Day 24 - Goodby Jordan, Goodbye Israel

I love the Israeli airport security personnel! It’s true, I had great experiences with just about everyone that I ran into today. But before I get to that I’ll give some impressions of Jordan and Israel.

Jordan…Jordan is full of really, really nice people, which is kind of like saying that a girl has a great personality. Just about everyone in Jordan was incredibly friendly and accommodating, almost no one spoke English, but everyone was friendly. The Marriot was incredible, everyone there was amazingly friendly and helpful. At breakfast yesterday when one of the guys there found out that we were driving to Petra he ran off to pack us up some fruit, some pastries and some water from breakfast to take with us to have for lunch as we drove. Almost everyone there was like that, the went above and beyond to help us.

That being said I thought that Jordan would be more western and more cosmopolitan than it was. Jordan was a lot more like Egypt than Dubai, and I didn’t expect that. There were a lot of really poor people a lot of Bedouins shepherding goats and living in tents, a lot of people selling vegetable from makeshift stands next to the highway.

Traffic in Jordan was not fun, I was glad Dad was driving. People seem to consider lanes more as suggestions than as rules there. I saw more than one car drive down the freeway (two lane) centered over the dotted line. It would be hard to make the street signs more confusing and still have a system to them. Some of the signs I never figured out. I saw signs on the freeway that simply had an “x” on them. I saw others that just had a “!”. Sometimes the “!” signs would be coupled with another sign so that it would say something like “camel!” or “two people holding hands!” I started to take a picture of one once, but I stopped when I realized it said “military checkpoint!” (military folks typically don’t like it when you take pictures of checkpoints).

Jerash (Gerassa) was really cool. Mount Nebo was cool. I think that the place where Jacob wrestled God would have been awesome if we could have gotten there. Petra was a bit of a disappointment, I had heard that it was so incredibly amazing that I expected to be blown away and I wasn’t. I sure my reaction has something to do with the seven hours round trip driving that we did as well as the fact that the entrance fee was literally five times as much as anywhere else we went.

Even with the really nice people, Jordan still felt like a place where everything kind of depends on who you know. There didn’t seem to be a set way of doing things, everything kind of had an Egyptian, “my friend, let’s sit down and talk” feel to it. (But the people were way less pushy and more genuine than people in Egypt.) Jordan is the kind of place where a lot of stuff just doesn’t make sense to people from the west.

Israel…Israel is a place where things do make sense. It is a country that was born out of the holocaust, it is a country where 40 years ago (20 years after the holocaust) all of its neighboring countries prepared to simultaneously attack it in order to “push Israel into the sea.” Since then they had suicide bombers walk into restaurants and cafes and kill innocent people. People in the cities bordering Lebanon used to sleep in bomb shelters because they never knew when Hezbollah would launch the next rockets into their town.

In light of all this, the security stuff in Israel makes sense. They are especially careful with everyone who has been to a country they are not on friendly terms with. (there is official peace with Jordan, but relations are not great. I have a Jordanian road map that has the west bank and half of Jerusalem within the borders of Jordan.) I don’t like how things are with the Palestinians, but I’m not sure what Israel could do differently and still protect its citizens. I’m actually amazed at their passion for this land and their willingness to face all kinds of danger to keep it.

That being said, Israel is not a good country towards Christians. Christian tourists are one thing but Christians living here are another. It is illegal to proselytize to people 18 and under, and there is an actually anti-missionary organization that is trying to make it illegal to proselytize at all. The anti-missionary group has deep ties with the state department and works to make it very difficult for Christians to get visas to live and work in Israel. Our teacher in Israel, Todd, is back in the states working on a PhD because he was deported from Israel. In fact the people at the church we visited said that the number one thing that we could pray for was that people could get and keep their visas. Life is even more difficult for Jewish Christians in Israel. A Jewish Christian cannot emigrate to Israel, and if a Jew in Israel converts to Christianity there is a good chance that their Rabbi will denounce them which typically results divorce with their spouse and shunning from everyone else.

As for my time here today…my battery is running low and I’ve got the wrong adapter with me (Jordan uses the British plug, I forgot to change it back to the European plug that Israel uses.) The people in Israel today were awesome. I went to the transit desk after I arrived from Jordan, and they decided that the easiest thing for me to do was to exit like I was leaving the country, grab my bags and then check in like I just got the airport. Then the transit desk guy walked me down to baggage claim (taking me through the staff passport line, which was super fast) and warning me to expect some questioning from security because I was coming from Jordan. We even talked about LA a little bit (he’s been to Disneyland, he thought the one in Paris was a little more authentic looking.) Then the security girls were really nice, one even gave me bubble wrap when she was looking through my luggage to wrap my starbucks mugs in (after she tested them to make sure they weren’t bombs). And when I got to the ticket desk I found out that I had a window seat! I was positive I would have a middle seat. I even called El-Al yesterday morning to try to get a window seat and the lady on line told me that there wasn’t any left. So when I got my window seat…best surprise ever.

It’s funny how expectations can change experiences. Today I expected to be seriously questioned, have my bags searched, and have everything I am carrying tested for bomb residue. In knew that it wasn’t anything personal, the people here would just be trying to keep everyone safe. So when all of that stuff happened, I was ready for it and had a really good time with it.

I’m almost out of juice here so I think it’s about time I sign off. Thanks taking the time to read about what has been three of the best weeks of my life. I had an amazing time in Israel and a great time with Dad. I’m sure this blog was boring at times and for that I apologize, blame lack of sleep and my limited writing abilities for that, the trip itself has been amazing.

Until next time…Shalom.

Day 23 - Petra

(Dad and I in Petra)

Petra, Petra Petra…Petra was…cool. I’ll be honest, there is definitely a “once you’ve seen one giant temple facade cut into the rock, you’ve seen them all” effect at Petra. The things are cool, and the canyon that you walk through to get there is cool, but a lot of them look pretty much the same. What’s impressive about the place is its sheer size. Petra is really, really big. There were a couple of times when we thought that w had seen everything and then we walked around a corner, or looked over a hill and saw that the city stretched out a lot farther than we thought it did.

(part of the entrance canyon)

(The treasury, in indiana jones, this is where the holy grail was. It might still be there, we weren't allowed inside.)

Most of the facades have been worn down by erosion, so they weren’t as impressive as they used to be, but the stone that they were cut into was pretty incredible looking. It was layered in a way that made it look like cool wood grain. (or marble, but I don't think it was marble)

(The inside of one of the biggest royal tombs. You can see how cool the rock is here.)

If you are into hikes Petra is a cool place to go, it looks like there were a bunch of different places that you could hike around and see different stuff. We went up to see the monastery, which is at the far western end of the city. We had to climb 800 steps to get up there, but if there is anything that the last three weeks has prepared me for, it is hiking up stairs.

(The monastery, look close and you can see a person standing right at the base of the doorway.)

The monastery was cool, it looked a lot like the treasury, but you could go inside of it. (you couldn’t get inside of the treasury) These facades are so big and impressive but the insides are pretty small. I think that most of the facades were tombs, I guess that you don’t need to a very big inside if all it is going to be is a tomb. It was a little weird to be at a city like that and see all the places where they buried people, but not be able to see where the people themselves actually lived. There is only one standing building that is left in Petra, it is part of what may have been the main temple there, no houses or any other buildings are left.

Petra was all that we did today, it took us three and a half hours to get down there and three and a half to get back, and I’m pretty wiped out. We had good weather today, which was nice, Petra would have been awful yesterday in the rain, and tomorrow it’s supposed to snow down there.

Tomorrow I head back to the US (although it will be a long, long trip) and dad heads back to Bahrain. I’ll try to post one more time from the airport in Israel, assuming that I have my computer. (you never know with el-al)

So until then, thanks for reading.

Day 22 - Jerash and some off the beaten path exploration

(Gerassa)

When we went to bed last night, we were in the middle of a pretty serious thunderstorm and when we woke up this morning, it was still raining. That is good news for the people in Israel (it was raining over there too) and the people here in Jordan. Our waiter at the steakhouse we ate at tonight (I won’t tease you by telling you how good it was) told us that it has been the biggest storm they've had in three years.

Since it was raining we decided not to make the long drive down to Petra today (it will take about three hours to get there). Instead we decided to do what we were planning on doing on Tuesday, head up to Jerash (ancient Gerassa) and then try to find the place where Jacob wrestled with God.

