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.
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