didn’t have the power to translate everything and read all the pages. As I waited for my co-worker to come back to help me, I looked at my phone and saw that I had three missed calls from an unknown number.
I called the number, thinking it was going to be a sales call or the army, and to my surprise, my teacher picked up. She went on to tell me that the oral test had been moved from Wednesday to the next day!! On top of that, she wanted to add more situations to my test!
In a matter of five minutes, I felt myself getting lightheaded and overwhelmed. How was I supposed to learn my entire story and four situations by the next day? I still had to prepare my dinner and go to an appointment at 8 o’clock that evening! In a matter of moments, I went from feeling invincible to losing all my control.
I knew that I needed to start praying for strength and peace to help me get through the long evening that was ahead of me, but when I prayed, the strength didn’t come. I was so tired I could barely make out the words I had to memorize, but I still tried. It took all I had in me to try to memorize everything I’d written, but the more I progressed, the harder it got. Before leaving for my appointment with my physiotherapist, I was very close to tears.
When I went to my appointment that night, my physio helped me memorize the rest of my story. It made me feel calmer but I knew I still had a long way to go. As my mom got her back clicked back into place, I continued to study. Amazingly, I made progress and memorized almost everything that I had written!
After I was given acupuncture to calm my nerves, I crawled into bed that night ready feeling ready to take the test in the morning. I felt confident enough to deliver to the best of my ability and believed that that was going to be enough.
As I got into bed that night, I read a Psalm. The chapter I read was very encouraging and made me feel even calmer and confident. Before going to sleep, I tried to dethrone the devil from having power over me, but he wasn’t finished in his evil ways just yet. He had more traps laid out for me for the next day, but at that moment, nothing was going to prevent me from having a peaceful night sleep.
Monday, the day of my oral test, I went to school and felt completely calm. But, unfortunately, the calmness only lasted until I stepped foot into my class. I had no idea when the test was going to be so I tried to revise my material as much as I could, at the same time as paying attention to my teacher and taking notes.
When I did pay attention, I realized that my teacher was talking about the elements of the oral test. Not only were we going to have to tell the tester our story and situations we had written, but we would also have to answer personal questions. That seemed easy enough, but because I had zero preparation, I started freaking out.
On my break, after revising with my teacher and watching her add MORE to my story, I asked my friends what they had been told about the oral test. They told me that they had been given a piece of paper with all the questions the tester would ask. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and asked if I could see the page, but couldn’t concentrate on the words because I was stressing out so much.
As the clock kept winding around, I was getting worried that the tester wasn’t going to turn up. My teacher didn’t even know where she was. But alas, she turned up at the end of our first break. After talking with my teacher for a couple of minutes, I got out of my seat and followed her to the testing room.
The first thing we discussed was how long my trip was going to be and how many days I was going to miss. The conclusion wasn’t good. Because I’m not going to be at Ulpan for over three weeks, I do not qualify to take the final exam. But, if I passed my oral test, the tester decided that she’d look passed the days I’d be gone and allow me to take the test.
Almost as soon at the test started, it started to go downhill. The first question she asked me was if I was a male or female. The words seemed so similar to single and married that I kept telling her I was a male, thinking I was saying I was single. (HAHA)
The longer we sat there talking, the more frustrated my tester seemed to get. I thought things were going well after I was able to tell her about my dogs and got through my story with only a few mistakes, but then the nerves really kicked in. When she started asking me questions about the words in my story, I froze. I couldn’t remember anything and had a really hard time with the rest of the test.
After all the memorizing I had done the night before, she didn’t even look at the situations I had written and made me order a pizza without being the other recipient on the phone, it was quite awkward.
By the end of the test, she said she didn’t know what to do because she didn’t know whether to pass or fail me. I told her that it wasn’t fair that I didn’t have enough time to study, but she said that two extra days wouldn’t have helped me. (hmph) When she sent me out of the room, I already knew what the result was going to be.
The end result was as I expected… I didn’t pass. I was quite disappointed but having only one day to study, without all the study materials, I think I did rather well.
The next day, I went to Ulpan still feeling disappointed. Unfortunately, my disappointment only grew when my teacher handed out the sheets of paper with all the personal questions and explanations for the oral test! I felt like I had been treated so unfairly and was very upset at how they had outcasted me.
I didn’t want to feel disappointed. In fact, I didn’t want to allow the devil to win in his attempts to trip me up, so I started looking at the good in this situation. One of the benefits of failing my oral test and not being allowed to take my exam is that I no longer have to study while I’m in America. I will, of course, continue doing the work in my workbook and memorizing words, but I no longer have to go through everything intensely in order to pass the exam, which would’ve taken place the week after I get back.