(a much better sign for Gerassa than the actual one)

We got a little bit turned around on our way up to Jerash (highway detour = 1 hour of being completely lost.) Jordan isn’t the most friendly place for non-Arabic speakers (or readers) to drive. We had a map, but while the road numbers are in English numbers on the map, the numbers are rarely in English on the signs. We made it out to Jerash eventually, but it took longer than it could have if we knew where we were going or if roads were consistenly marked. When we finally made there we were wondering how we were going to be able to find the archeological site. We had a hard enough time finding the modern city where everyone lived, how were we going to find the ancient one? Fortunately it is gigantic and the main road runs right next to it. Which is good because the sign for the parking lot and ticket office said, “Crafts center parking.” And then in small letters, “(archeological site)”. I think the craft center was the gift shop.


Gerassa was a really cool site, it was huge. Dad had never seen a Roman city before, and this one was a great one to start with. He said he thought it was as cool as the pyramids in Egypt. It took us three hours to walk through the site. It had two theaters, a hippodrome (for horseracing), temples to Zeus and to Artemis (which were later turned into churches) and some great, great roads. It is funny with all that cool stuff that is still there, it is the roads and the sewage systems of these Roman cities that I think are the most incredible. There were circular stones in the road that I think were kind of like ancient manhole covers (or maybe drains). You could see a few feet of empty space under the street through some cracks and the water still drained into them pretty well. I’m amazed that the stones of the streets haven’t collapsed into sewer yet.

(One of the super awesome streets. Lots of pictures of Gerassa, I know, but give me a break, this was the only dry part of the day.)

After we left Jerash we tried to make it down to ancient Succoth and Penuel and Mahanaim. Bill Shlegel at Ibex (the group we went through in Israel) gave me directions at his house the other night. He said that from the Dead Sea, you take the road that runs alongside the Jordan River north to a city called Dayr Allah, which is where the ancient city Succoth was and where the Jabbok river runs into the Jordan. Up the Jabbok from Dayr Allah are the two tell’s of Penuel and Mahanaim. Where the Jabbok river cuts through the mountains is probably the pass that Jacob took when he came back into the promised land. Mahanaim is the place where Jacob wrestled with God, and somewhere between Penuel and Succoth is where Esau intercepted Jacob before he made it back into the promised land.

Dad and I decided that we would try to make it to Dayr Allah from Jerash, so we would have to cut through the mountains and drop down into the Jordan rift valley north of Dayr Allah then head into the city from the north side. That sound like a simple scenario, but without highway numbers it was more on the exciting side. It took us through a pretty mountainous hilly area of Jordan and through a lot of small towns where I’m pretty sure tourists never go.

So we drove through these small (and pretty poor) towns listening to the Rolling stones and Grand Funk Railroad, trying to matchup anything we saw written in English with stuff on our map. Somehow we made it down to just north of Dayr Allah without incident, rain and sometimes really thick fog not withstanding.

Eventually we made it down the Jordan and then to south to Dayr Allah. Dayr Allah was another place that doesn’t see tourists, the roads were full of people selling vegatables (there are hundreds and hundreds of greenhouses and gardens in this part of Jordan. After some driving back and forth (and crossing through a military checkpoint a couple of times,) we found the Jabbok river and started to work our way up towards where the two tells are. There wasn’t an easy road back there, we just kind of pointed ourselves east and tried to keep the gap in the hills (caused by the river) in front of us. We drove back far enough that I think I saw the first of the two tells about a quarter mile in front of us, then we hit another military checkpoint. There are a ton of military checkpoints in Jordan, I bet in our two days here we have driven through 20 military checkpoints, and in almost all of them when they see that we are white guys driving a rental car they wave us through. Here they did not. They asked us where we were going. Not many people here speak English, including the guys at the military checkpoints, so when they asked neither of us where quite sure how to say, “we are trying to find the unexcavated tels of Mahanaim and Penuel.” Dad looked at me and I looked at the guard and said, “we are looking for two archeological tells…” The soldier continued to look at me so I kept talking, “…they are like hills that ancient cities are buried under…” At that point the soldier said, “passports please” and asked us to pull of the side of the road. Apparently I gave him the wrong answer.

The soldiers had us pull our car over and open the trunk. He looked at our passports, looked through our trunk and our car and then asked us again where we were trying to go. At this point we decided that better be dumb tourists so we took our road map and asked them how to get to the Dead Sea. They gave us back our passports and pointed us back down the road that we came from. At that point the military guys became pretty friendly, dad told them the eight words that he knows in Arabic and they enjoyed that. One of the guys introduced himself to us, Faraz, and then they waved us goodbye. I think that ultimately they were trying to help us, they just didn’t see any possible reason that tourists would want to go down the road that we were trying to go down. Or maybe they were keeping us from trying to blow up the dam that was further upriver. Either way, we weren't able to make it up to the tells. So we went back down to Dayr Allah then headed back south to our hotel at the dead sea.

And that was it for today. There is still a pretty serious storm going on outside. Hopefully it rains hard all night and then clears up tomorrow, but even if it doesn't we'll be headed down to Petra in the morning.

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 21 - Mt. Nebo and the Dead Sea Marriot

(The pool at our hotel)

(sunset over the dead sea)

Here is my post from last night. I actually fell asleep before I could get it posted. It's a short post, yesterday was pretty light (which was nice). We're off to Petra here pretty quickly, which should be a fun day.Well I finally made it to Jordan. While I understand the security stuff in Israel, it was nice to make it through visa and customs stuff in less than fifteen minutes.

When I bought my visa, the guy told me to go over and line up in line one. Who was line one for? VIP’s and Investors. Sometimes the American passport is really nice.

Dad got there to pick me up right as I walked through, so the timing was perfect.

The hotel was about 45 minutes from the airport but we made a little detour on our way to go see Mt. Nebo. Mt. Nebo was the place where God took Moses to look out over the promised land before he died, and then where he was buried. It was a little hazy today so we couldn’t quite see all the way across the Jordan rift valley, but we could see a good portion of the rift valley and Dad was really excited to see Jericho.

(The view from the top of Mt. Nebo, I'm guessing it was a little bit clearer when Moses was up here.)

After that we were going to go look at the Bethany beyond the Jordan site that some people think that Jesus was baptized in, but there is really no way of knowing exactly where that spot was. We actually drove up there, but the whole thing felt too much like a Egyptian tourist trap (even though we were in Jordan). A guy came up to us and told us that we had to take a shuttle to the site, that we couldn’t walk. He told us that he would be our guide, that the tour would take an hour and that the next shuttle would be there to get us in half an hour. The prospect of spending the next hour and a half at the mercy of our self appointed tour guide pretty much decided it for us so we turned around and left.

Then it was on to the Marriot at the Dead Sea. Once we got here our day pretty much ended. I won’t bore you with the details, but it mostly involved really good food, naps and sitting out on the patio looking at the sunset and then lightning storm (it actually rained a little bit.) Tomorrow we are headed off to Petra, which will take up pretty much the whole day (it’s a pretty long drive). Until then, thanks for reading.

Day 21 - Ben Guryion Airport

Life is full of lessons. That sounds familiar to type so I wonder if I have mentioned it before. The lesson that I learned today is why you are supposed to get to the airport three hours early for an international flight.

It is currently 5:54 am in Jerusalem and I just got to my gate. I got here at 4:00 am. I bet I spent a total of 15 minutes waiting in line between walking in the front door and walking here, the rest of the time was spent talking to security people, running my bags through x-ray machines, having my bags checked and tested for explosives, finding out that I have a total weight limit for my luggage (and finding out that I am over it) and paying the overweight fee. The people here were really nice in an Israeli way. They are serious people, but they will smile a little bit if you are friendly and keep talking to them. Sometimes they will even chat back.

At the airport here you have to go through a security check (a person who checks through your passport and talks to you about why you were in Israel, a longer question and answer process for me than at other places.) After that you run all of your bags through an x-ray, then you go through a security check where they look through your bags and compare them to what the x-ray read. I’m not sure if this check is for everyone or just for me. During that time I found out that my cord for my laptop wasn’t able to travel with any of my bags, they put it in a separate box, and because of that box I had an Israeli security person who walked around with me for what I’m sure they thought would be a short trip but it ended up being a rather long one. When I went up and checked in they weighed all of my bags and told me that they were over the total weight limit (the counter lady was nice and knocked off a few extra kilos) and I told me that I had to check one of the bags I was going to carry on (it was too heavy) and that I needed to go pay the extra fee. Since I was going to check a new bag, I had to take that bag back to the security point and they needed to search it more thoroughly and give it a different security “ok”.

