Wow! What a day!!! Petra was amazing!
Sorry, but I’m so tired I can hardly stay awake long enough to post this. Tomorrow (actually in less than three hours) we leave for the airport to go to Rome and if I’m not totally toast I’ll try to go through all of the pics from the last two days and post some here.
It will be very sad to leave Israel.
I just saw the news about two separate knife attacks in Jerusalem today. First of all, we didn’t die. Second of all, it’s amazing that the news of two non-fatal attacks 6k miles from the US made the news when you know there were probably 20x that many in Chicago, Atlanta, NYC, or LA in the last two weeks, and probably 10x those in some choice countries in Central and northern South America.
Odd that no one ever worries about me when there is a drive-by shooting or car-jacking back home in ATL. They’d be worrying a lot!
Do you think there’s a chance that the media are exaggerating anything they can find to manipulate the truth, push their own political agenda, and sell papers / ads? We all know they’d never do that.
BTW, one of the attacks was by two 12-13 year-old boys on a policeman. Just another reason for me to be concerned about all the boys that will be trying to court my girls. Glad I have more than knives to protect them. 🙂 And yes, girls, I know you are reading this.
Yesterday we went to Caesarea Philippi and Har Megiddo, and both were great. We stayed in a Kibbutz (Kibbutz Levi close to Tiberias).
Today we went to Capernaum and the areas around Lower Galilee. Then we went and toured the Golan Heights, and were within less than a km of Syria. And amazingly, we’re still alive.
I have to say that all of this has completely illuminated (and often, corrected) my understanding of the New (and Old) Testament stories. I truly think that visiting the Holy Land should be a standard part of seminary curriculum.
Sad that we only have one more day of the standard tour. Our guides and driver have been just wonderful!
We’re fine and had a great time today. Just have no internet. I’ll try again tonight.
Those of you who know us know we are big on Israel and Jewish culture. And we’re big on the Bible. So that means we’re big on the Sabbath. (It’s one of the Big Ten…)
I didn’t really think about what that would mean to a sojourner in The Land. I did a quick search of the levitical instructions about how to observe the Sabbath an could only find references to the Jews and the foreigners who lived with them. There doesn’t seem to be anything about what the foreigners are supposed to do who are not living with them, but are dependent upon them while they’re there.
It’s one thing to have your own home and the ability to prepare for the Sabbath. But when you’re traveling and unable to prepare, it’s very hard not to come up short on some important basic things.
Yes, Trenna even said, “I’ve hit a new low.” But I guess you could say that things could only go up from here. It’s hard to admit it, but I think we’re the lowest we’ve ever been.
Today we went to the Dead Sea!!! (The lowest place on earth, for the geographically challenged among us. 1407′ below sea level, to be exact.)
What makes the Dead Sea unique, aside from it’s altitude, is that it is the most mineral-saturated body of water in the world at 32%. And that makes it much denser than normal water. And that means that you float much higher in the water than usual. When we realized that we could easily raise our legs out of the water due to our new-found buoyancy, Trenna and I spontaneously broke into an amazing sequence of synchronized swimming.
It’s also unique in that the additional 1/4 mile of air above you means that you don’t have to wear sunscreen for a couple of hours of full exposure. And the increased air density due to that thicker column of air means that you can exert yourself more without getting winded.
We started the day at Qumran, which was probably Trenna’s top moment of the trip, as she has studied it so much. What’s amazing to me is that it took so long to find the scrolls. I always thought that the caves that contained the scrolls were back in the middle of some large complex of mountains and valleys that humans seldom ever passed through. As it turns out, you can see the cave where the first scrolls were found clearly from Qumran and anywhere for miles. LOL. That kind of reinforces the idea that God was waiting for the right time for the right shepherd to be trying to find the right sheep.
And we went to Masada. That was very nice and an impressive sight both from a distance and from the top. Trenna and I (unlike 960 others) made it back down just fine.
Today we had a bit of a reprieve from the crazy busy schedule. We drove through an ultra-orthodox neighborhood, and learned a lot about them. Then we went to three museums: one that had a 1:50 model of the Old City; and the Shrine of the Book, where we were able to see the Dead Sea Scrolls and other great early manuscripts of the OT; and the Israel Holocaust Museum.
All three were really great! The first gave us a better understanding of what Jerusalem looked like before all the churches were built on the important sites. The Shrine of the Book stirred up my old dreams of having some sort of positive impact on the process of discovering new Bible manuscripts. (I’m sure those dreams will go back dormant again soon.) And the Holocaust Museum documented how many countries (including the US and the Vatican) either actively or passively were a part of death of 6,000,000 Jews.
Then we toured the Knesset and learned a lot about the Israeli governmental system and history.
Most of what we saw today would not allow photographs. I may add a couple later as I review the pics.
Tomorrow we are supposed to go to Masada, Qumran, and the Dead Sea.
Sorry, all! Yesterday was an incredibly busy day! I was surprised when my watch said we walked only a little over five miles / 11.5k steps.
It was wonderful and we knocked so many “someday” activities off of the list. The first thing was the (top ten life list) visit / view from the Mount of Olives. You can see those three pictures from there. Then we walked for 3.5 hours or more, visiting every significant site within the temple mount area. We went to the tomb of David. We saw some really cool archeological sites. And we walked the Stations of the Cross, seeing where Jesus was beaten, crucified, prepared for burial (possibly), and buried (according to some traditions). (That last parenthetical phrase came up A LOT during the day!)
For me the biggest thing was visiting and praying at the Western Wall (aka Wailing Wall)! While it was certainly a bit tense there with all the heavily armed Israeli police (present in large numbers everywhere in the Old City), there was a sense of spiritual presence there like I have rarely witnessed. There was a palpable sense of God’s presence. It immediately brought me to tears to even be there, much less approach Him in prayer at such an auspicious location. I wrote a prayer on a small piece of paper and put it in the wall. I took a picture of it wondering if I would share it here. I won’t, but may someday.
I also prayed there about a few other large current matters, but mainly asked God for clear direction and grace to obey Him fully. Please dear God.
Unbelievably, after we had done all of that, we then drove to Bethlehem (only five miles away). While we were able to do the tourist thing and see the supposed location of Jesus’ birth, the memory I will carry away is about having to leave our Jewish guide behind, walk probably 1/2 mile with our new Palestinian driver through an incredible maze of concrete / barbed wire passages and security checkpoints, pass through the 20-30′ high concrete wall separating the Palestinian controlled area from Jerusalem, and then through a second set of mazes and checkpoints. I wasn’t supposed to take pictures, but here’s a shot after the first security complex before going through the wall:
On the way in it was nearly deserted and only a bit off-putting. But when we left it was around 4:30PM and hundreds of Palestinian men were returning home from Jerusalem after work. Given the thin line between forced civility and violent outbursts in such settings, especially recently, it was a very tense fifteen minutes.
Wow! Today was just incredible. We could go home now and be happy with the trip.
Honestly, I’m too tired to write anything of value, so enjoy the pics and I’ll post again tomorrow.