Like the title say, Something Good Always Comes Out of Something Bad. In this case, I can now have a proper vacation and not have the test nagging at me the entire time I’m away. I’m so excited to be going to America, so I’m not letting this little test result destroy my joy.
As I made the choice to remain joyful, the attacks kept coming. I felt like my teacher wanted to kick me out the class since I had no ‘purpose’ being there, the people at ulpan seemed to ignore my existence, and my boss seems likes she wants to corrupt my innocence. I must be on the right track because the devil hasn’t ceased in trying to attack me from every angle.
The day after taking my oral test, I think my teacher was shocked to see me in class. To her, it’s worthless to continue my studies because I can no longer take the final exam. I hate how this world is so wrapped up in tests and grades, and not the benefits of the lessons. She made me feel very unwelcome when she questioned why I wanted to continue studying even though I couldn’t take the exam, but I shrugged it off and continued going for the rest of the week.
When you don’t have similar interests with people, they seem to lose interest in you. Now that I’ve taken the oral test and leaving for America, the people in my class no longer included me in the class studies. I want to say I didn’t mind, but truthfully it did sting. I’ve been outcasted so many times by kids and teens that I thought it would be different with adults, but I guess not.
The other attack I had occurred at work. My boss is constantly trying to figure my family out, but at the same time as doing that, it seems as though she wants to corrupt my innocence. I absolutely love my job, but I don’t appreciate that she’s making it her goal to slowly lead me astray from my family’s beliefs.
My boss is always asking me questions about my faith and tries to see if I am the one making the decisions or if I’m being controlled by my parents. The other day, she asked when I was going to act like a normal teenager and rebel. I told her that I had my rebellious stage last year, and she seemed to love the fact that I had lied and deceived my parents.
It’s hard to have people tell me to rebel against my parents and to make my own decisions because I don’t want to go back to the way I was last year. My parents are the most important people in my life, keeping me grounded in all the occurrences that go on in my life, I can’t imagine turning into a rebellious teenager again.
While I remain single and unmarried, my dad is the head over me and has the right to talk to me about a decision before I go off and make it. This job is definitely testing my maturity and how much I am influenced by others. I want to continue to shine my light to the people at my job and show them that I am set in my ways and won’t rebel against what the Bible says.
Just this weekend my parents and I made the decision that I will be staying part time at my job, so I can continue learning how to edit and use my dad’s camera equipment.
Thankfully, I didn’t have time to dwell on my decision and how my boss was gaining to react this weekend, as we had to prepare for a group of twenty coming to our house for Shabbat. Having the whole family help prepare for the tour made the day very enjoyable.
My grandparents and I were in the kitchen preparing food, while my mom and dad cleaned the house and studio area. It was a lot of fun experimenting with different ingredients and flavors as we made blueberry muffins, mini jam donuts, and coleslaw. My grandparents were a great help!
When Shabbat came, I tried to find the time to do all the thing I wanted to and was amazed at what I accomplished. After going on a walk with my mom, I cooled off in the pool for a bit. At the same time as walking and chillnig, I was downloading movies for the plane (I feel a Fast & Furious marathon coming on). Then, I started writing this blog since I knew I wouldn’t have time today as I had to pack for the States and go to work!
Shabbat went by smoothly, even though the tour decided to arrive thirty minutes earlier than we had said. Thankfully, the group was made up of a great crowd. Everyone was super friendly and couldn’t wait to look around and get in the pool.
I only knew two people on the tour, my friend Ryan and his dad. We’ve known each other for over three years now and have a great time whenever we’re together. Once we get into the flow, it’s hard to stop me and Ryan from talking to one another. We get along very well and could talk consistently throughout the day.
It was encouraging to have Ryan and the others come over for Shabbat. I felt like my love tank was filled up with the great company. If I wasn’t going to America, their visit would definitely would’ve given me enough boost to last me an extra couple weeks.
Just being around English speakers and having great conversations was so refreshing. I never had to slow down or stop to explain things every couple of minutes. I absolutely loved it!
When everyone left, it was hard to say goodbye, and nobody wanted to leave. I think Ryan and I hugged and said goodbye at least twice. We had all enjoyed each other’s company so much that the party could’ve kept going for the rest of the night!
Now, the new week begins and my excitement for my trip is only increasing. I cannot wait to wake up in a couple of hours and get on the place to fly to America. I’ve missed my friends so much, and this is definitely a much-needed vacation! I can’t wait to share my adventures with you all and keep you updated on the happening of my trip.
I have a feeling this is going to be an awesome week, and will only get better as the day progress. I hope everyone who is reading this was encouraged by what I had to say. Sorry I go on for so long, but thank you for making it this far. I guess the only thing that’s left to say is, “Write to you from the other side.”