Then we went to the line where you pay the overweight fee (which wasn’t that much, $21), which actually had a pretty long line. At that point the guy who was escorting me and carrying the box with my computer cord in it checked his watch and realized that he was supposed to be somewhere else at that point, so he apologized (he was pretty friendly and actually pretty funny). Took me back to the security desk, where I waited a few minutes for someone else to be available to escort me around and carry the box with my computer cord. Lucky for me my new escort ended up being a cute girl who took me back to the “pay for being too heavy” line then over to the ticket counter where I could finally get my boarding pass. Then she walked me over to a big elevator where she waited to put on the box with my computer cord, gave me tips on where not to shop in the mall (unsolicited, I think she was warming up to me) then she sent me on my way.

After that it was just the regular security checks, bag checks, and passport checks until I got here to my gate.

This is a bit of a goodbye to Israel. I’ll be here for about seven hours when I fly back later this week (hopefully that will be enough time to make it through the airport security check and the El-Al security check.) Assuming that my computer cord arrives with me, my next post will be from the Dead Sea Marriot in Jordan. And I promise, that one will include pictures.

Day 20 - Last day in Israel

Bad internet again last night. Good internet (fast and free) at the airport this morning though. Here is yesterday's post.

I write tonight with a heavier heart than usual. Today was the last day of our trip. A few hours ago I said goodbye to friends new and old and waved goodbye to the bus as it drove away. This has been an absolutely wonderful three weeks, I learned so much, I had a serious amount of fun, and I really enjoyed the people that I was fortunate enough to spend time with.

After the bus drove away Bill, who runs the program here in Israel that we went through, IBEX, invited me and Janette (another “deviator” like me, she is flying out to Greece in the morning) down to his house to sit and chat for a little while before we called it a night. We met his wife and one of their kids, and we met two of their spring semester students who just arrived today. Bill and his wife were incredibly friendly and hospitable, and Bill even gave me directions to see a really cool place in Jordan when I get there (the place where Jacob wrestled with God).

But enough for what went on tonight, I’ll give you the rundown of what our last day in Israel was like. This morning we had two tests, a test on the northern areas that we were in this week (Galilee and the other places up there) and our final, which was a regions and routes final. For the final Todd gave us a passage of scripture and we would look it up and then have to mark what region the event occurred in or what route the people took. I did well on the final and pretty well on the earlier test. I do make dumb mistakes on tests from time to time and I made one on the first test today. The first question was, “Caesarea was built by (blank).” I thought that was a strange question, but I answered it with what I thought the best answer was and put, “slaves.” The actual answer was Herod the Great, which makes a lot more sense than slaves.

After the tests we bussed into Jerusalem for our last free day in the Old City. We said goodbye to the world’s greatest bus driver, Joel, who has really taken care of us the last few weeks. He interpreted for us whenever we stopped for lunch, he helped us out with all kinds of extra things, he invited us to his house for dinner and he introduced us to his family. Joel, our Bedouin bus driver, was absolutely wonderful.

In the old city my friends Derek and Rebecca and I wandered around and actually got a fair amount done. First we went back to the church of the Holy Sepulcher, to spend a little bit more time taking the place in and thinking about what Jesus did there (that is where he probably died on the cross and rose from the dead.) It was good to spend more time there, it was kind of crowded but it was still good.

After that we went to lunch. We went to the same pizza place that we went to last week; it is in the Christian quarter of the old city and just makes great pizza. I don’t know when I will get a chance to have their Arabic Cheese pizza again (I’m not even sure what kind of cheese they use), so it was good to have it one more time.
After that we climbed to the top of the tower of the Lutheran church. It was another beautiful day, 70 degrees, brilliant blue skies with no clouds, so we had a great view of the city when we got to the top.

After that we did a little bit of shopping (actually the shopping lasted for a while) then Derek and I headed off to get one last look at the western wall, especially on Shabbat (Sabbath). It was still pretty early in the afternoon so it wasn’t very full yet, but as we stood there looking at the western wall and the temple mount we realized that the first night that we were in Jerusalem a bunch of us went over to the western wall and looked out at it from the same place we were looking at it. It was a good bookend to the trip to begin it and to end it by looking at the temple mount. There is so much history, so much passion, and so much tension tied up in the temple mount that in many ways looking at it is like looking at Israel. It reminds you of what this country used to be and what it is now and the different dynamics that have played out here over the millennia.
When we got back to the hotel we packed up, had dinner and then had our departure party. There were many more performances tonight, some that were absolutely amazing, especially a quartet that sang in Korean and English, they were unbelievably good.

After the party the goodbyes began. The first to leave were Todd, our teacher, and the Broscious family (husband, wife and two great boys) who were flying to Dallas. And after they left and the bus arrived it was time for the rest of the goodbyes.
And that was it for today. Tomorrow morning I have a 2:45 am wake up call, and need to be up by the reception desk by 3:15, and at 3:30 there will be a shared ride van (fortunately we’re the last stop) that will pick up Janette and I and take us to the airport. After that I’ll be off to Jordan for a few days to see dad and a few more sights before I head on home.

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 19 - travelling back down to Jerusalem

I've had internet trouble the last few days so I haven't posted anything, but here is what I've typed up. I'm not going to upload any pictures yet, I want to get this stuff posted while my signal is still good.

Well today was our last study day in Israel. After a late start this morning (we didn’t have to leave until 8:30), we headed off to the Jordan river. We came up to a spot that is a kind of commercial spot where people can come and be baptized.

They say that it is near the location that Jesus was baptized, but our teacher Todd is pretty sure that it is too far north for that. I’m sure that the people who run the area that we went to wouldn’t be happy to hear that since they charge three dollars for a small bottle of “holy water” and six for a bigger bottle (the bigger bottle is probably about 8 oz.) The “holy water” is just water from that spot on the Jordan.

The Jordan river looked pretty small. In fact, it didn’t look much bigger than some of the streams that were headwaters of the Jordan. I think that is mainly because the Sea of Galilee is the main freshwater reservoir for Israel, so they take a lot of water out of it and not as much ends up in the Jordan. Although in Biblical times the Jordan wasn’t the most imposing river either. It was never as impressive as the Nile or the Euphrates, but because it runs along a fault line, it runs in a really narrow canyon that in some places are really impassable. So even if it is not imposing, it is still a pretty substantial barrier.

After the Jordan River we went to Beth Shan, which was known as Scythopolis in Jesus time. It was a pretty big and pretty impressive Greek city in Jesus time, it was part of a bunch of Greek cities in the area that were called the Decapolis. It’s funny, after all that time that I spent in Turkey Greece and Rome last year, I feel a little bit like the Greek/Roman city designs are old hat for me. I was definitely more worried about our Beauty and the Beast performance that we did in the theater there than I was about taking notes when we were in the teaching part. The city was cool, it was familiar in some ways, it was pretty big, and even though it was in ruins they have reconstructed enough of it to get a feel for how impressive the city would have been before it was destroyed by a big earthquake.

Our performance in the theater went well. There were five of us and everyone who wasn’t Belle played a bunch of different parts. I have sung the Gaston parts from Beauty and the Beast in the shower plenty of times so I had my Gaston voice down when I was him. It was fun, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I’m glad it’s over and I don’t have to do it again. I spent most of the morning before our performance wondering if I had caught the stomach flu that has been going around or if I was just nervous. Turns out I was just nervous. I felt fine after we were done.
After Beth Shan we went to Ein Harod, which is the spring that Gideon brought his men to when his army dropped from 10,000 men to 300 men. It used to be bigger, I guess there used to be a lake there. Now it is just a little stream, somehow they control how much water runs out through the stream so that there can be a nice park around the spring and not a swamp like there used to be.

And that was it for what we did today. After Ein Harod we drove back to Jerusalem, to Yad Hashmona, where my camera was waiting for me and we checked in for our last night as a group together in Israel. Most everyone else leaves tomorrow night at midnight. I leave at 7:00 am two days from now to meet up with Dad in Jordan for a few days before I head back to the states on the 21st.

Day 18 - The Sea of Galilee

I've had internet trouble the last few days so I haven't posted anything, but here is what I've typed up. I'm not going to upload any pictures yet, I want to get this stuff posted while my signal is still good.

Well, today’s is a little bit late, sorry. As some of you might now from me telling you about our last trip, when we visit a theater (ancient theater), some of the people on the trip perform, singing, a play, reading poetry, things like that. Well last night at dinner (it’s morning here now) someone mentioned that they wanted to do the opening song from Beauty and the Beast, but only if I would sing the Gaston part. Not completely in my right mind, I replied, “absolutely, let’s do it.” So I spent most of the time that I would have written or posted last night practicing. I am wondering a little bit what I was thinking when I agreed to sing, by myself, in front of people.

