The Amazing Race

Have you ever watched the Amazing Race? I loved that show – I thought it was totally awesome, but I never really wanted to be a contestant. I thought many of the contestants were terribly rude and insensitive of the people and cultures they encountered and for all of their traveling they seemed to learn surprisingly little about the places they went. And their planning! They were often terribly ill prepared for the situations they found themselves in. It was fun to watch, if for no other reason than to think, “I will never travel like that. Ever.”

Now for my confession: I was that person today. I felt terrible about it, too. Today was our field study to Samaria and our class rents a bus and we go out looking just like tourists – but tourists with notebooks and lots of old maps. The bus left at 7:00 AM. My roommate and I were not on it. We had both set alarms on our phones, the typical way of waking up, and assumed we would wake up to the ringing of both alarms at 6:15 AM. We woke up at the same time – but it was at 7:45 AM. Both our phones had died in the night (mine was on the charger but the charger wasn’t plugged in!) The sun looked way too high in the sky to be 6 AM. Oh, no. We missed the bus – we missed the all day field study – we missed the bus! Everyone on campus was gone.

So we threw on clothes, figured out where to find a taxi, grabbed some breakfast and were out the door. Riane (my roommate) had charged her phone enough in the ensuing panic to be able to call our professor and figure out where to meet them if we could get there within the hour. My phone still doesn’t make calls in Israel. We stopped the first taxi we saw and asked him how much to drive to Shiloh, intending to barter the price down a bit. But this taxi driver, the only taxi in sight, spoke no English. The first person I have met in Israel who speaks no English at all. So we hop in and start driving – and then realize by his phone call to someone else that he doesn’t know where Shiloh is- and we didn’t either. We had no address, just a copy of an ancient map with the word “Shiloh” printed on it in English. Eventually it got figured out and Riane says, “Okay good. The faster we can get there, the better. Fast, fast, fast.” I add, “To-da’ ” – thank you in Hebrew, the only Hebrew word I know other than ‘excuse me’. Apparently he was familiar with the word “fast”.

We were making good time and I started to relax. The drive would cost us 300 shekels ($75) but we would still make it to class. I dug around in my bag for my water bottle and realized I was missing something – an important something. I didn’t have my wallet. I had left it on the counter where I made my breakfast sandwich. I have never, ever, lost my wallet. What a day for firsts.

Riane – thank God! – had enough to cover the entire cab fare and her phone lasted long enough to find our class. We found our bus, found our class, missed very little of the day (but didn’t get to see ancient Shiloh), got to see Shechem, Mt. Gerizim (the Samaritan’s holy mountain), a Samaritan synagogue, and ancient Samaria itself. But upon reflection, I realize this day could have ended up entirely differently. I was in a taxi cab going across the country into the West Bank in search of a bus. I had no usable language skills, no cell phone, and no money. I was that awful contestant on The Amazing Race, only I had no camera crew to back me up if I got into trouble. Praise God for his protection, his providence, his mercies.