And just like that, it's over!

Our internship officially ended this past Thursday. Jordan and I spent our last week in the Commission working endlessly to put together our research into a presentable and detailed report and presentation. We enjoyed our last week speaking to members of the Commission and wrapping up our 6 week project. On Thursday, we had the pleasure to present our findings to members of the Commission and Israel Elwyn, which went great. We were a bit nostalgic to say goodbye but nonetheless grateful of this amazing opportunity. After our presentation, the Commission was kind enough to present us with a few tokens of appreciation for us to remember our contribution in Israel.

A little gift from the Commission and Israel Elwyn

Now that we are down to our last few days, Jordan and I took it upon ourselves to explore the rest of Jerusalem which we have not seen yet. We visited the Israel Museum which was a great and very insightful trip. We also re-visited the Old City a few more times and its many sacred sights, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which holds the tomb of Jesus. 

A recreated Synagogue from the Israel Museum

The tomb of Jesus

We are down to our last two days and are enjoying every second of this trip before we have to part ways. Soon we will be in America retelling our journey. We are excited to go home and look forward to helping out the students for next year's trip!

Israel, it's been great. 

Time Is Flying By!

Our second to last week in Israel has been extremely eventful. Although some of our friends and family have been concerned over recent events happening in the region, Daniel and I feel extremely extremely safe where we are living and working. 

This week we concluded our work at Elwyn in Jerusalem. We had the opportunity to visit the Knesset and Hadassah Hospital to see supported employment programs. I was very impressed with the program at the Knesset because the people with disabilities were considered full employees of the Knesset and most had been there for an extended period of time. At the end of our time at Elwyn, we had the opportunity to learn more about their LAHAV program which works to transition people from sheltered employment to supported employment. We were unable to find many programs like it but thought it was a great program and look forward to see how it develops in the future. On Wednesday, we returned to the Commission. Everyone was excited that we were back and was curious as to what we had been doing for the past week and a half!

This week we also had an opportunity to spend time with Rivka! She took us to see another beautiful overlook of Jerusalem and an old Windmill. We are always finding new places in Jerusalem that we did not know existed. On Friday, Daniel and I visited Mt. Hertzl, a war cemetery and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum. Both of these places are extremely beautiful but extremely sad.

We have a little over one week left and quite a bit of work to accomplish and many sites left to see!

Hertzl's Tomb

Mt. Hertzl Cemetery 

A statue At Yad Vashem

A Great Overlook of Jerusalem!