Sickness is still going around some, we had more people throw up a few night nights ago and yesterday three or four people stayed home. Which is too bad because yesterday was a really cool day. We spent all of our time around the Sea of Galilee, in places that Jesus visited or in places where people think that he visited.

A quick itinerary for yesterday is: The sowers cove (where Jesus may have given the parable of the sower), Capernaum (where Jesus lived during his ministry years), the Mt. of Beatitudes (the traditional site of the sermon on the mount), Tiberius, the Jesus boat (a boat that was found that is from the time of Jesus. It is a fishing boat from the first century AD and the same size boat that Jesus and his disciples would have used. Chances are it wasn’t their boat though.), a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee (not on the Jesus boat), a place that is probably not Bethsaida, and a place where the pigs didn’t run down the mountainside and into the sea when Jesus sent demons into them.

After that we had a fish dinner (I had cheese pizza) at a restaurant down by the sea. In between our getting back to our place and dinner, I took a quick swim in the Sea of Galilee, I didn’t stay up top when I tried to walk, I sunk right down, but it was really cool. I’ll mention that later.
After dinner we had a worship service down on the beach by the water and then it was Beauty and the Beast rehearsal time for a few hours.
That’s all I have time for today, I’ll try to come back and fill out a little of what we did in some of the places later (the sower’s cove, Mt. of Beatitudes, Capernaum and swimming) as well as add a few pictures. Only two days left in Israel then I’m off to Jordan for a few days to see dad.

As always, thanks for reading.

Day 17 - Rosh Pinna Sill, Huleh Basin, and the Golan Heights

Wow, today was a busy day. Unfortunately, no pictures today, I took some good ones, but the girl whose camera I’m using sometimes has a bit of a stomach bug so I didn’t get the memory card from her today. We had three or four people who threw up last night, if you could pray for them and for the rest of us I would appreciate it. It would be a bummer for everyone to be throwing up on the plane-ride home. I’ll try to post some pictures to today when I get them. Anyway back to our busy day. Here is the itinerary that our teacher Todd gave us when we got on the bus today.
- Chorazin
- Hazor
- Lebanon boarder crossing (just to look at, not cross)
- Lunch
- Dan
- Caesarea Philippi
- Slopes of Mt. Hermon
- The Golan Heights near the Syrian boarder

It was a full day but we fit everything in. It is interesting, these places (except for Chorazin) were all places that were up in the northernmost part of the country, and some of them were only mentioned in the bible a few times. Chorazin and Caeserea Philippi were only mentioned once each, and although Hazor was an incredibly massive city it didn’t play as big a role as many of the cities down south.

Chorazin sits near the shores of the sea of Galilee. I think it’s only reference is when Jesus says, “Woe to you Chorazin! woe to you Bethsaida! For if the mighty works that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.” Chorazin seems to have been a city that was part of the region where Jesus spent a large amount of time during his ministry. The most striking thing about Chrorazin is that all of the buildings are made out of basalt, a black volcanic stone. There some extinct volcanoes in the upper Galilee region and in the Golan Heights, and as a result of that there is a lot of black volcanic rock around here that people used to build their cities with.

After Chorazin was Hazor. Hazor maybe the largest Canaanite city in the promised land during the time of Joshua’s conquest. Its tel is massive, something like 200 acres, but only a small part of that is excavated. One of the cool things that we saw at Hazor, is something that we saw at Gezer and at Megiddo, city gates. It says in the Bible that there are three cities that Solomon fortified, Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. At all three of these cities archeologists have found gates in the walls that are all triple chamber gates (if you care enough about what those are, ask me when I get home) of a similar design and they pretty much have the same dimensions. And they all date from the same time, Solomon’s time. It’s cool to see archeology match up with what we know from the Bible, and it is cool to see an expansion of what was meant when it says Solomon fortified those towns. At least part of it involved fortifying the walls and making the gates more defensible.

After Hazor we went up to the northern most tip of Israel and looked out at a couple of sites that we couldn’t drive to because they were in Lebanon. The northern part if Israel is really pretty, as is the southern part of Lebanon. Most of Israel has been really green in the time that we were here, I guess that is because January is part of the rainy season (it rained a little bit today). In the summer a lot of the green fields and hills that we see will be brown, but I think that some of the places that we saw today are green year round.

For lunch I had Macdonalds, part of the reason was because the back patio of this Macdonalds sits just beyond one of the three source springs of the Jordan river. Most of the springs that I know about are little mountains springs in Colorado that are just little trickles. These springs that are the source for the Jordan are like small rivers in themselves. For anyone who has been to Lake City, the river that came from the spring near this Macdonalds is about the size of Henson Creek.

The next place we went to, Dan, is a city that was built near the largest source of the Jordan River. In fact the spring there is the largest spring of its kind in the middle east, it pumps out 240 million cubic feet of water a year. The area of Dan was absolutely beautiful. It had a river running right through the tel (thanks to the spring), and was surrounded by a thick forest of Oak trees and the ground was heavy with green vegetation.

Dan is the city that belonged to the tribe of Dan. Dan was the tribe of Samson, their tribal allotment was down in the Shephelah, but they weren’t able to run the Philistines out of the land so they decided to go look for somewhere new, they found a city in the northernmost part of the promised land, that had lots of water, great natural resources, and was kind of isolated from any neighbors so they decided to go up there, kill everyone and live there. On their way up there they decided to bring some idols up there with them so that they could have their own gods to worship when they got there.

After Solomon died and God split the kingdom into two, the ten tribes in the North and the two tribes in the south, Jeraboam (king in the north) was afraid that if people went to Israel to worship they would turn against him so he made two golden calves for the Israelites of the northern kingdom to worship, put one in Bethel and put one in Dan. Archeologists have found the high place in Dan where the golden calf was and even part of the altar that they made sacrifices on. They reconstructed the altar out of a metal frame and it is gigantic. I measured it out and it is about sixteen feet wide, sixteen feet long and eight feet tall.

After Dan we went to Caesarea Philippi. The only mention of Caesarea Philippi in the Bible is when it says that Jesus was in the region of Caesarea Philippi when Jesus went up on a mountain with Peter, James, and John and the transfiguration happened. The mountain near Caesarea Philippi is Mt. Herman. It is the largest mountain in Israel and is snow capped year round. Caesarea Philippi is also the home of the third source spring of the Jordan. The spring used to come right out of a cave so people built a bunch of pagan temples there to different gods, in the cave they worshiped Pan, god of the wild places, and there is some evidence that there were some human sacrifices that went on there. It rained when we were there, but it was really beautiful there, at the base of Mt. Herman. I got some great pictures of the river there. I even saw some fish rise on the river there and I skipped a going to the bathroom to try to get a better look at them but I wasn’t ever able to get a good look at them.

After Caesarea Philippi we stopped for a great view (the rain had stopped) in the Golan heights, then we drove out and looked down on the Syrian border from the Golan Heights. At that point we were only 35 miles from Damascus. We were actually looking along the direction that the road would have gone when Paul was travelling to Damascus. We read the story of Jesus appearing to Paul on his trip and then we got on the bus and headed back to our resort on the Sea of Galilee. No swimming/attempting to walk on water for me today, it was too cold today, but don’t worry, I’ll try it before we leave.

In case you are interested, today’s mystery candies were, a chocolate bar that was filled with pop rocks, and some kind of red, yellow, green and white candy that when you ate it felt like a mouth full of sugar but not as good.

Tomorrow we will be around the Sea of Galilee (and even on it for a while). Until then, thanks for reading.

Day 16 - The Jezreel Valley and Nazareth

While yesterday started out poorly, today started out well. We got a call from Yad HaShmona saying that they have my camera and they will hold onto it for me so I can get it when we get back there on Friday. That was very good news.

In the meantime, one of the girls on our trip has let me borrow her camera from time to time so that I can take some picture while we are up here in the north.

Today we stayed pretty focused on the Jezreel valley. What is important about the Jezreel valley you ask? Ok, I’ll tell you. The Jezreel valley is a kind of giant crossroads in Israel, anyone going north or south to Egypt, to Mesopotamia, to Damascus, to Greece will pass through the Jezreel valley. There were a ton of important stuff that happened in the Jezreel valley. It is where Saul went to visit the witch of en-dor, it is where Saul fought his last battle and committed suicide, it is where Ahab’s body ended up and dogs licked up his blood, it is where Jezabel was thrown from the window of a tower and was eaten by dogs, it is where Deborah and Baruk (book of Judges) defeated one of the –ites that were oppressing Israel. It is where Gideon was from, and where all the Gideon stuff happened. It is where Elisha raised a woman’s son from the dead, and it is where Jesus raised a widow’s son from the dead. It also sits between Mt. Carmel (where Elijah faced off against the prophets of Ba’al, and the Nazareth ridge, where (you guessed it) Nazareth is.

(In the courtyard to what may have been the stables in Mediggo)

Our first stop today was Megiddo (Armageddon means mountains of Megiddo) Megiddo is the city that guards the best pass through the Mt. Carmel range, but also the narrowest pass. We looked at some different stuff from Ahab’s time and from Solomon’s time at Megiddo, and we looked out at the valley of Jezreel and about the different routes that ran through the valley.

After that we went to the city of Jezreel, which is where Jezebel was when her eunics threw her out of a window and dogs ate her. There isn’t much that is visible on the tel (hill that the city is buried under), but we looked out at the valley and talked about the story of Jezebel and Ahab and how they met their demise.

(Looking into the Jezreel valley from Jezreel. Is this what you expected when you thought of the area where Jezebel was thrown from a tower and dogs licked up Ahab's blood?)

It’s funny, I had a comic book Bible when I was a kid that I loved and read a lot. In fact I think that I learned a lot of Bible stories from that comic book Bible. And the story of Ahab and Jezabel were so vivid that I still remember the pictures of dogs lapping up Ahab’s blood and Jezebel getting thrown out of a window. Even though it was for kids they didn’t pull any punches.

After Jezreel we went to lunch, which was pretty good. I have had a request to talk about the food so I will mention a few things here. Honestly the food in Israel is ok. We have had some good stuff to eat at most of the hotels that we’ve stayed in, but we have also had some stuff that was not great. In some ways it is thoroughly Middle Eastern, lots of hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, flat bread and hummus. Most places are Kosher which means no pork and no meat and cheese together (it probably means other things too.) The deserts have been more western, which has surprised me. I expected a lot of baklava, and a lot of honey and nut based desserts, but we have had a lot of chocolate desserts, there has been this cheese thing with honey that I don’t remember the name (but is good) that we have had a couple of times.
In Jerusalem there was a really good pizza place (not kosher) where we had Arabic cheese pizza, which tasted like it was a kind of feta that melted, and a meat pizza, which was like salami and turkey and roast beef.

At Joel’s house yesterday we had little homemade pizzas from a fire oven in the backyard that were made on homemade flat bread, and then you put hummus and tabouli on top.

But far and wide, the most popular food has been Magnums. Whenever we stop at a convenience store or gas station, someone gets on the bus with a Magnum. What is a Magnum? A Magnum is an ice cream bar coated in chocolate. They use good ice cream and good chocolate and sometimes add in fruit or other things. The best one that I had was pretty simple. It was a dark chocolate coating with vanilla ice cream and it was delicious (I had that one at the dead sea). I have also had one that was chocolate outside with chocolate inside and chocolate chunks in the chocolate ice cream. I had one that was called Magnum desire (you have to say desire in a whisper) that was not what I expected, it was white chocolate outside with strawberry icecream, chunks of cherries and raspberry swirl (that one was a little much for me), and I’ve had a plain milk chocolate and ice cream one. Perhaps the most fun food thing has been mystery candy on the afternoon in the bus. On days where we stop and there is a convieniance store I have started to by candy or snack food where the wrapper is completely in Hebrew and the picture gives you no idea of what it is. Then at some point (usually in the afternoon) I open it up and pass it around to the eight or ten people around me count to three and then we all eat it at the same time. Today’s mystery candy ended up tasting like crunch berries from Capitan Crunch. We all kind of wished that we had milk with us.

(Me standing in front of Nazareth.)

Ok, back to our day. After lunch we went to Nazareth. We didn’t spend much time in the city, what was a small village in Jesus time is now a pretty large city. We went up on a hill that overlooked the city and the valley and talked about a couple of stories that happened there.

After Nazareth we went up to an outlook that overlooked the Sea of Galilee. We didn’t do any teaching up there today but we did take out our atlases and find the major points of interest around the sea of Galilee. Then we hiked down from the ridge in a pretty fun hike, some of which was on steep enough and narrow enough trails that they required hand holds for large portions. Then we came to our hotel for the next three days, the En Gev Resort right on the sea of Galilee. Our back door actually opens up out to the sea. I haven’t tried to walk on it yet, I’m hoping that tomorrow we get back with a little bit of light left and I’ll give it a shot then.

(The sea of Galilee)

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 15 - The Sharon Plain and Mt. Carmel

Today started out poorly. I left my camera in the restaurant of our last hotel we stayed at, Yad HaShmona. I realized it pretty quickly, and we called them to let them know (we will be back there at the end of the week so I could get it then). But that does mean that even if they do find it (which hopefully they will, it’s a Christian community there) I won’t have it for Galilee, which is a bummer. One of the girls on the trip has told me that I could use her camera to take some pictures and I think I will take her up on that. At first I thought it would be silly to use someone else’s camera, but not having my camera today I know that even though I can get pictures that other people took, I want some that I take on my own.

Today was a relatively light day, we had three major stops.
Our first stop was in Aphek. Aphek is a city whose name doesn’t come up a lot in the Bible, but it is a city that has a lot of importance. There was one major international highway that ran through the coastal areas and plains of Israel, it was the highway that connected Egypt to Mesopotamia and to Greece. This highway had two branches, and those branches merged into one branch at Aphek. So even though there were only a few stories that mentioned Aphek it was a city that had a lot of importance to Israel, and it was a city that a lot of Biblical people travelled through to get to their destinations.

After Aphek we visited Caesarea. Caesarea was built by Herod the Great on a sandy beach with no harbor. He built a massive harbor out into the ocean and then built a city to match it. It is pretty incredible to repeatedly see the amazing things that Herod built. Caesarea had no natural harbor, and after Herod built the city, it had a harbor as large as the harbor in Athens.

Caesarea was a city where a lot of stuff happened in Acts. It was where Cornelius the Centurion lived, who was the first gentile to become a Christian (Peter came to his house after he had the vision from God saying, “take up and eat…” it was also the city where Herod Agrippa was hailed as a god and when he did not give God credit he was struck down and died. And it was the city where Paul was imprisoned for two years waiting for a trial and then eventually appealed his case to Caesar and sailed for Rome.

After we left Caesarea we drove up to Mt. Carmel, which is where Elijah had his showdown with the prophets of Baal. It was cool to read that story sitting up on the mountain, around what may be the area where it happened.
After that we went over to our driver, Yo-el’s house for dinner. His in-laws made little Arabic pizza’s for us and we had hummus and tabulie. Then we came inside and drank tea (we had Arabic coffee with dinner) and sat around and talked. It was really kind of him and his family to make time (and room) for us, and it was a good time.

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 14 - Biblical Nature Reserve and the Maresha Archeological dig

The internet is really slow again today so I’m not going to try to post any pictures. Hopefully it will be faster next time.

Today was kind of a bonus day that we fit in between our time last week in the south and next week (this week I guess) in the north. Today we spent most of the day in the Shephelah, (the area where Samson did a lot of stuff and where David fought Goliath).

First we went to a place that is a Biblical nature reserve. That means that they try to make their land in the nature reserve look like the land would have looked back in Biblical times. The only plants that they have are plants that are mentioned in the Bible, and they show the different ways that agriculture was done (vineyards, olive trees, wheat, barley, figs, dates, and pomegranates) and how they were harvested. So we saw an old fashioned wine press and guard tower, olive press and threshing floor. It was actually pretty cool, the nature reserve was gorgeous, and it was really cool to see the different tools and methods that they used in farming. The lady that we had giving us a tour was really good, and she tied a lot of the stuff she was talking about into Biblical stories and parables and even into stuff that Jesus said, which was surprising to me because I’m pretty sure that she is Jewish.

After that there was a Torah scribe at the place that showed us the process that Torah scribes go through when they write the Torah Scrolls (There are some things that scrolls are still used for.)

Then we made a mad dash for Gath of the Philistines (where Goliath was from) and we just had time to take a picture (which is a bummer because it was a really big tel, and it would have been fun to be able to walk around it for a while.
After Gath we went to our last stop, the Archeological site of Maresha. At Maresha we met an Archeologist who gave us a little introduction to the site and then took us down into the caves where they were digging. The caves at Maresha are kind of an ancient garbage dump from 2200 years ago (some people were run out of the city so they tore down their houses and dumped them into these caves which were their basements.) Because the caves are kind of like dumps, you can give 45 people a trowel and a little pickaxe and tell them to start digging. So after telling us a little bit about how to dig and what to look for we started digging. It was really, really cool. Most of what we found was pottery although someone did find a ring (which was a pretty big deal). I found a lot of pottery, some bones, and a building stone (a stone that was used in to build a house). I thought the stone was pretty important, but it turns out that it wasn’t, it was still cool to find though. After we dug for about an hour we brought the buckets of dirt that we dug up to the surface (as well as our buckets of finds), then we sifted through the buckets of dirt to find stuff that we missed. Mostly we found more pottery and bones (animal bones, from a dinner 2200 years ago), but it was still fun. The Archeologist that we were working with (or for) told us that you can actually take the bones (fish bones for instance) and send them into a museum, where someone can tell you what kind of fish the bone came from. And if you know what kind of fish then that can tell you different things about the city. If it is a fish that lives only in the Nile River in Egypt, and you find it’s bones in a city in Israel, then you know that it was a city that had some major trade connections.

After digging and sifting we went through a cave system that hasn’t been excavated yet to see what it looked like. It was really fun even though we had to squeeze through some pretty tight spots. The Archeoligist, Ian, was passing info about the caves back along the line of people (we had to go single file) and when we got to the end I started passing back some fake info to people about what the last room was, that was pretty fun.

After our mini-dig (I think I could have done the digging part for another three or four hours, the thrill of exploration and discovery was pretty high) we came back to Yad HaShmona, had dinner, and then had a preview lecture for our last week, which is in the North. Tomorrow morning we set out and we will spend the night at the base of Mt. Carmel (think Elijah and the prophets of Baal). We may or may not have the internet tomorrow. If we do hopefully it is faster than it has been here the last few nights and I can get some pictures up. If not then my next post will be in two days from the Sea of Galilee. As always, thanks for reading.

Day 13 - Free Day in Jerusalem

I'm having internet trouble tonight so I'm not going to post any pictures. I'll try to post some particularly good ones tomorrow to make up for it.

Today was a free day, so it was a pretty light day. We had a test this morning, then we went off to church in Jerusalem (did I mention that we were back n Jerusalem?) The church service was cool, it was in Hebrew and translated into English, and then there were a number of different languages that it was translated into as well.

Worship was really cool, they led worship in Hebrew, and had the words projected up in Hebrew and in English, and some of the songs were songs that we knew so we were able to sing in English while they sang in Hebrew. For some of the other songs it was harder to sing along in English because I didn’t know the songs so I sang along in Hebrew.

Part of the way through the service I realized that I was in Jerusalem, singing with believers from a bunch of different countries, singing in a bunch of different languages and we were praising God in his eternal city. We were praising Jesus for his sacrifice for our sins in the same city that he died on the cross and rose from the dead. It was awesome.

After that we headed into the city for our free day. I took a look at a first century, rolling rock tomb (like Jesus was buried in). Then I had lunch at a pizza place in the Christian Quarter that was really good. Then I headed over to the Garden Tomb, which is a really nice pretty place but isn’t where Jesus was buried. Some people think that it is the place, and it is a lot more appealing to our ideas of what the area around the tomb would look like, but the tomb is too old, it was dug sometime in the 700’s BC, and Jesus was buried in a new tomb. But it was still a nice place, I think I would hang out there if I lived in Jerusalem, it was quiet and calm and cool. (by the way, we have had about seven days in a row of perfect weather, we’ve had sun every day and just perfect temperatures. It has been really nice)

After I left the garden tomb I headed up with a guy and we looked for (and found) the visible remains of the “3rd wall” of Jerusalem that was built sometime in 41-44 AD. It was in a neighborhood in East Jerusalem (which is the Arab part of Jerusalem) and the wall is just out in the sidewalk in front of the gas station. After we looked at the wall, we took some pictures and then talked about some different parts of it for a little bit (comparing a section that looks like solid stone to a section that looked like it was filled with stones and concrete.) When we were walking away I saw an Arab family who had watched us go over and look at the stones sticking out of the sidewalk and try to figure out why we found them so interesting.

After that I went with some people to the souvenir shops in the Arab Quarter of the old city. I didn’t see anything that I liked although I did think about buying some t-shirts so I wouldn’t have to do laundry tonight. (the nice weather has thrown off my wardrobe a bit, I only packed two t-shirts) I decided against getting anything though. But while I was waiting for a few of the girls outside the ship was witness to a shop keeper pulling out all the stops to sell a different girl on the our trip anything from his store. The high point (or low point) came when he held up a dancing girl outfit and said, “you are size sexy, you should buy this.” She did have enough self control to walk away before she punched him.

And that was it for today, it was nice to have a day where we didn’t have to do anything or study anything. I am pretty excited about the prospect of going to bed early tonight also. Tomorrow we are going to a Biblical garden (They have all the different plants that are mentioned in the Bible and also talk about the agrarian lifestyle that was pretty prevalent throughout Bible times. We are also making a short stop at Gath (where Goliath was from) and we are going to a city in the Shephelah where we will spend the afternoon excavating at an archeological dig. Then we are back to Yad HaShmona (where we are staying near Jerusalem) for one more night before we head up north to Galilee. Until Tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 12 - The Dead Sea

Whew, what a day! we had a busy day, and one that was suprisingly physical. But I do have a test tommorow and I have used up a good chunk of time posting the rest of our Sinai trip and talking about what we did yesteray (scroll down to see) so I will try to make this fast.

Today we hiked up Masada, we went to the En Gedi Oasis, we floated in the Dead Sea, and we went to Qumran, which is where the dead sea scrolls were found. I'll try to make a couple of quick notes about each of these stops.

Masada. Masada is one of the three major fortresses that Herod the Great built, but that is not what makes it famous. It is famous because it was the last place standing during the Jewish revolt of 66-73 AD. Jerusalem fell and the temple was destroyed by 70 AD but Masada held out for three more years. That was mainly dependant to the fact that Masada is probably one of the best fortresses ever built. It is built on top of a 1000 foot tall mountain that has steep cliffs on all sides. The water system is desigined to catch water from all of the sourrounding areas and the cisterns are so large that they can hold enough water for years. Food can be grown there and the store rooms are so massive that even after three years of a siege the Jews that were there had pleanty of food (and water) left over. The only reason Masada fell was because the Romans built a massive siege ramp that came up on one side of Masada and eventually burned down part of the wall (stone fortified with wood to protect against a battering ram). When the wall burned down and it was clear that the Romans would breach the wall and take Masada in the morning, 960 of the 967 Jews that were there committed suicide rather than being captured and taken into slavery by the Romans. Two women and five children hid and survived.

We hiked up Masada to see the sunrise, unfortunately I forgot my camera (it was early and I was pretty tired) so I don't have any pictures, but watching the sun rise over the dead sea was pretty awesome. After our time there in the morning a few of us decided that it would be fun to jog down the Masada to the base (there were a lot of stairs) so we made it down in about 15 minutes, which was really fun.

After Masada we went to the En Gedi Oasis. David probably hid from Saul at some point in the En Gedi Oasis. In fact, the cave where David cut off part of Saul's cloak may have been somewhere in En Gedi. We hiked back into the canyon to one of the big waterfalls and then we hiked back out. This hike was pretty easy (Masada had a pretty tough staircase at the end), partly because it was reall crowded so we couldn't move that fast.

(The big waterfall at En Gedi)

(the dead sea from En Gedi oasis)

After En Gedi we crossed the street, ate lunch and then swam in the dead sea. I'm not sure if swam is the right word, floated is probably more accurate. It is a really strange feeling, you cannot sink. The water acutally has a denser mineral content than the human body does (the water is 30-35% solid matter) so when you dip into it, you just float. You do need to be careful though, you don't want to get it in your eyes, it apparently burns so badly that some people absolutely freak out. The water is beautiful, and apparently has healing qualities, there are some skin conditions that can be cured by regular soakings in the dead sea. I got some on my lips though, and it tasted pretty gross. In fact, even though I took a shower after I got out my hands still felt wierd and tasted like salt for the rest of the day.

(The lowest point on earth, the dead sea. About 1300 feet below sea level)

After the dead sea we went to Qumran. Qumran is a community that existed during the new testament time of these people who seperated themselves from society because of a desire to stay pure from the corruption that existed in some places. We are not exactly sure, but for some reason there were 11 caves around their community that were found that were full of scrolls (mostly pieces of scrolls) over 900 scrolls were found, and among other things they found every book of the Old Testament (except Esther) and the copies that they found were about 1000 years older than the oldest copy of the Old Testament that we have. And they are almost exactly the same. You have heard of these scrolls, they are the dead sea scrolls.

After we left Qumran we made a bonus stop, which ended up being one of the coolest bonus stops ever. Our teacher, Todd is one of the few people who know where cave 1 is, where they discovered the first dead sea scroll (also the cave where they discovered a complete copy of hte book of Isaiah - a really big deal). And as Todd said today, he is the only person who is crazy enough to take people up to the cave. So after telling us that the way to the cave was dangerous, difficult, dangerous, and hard, about 30 people decided to follow him up to the cave. The terrain is pretty tough getting over there, up and down wadi's, rocks everywhere, really sharp rocks that you have to climb up in order to get to the cave. When we left the bus Todd looked back and saw how many people were following him and he started to run up and down the wadis. I'm pretty sure he was trying to disuade people from coming with him but everyone kept following (although by this point my legs were pretty shot. I can hike pretty fast if I need to, even up hills and stairs, but running up these sandy wadis was really tough).

The cave was cool, there was nothing special about it other than it was cave 1Q, but it was way cool to be able to be one of the few people in the world who have been there where that important discovery was made.

(me inside cave one)

And that was it for our day. I really good day, a lot of hiking and a lot of fun, and I am looking forward to having more of a down day tomorrow in Jerusalem (free day). Time for me to study. Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day Eleven - The Aravah

I never realized how much I wanted to go to a Crocodile farm until I wasn’t able to go to one today.

Today was a pretty easy day for us, which was nice. Our focus today was on the southern part of the Aravah, which is the Jordan rift valley between the Dead sea and the Red Sea (gulf of Elat/Aqaba branch) or as I like to call it, "the dead to the red." We were still in recovery mode from Sinai and the late night we had coming across the border so we got to sleep in a little bit and we started our day with snorkeling in the Red Sea in Elat.

The snorkeling was fun, we only went for about an hour and a half, but I saw some cool fish and the water felt great (it was about 74 degrees). After snorkeling we went off to see a life size model of the Tabernacle. I was surprised at how small it was, it was a large tent, but it was still just a tent. It was good to see that and get a feel for what that would have been like for the Israelites to worship God there.

(life size model of the tabernacle)

After the tabernacle we went to this dairy kibbutz (a kibbutz is an Israeli commune, there were a bunch of them in the sixties and seventies but there are a lot fewer now) that is supposed to have the world’s greatest chocolate milk and had lunch. The chocolate milk was really good, as was the ice cream.

After that we made a few more small stops, where we talked about and looked at some ancient trade routes. Far and away the most exciting thing about this place was the fact that there were two things on the sign that pointed in the direction of our destination. One said Tamar (where we went) and the other said “Crocodile Farm”. I have never really had the urge to go to a crocodile farm until that moment, where I was pretty sure that there wasn’t anything that I wanted more than to go to a crocodile farm. We didn’t go there, but out teacher Todd did ask us if we wanted to go to a “bonus” stop after that, I was really hoping for the Crocodile farm at that point, but our bonus was a trade route that they only found a few years ago, the Ascent of Aqrabim.

(The Ascent of Aqrabim, does it look like it goes over a hill that is nothing but rocks? Because it did.)

And then we called it a day and drove up the Masada guest house where we are staying tonight. It was a pretty light day, but we spent a lot of time on the bus, and a few of us went for a little hike at one of the ancient routes we looked at (the ascent of scorpions) which really hurt at first (my legs were sore from Sinai), but helped my legs to feel a lot better now. Which is good because I am hiking up Masada tomorrow to watch the sunrise over the dead sea.

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day Ten - Sinai part 2

Here is the second part of our day in Sinai, it's long, but what can I say, stuff happens in Egypt.

…When Dad and I walked it a few years ago we walked the camel path, the path or repentance is a set of stairs that were built into the mountain by a monk. It is supposed to be harder, but shorter, and it is hard to find. Dad and I couldn’t find it, and I don’t think I would have found it yesterday if I had been alone.

Our teacher, Todd, had been telling us how hard the hike would be, warning people against the path of repentance, and even the camel path if they thought they might have trouble. His warnings didn’t work, there were about 25-30 people who decided to go with him. I was one of those 25-30, I had already done the camel path and wanted to go up the other way but I was really nervous because Todd can set a pretty grueling pace. Well fortunately Todd wasn’t leading us up the trail, that honor fell to Osama, our Egyptian tour guide. Now I hadn’t had the best experience with Egyptian tour-guides in the past (in Alexandria we had a tour guide who consistently used the F-word when talking to me and my mom because he thought that was how Americans talked. Amazingly that was one of his better traits.) So I (perhaps unfairly) carried some bias against Osama into our experience with him. It wasn’t really helped by the fact that it was required for our group to have four members of the tour company with us, a driver and a guide (that is normal), a police officer (who was carrying an uzi machine gun under a suit coat), and a “company representative.” We also stopped for a bathroom stop and were encouraged to spend 20 minutes or so shopping and drinking coffee or tea at a place that charged seven dollars for a can of coke. And when we got to Sinai (and St. Catherine’s Monastery) we were somehow herded away from two different bathrooms, either because they were too small or we were in a hurry only to find ourselves at a bathroom that charged for entrance (the other two were free).

(heading up the path of repentance)

(Osama at the first of many breaks)

So you will have to forgive my skepticism when I wondered if Osama would even be able to find our way up the staircase that is the path of repentance to the top of Mt. Sinai. He did know the way but he was certainly not prepared physically to hike it. We actually began to time him, our typical pace would be to hike for nine minutes, and then rest for seven. Unfortunately there were a few people who were really having difficulty with this pace, so Todd went back to try to help them keep up (one ended up heading back down them mountain.) We stayed with Osama a little bit longer, then he told us that we could go on ahead without him, which was nice. With Osama our first fifteen hundred stairs took an hour, without him our next fifteen hundred steps took thirty minutes. We stopped at a place called Elijah’s hollow. It is the place where tradition says that Elijah hid and then heard God in a still small voice. Todd taught us there for a little while and then everyone took the last 750 stairs to the top. I remembered these stairs being difficult (they are the only way up there) and they were. The way of repentance wasn’t actually too difficult (although I am sure that some of that had to do with resting as much as we were walking). But these last steps were hard, definitely the hardest part of the hike.

(the chapel at the top of mt. Sinai)

The weather was great it was just a little chilly at the top (7500 feet), and we could see forever. After spending some time up there and reading some stuff from Exodus, we headed back down the mountain, hoping to make it down before dark.

(the sun setting over the mountians in Southen Sinai)

We did not make it down before dark. The group got pretty spread out on the way down, there were two people in particular who were having a difficult time descending. One of them fell and bruised a rib which slowed them down further than they would have been. And there were a few other people with knee or other problems that slowed them down. So we pretty much came down in four groups, the fast healthy group and then three groups with people who were ailing or healthy people who were helping those who were ailing (carrying bags, holding on to arms, giving support). I moved around between some of the ailing groups at first, trying to see where I could help (I felt fine). I ended up with the person who fell and bruised their rib. I carried a backpack, tried to keep watch in case of another fall (there were two people helping to support the arms), and when darkness came I tried to keep the path well lit for everyone with a flashlight. We were the first of the walking wounded to arrive at the bottom and we probably walked for an 30-45 min in pitch black darkness on the descent.

The amazing thing was the fact that as we were walking down in the dark, a Bedouin who kind of helped to guide us popped out of nowhere, having just come down the side of the mountain, not using any trail I could see in total darkness without any light, and showed us a few “short-cut” paths so that we could get down quicker. (He was a character in himself, I could write more about him, but I’ll just say that when we were getting ready to break up into groups and hike up the mountain there was a guy who was walking through our group begging for food. I was wondering who he was until Osama introduced him as the guy who would guide the people who were walking the camel path up the mountain. In case you were wondering that put our total up to five “guides”: a driver, a guide, a police officer dressed in a suit carrying an uzi, a company representative, and a Bedouin who hiked up the mountain smoking a cigarette and hiked down in the dark with no path and no light.)
After we reached the bottom we still waited for almost another hour for the final group to come down. The stars were beautiful there. I laid back and looked at them as we waited. I can’t think of any way to describe what the milky way looked like, it was amazing.

The bus ride back to Israel was awful. Everyone was tired, I was afraid because we were driving in Egypt after dark. And there was something wrong with floor in the back of the bus. The bus was the same design as the one we have here in Israel, but in Egypt the floor was hot to the touch, and I’m pretty sure it was leaking exhaust fumes. Unfortunately I was sitting in the back so the ride was hot and miserable.
When we finally reached the border we got through the Egyptian side pretty quickly, but the Israel side took a couple of hours. Nobody detained this time but they were training someone on the ex-ray machine and computer that was connected to the machine took a while. At first I was upset that it was taking so long, I was tired and hungry (it was about 11:00pm at this point and we hadn’t had any dinner), but when I finally went through and saw what was going on I actually didn’t mind. I had seen them take forever to scan bags, sending them through more than one time, and when they got to my bag they scanned it, then a lady looked through it, took out my books, then sent it through the machine again. I could see the people looking at the x-ray image on the computer, pointing out each thing and talking about it, and then when they were done they gave me my bag and sent me through. It was inconvenient, but at least what they were doing made sense. They were working very hard to keep their country safe. It was inconvenient, but I understood what they were doing and I respect it. They care and they were doing things the right way.

It was such a contrast to Egypt, where it seems like no one does anything the right way and you spend a lot of time wondering what it is that people care about.
We finally made it to the hotel at 11:30 pm. Our driver Joel (who is the best) set us up with an order of pizza and soda (not surprisingly the dining room was closed when we got to the hotel). And after that I collapsed into bed.

Day Ten - Sinai

Started this last night, almost fell asleep, now I’m having some trouble with blogger this morning and it is almost time for me to go, so this may be really, really short.

Sinai today. Egypt is still a country that drives me crazy. As soon as we crossed the border I could feel the difference between being in Israel and Egypt. I’m exhausted so this will be very short.

Long drive to Sinai, the bus had some weird heat that is came up from the floor so the drive to and from was very uncomfortable.

We had guides up the mountain, they weren’t in very good shape and after about an hour, where we had been resting as much as we had been walking we just asked our guide if we could go on ahead and we did, leaving him behind. There are two paths up to the top, the camel path and the path of repentance…

And on that note I have to leave. We’re staying out near Massada tonight so no internet, but I’ll post the rest of this in two days when we’re up near Jerusalem (as well as some pictures).

Day Eight - The Negev

Today, today, today. What did we do today… Well it was another good day, but the days are starting to run together a little bit, we are learning so much and we have so much that we are accountable to know that some things (like what day it is and when we did what) are starting to get a little fuzzy. I haven’t sorted through my pictures from today yet and I am really, really tired so I’m not going to post any pictures tonight, I might try to add some to this post later if I have time.

Today was a day that was focused on the Negev. Imagine chalk dust and flint. Bedeuins and camels. Imagine almost no water. Imagine breathtaking vistas and deep canyons. Imagine all that and you might imagine the Negev. The Negev is the southern wilderness that Abraham and Jacob both spent a lot of time in as well as where the Israelites sent spies into the promised land from and then decided that Canaan was too tough a place for them to handle.

The first place that we stopped was where our hotel was last night, Beer Sheba. The Negev is dry, the weather is beautiful for January but right now is the dry season and even now it is mostly brown. I guess that the government subsidizes a lot of the cities and settlements down here in the Negev because there is just not enough going on for these places to support themselves on their own.

In the Bible, Beer Sheba is a place where God came to Abraham and promised to give him and his descendents the promised land. It was also Abraham’s last stop before heading on out to Egypt (where he told Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister). It is also the place where God confirmed his covenant with Isaac and it is where Jacob was when he sent his son’s into Egypt because of the famine that was in Israel.

After Beer Sheba we went to Arad, which was a southern fortress during the time of David and Solomon. The most interesting thing about Arad was that they have found a temple where Israelites worshiped God in Arad. That is a really bad thing to find. God was pretty clear that the only place where sacrifices were to be offered to him was the temple of Jerusalem. This temple in Arad actually has two gods that it worships, God and his “mistress.” It is a pretty clear case of what people call syncretism, where different religious beliefs get mixed together and a third thing is formed that draws from both. The Bible is pretty clear that there were people in Israel and Judah who did not worship God as they should and that God did not want them to be too close to the Canaanites because he didn’t want their religious beliefs to be tainted by them, and this is a clear case of that mixing and tainting happening. Actually they found an altar in Beer-Sheba that was destroyed and then built into a wall during the time of Hezekiah, so when the Bible says that Hezekiah took down the high places and altars to false Gods, we actually saw an example of that today.

After Arad we had lunch down near the wilderness of Zin. Then we went over to another part of the wilderness of Zin and took a great hike through a canyon there, I got some cool pictures that I’ll try to post at a different time.

We spent some more time in the wilderness after that, the wilderness of Paran this time, and we spent some time in prayer and solitude thinking about what life was like for the Israelites spending forty years wandering through the wilderness. You get a whole different understanding of God promising them a land with pools of water, pomegranate trees and as much bread as they can eat when you are standing in the dry wilderness, where the chalky ground has cracked under your feet because it is so dry and the world is filled with nothing but rocks and a few shrubs.

And that was pretty much it today. I am really, really, really tired, and tomorrow we are going into Egypt to climb Jebal Musa (Mt. Sinai). I am pretty sure that there were some more things that I was going to add that I thought were important or funny but I can’t think of anything else. I did post my stuff that I wrote for yesterday down below, so if you want to you can read that, yesterday was a pretty cool day. I’m off to bed. As always thanks for reading and until tomorrow…

Day Seven - The Shephelah

(Hiking through the Shephelah)

(As you can see I am posting this a day late from Eliat, I typed it out last night in Beer Sheba)

Well, no internet here in Beer-Sheba so tonight I’m typing this from the fourth floor lobby of our hotel. There are about seven of us who are sitting here in the lobby, most of us are journaling or working through our pictures, except for our Bedouin bus driver, Joel, who packed a hooka and is sitting out here with us smoking apple tobacco. (in all fairness he did open the window, and he is really funny)

Today we travelled through the Shephelah (pronounced Shfaelah). We went to Gezer, Beth-Shemish, Azekah, Qeiyafa , and Lachish. I know what you are thinking, wow I’ve never heard of those places, that sounds like a lousy day. What if I told you that today we saw the places where Samson was born and was buried, let loose 300 foxes with their tails on fire, and met Delilah? What if I also told you that we saw the place where David killed Goliath? What if I told you that we saw the last major city that the Babylonians and the Assyrians destroyed before the moved on to Jerusalem? Ok you may not be as excited about that one but it is a pretty big deal.
It is amazing what a big difference geography makes in hearing some of these stories. Take the story of Samson taking the gates of Gaza and carrying them to Hebron. A few weeks ago if I heard that story those cities wouldn’t have meant much to me. Today when we heard that story I said, “Gath to Hebron! Are you serious!?!” (the distance between those two cities is about 40 miles and there is an elevation change of over 3000 feet.) I think looking down at those valleys and cities where the Samson stuff happened and David and Goliath made me pay more attention to the details of those stories. Did you know that when David was talking to Saul about killing the lion and the bear that this is what he says to Saul? “I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him.” When David chased down a lion to save a lamb, if the lion turned and attacked him, he grabbed it by the mane and killed it. That is amazing, I can’t even imagine doing that, if he could trust God to help him kill lions and bears with his hands no wonder he had no problem trusting God to kill Goliath.

(The Sorek Valley, where Delilah was from, and Samson spent a lot of time)

They aren’t exactly sure where David and Goliath fought, they know the valley and the know the two cities it was between, but they don’t know the exact spot. Our teacher Todd has an idea though, and if he is right, then we walked right through that battlefield today. I even picked up five stones from the brook (sling-stones weren’t small, each one would have been the size of a baseball.) I should have picked them up on the way down, because we climbed a pretty serious hill to visit a new, maybe really important site and it definitely felt like I was hiking up that hill with a bag full of rocks (which I was).

(The Elah Valley where David fought Goliath)

Lachish was the city that we visited that the Babylonians and Assyrians destroyed before they went up to Jerusalem. I won’t say much except to say that Lachish was the second most important city in Judah, it was the second strongest city in Judah (in terms of army fortifications), and it was such a big deal to Sennacharib (the Assyrian king) that he decorated part of his palace with his victory in destroying Lachish. (Assyria was the world’s resident superpower at that time).

Well that is the highlights from today, we saw a few more things that were great but I won’t mention them. One thing that really struck me today was how beautiful the Shephelah is, I guess it is very brown and dry in the summer, but here in the winter it was green and absolutely beautiful.

Tomorrow we’ll be down in the Negev (southern wilderness) where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob spent a lot of time, as well as the Israelites. And we’ll be in a new hotel (in Elat) where hopefully I’ll have internet and I can actually post this. I hope everyone is doing well. Thanks for reading.