Jordan... Petra!!

          Our trip to Jordan was great.  We left on Monday and crossed the border into Jordan, and then went to Mount Nebo where Moses saw the promised land and was translated (Deut 34:1-6).  That was really neat to be able to look out into the valley to the Promised Land just like Moses would have.  After that we went to Madaba to a Greek Orthodox Church with an ancient mosaic of the Holy Land.  It was a beautiful church with some great mosaics, ancient and modern. After that we went to Shobak Castle which is a crusader castle.  It was fun to be able to explore there and take some pictures. That is the nice thing about most of the sites here.  For the most part you can just go wherever you want and things aren't blocked off and whatnot.  Then we came to the city of Petra (also called Wadi Musa).  That night we just walked around the city for a bit and went to a bakery and stuff.  

Mt. Nebo

View of the Promised Land from Mt. Nebo

 Madaba church with mosaics

Shobak Castle

          On Tuesday, we went to PETRA!!! Haha, that is so crazy!! It was a great trip and we got to see a lot of really neat things.  It started by just walking though the rock cliffs and seeing some of the things that the Nabateans had carved into the sandstone.  Then when we got further in, our tour guide had us walk to the right side of the path “for our own safety”, but there was nothing unsafe about the left side, so I was like, haha, whatever.  Then he had us turn around as he pointed something out for us to look at.  Then he pointed something out that made us move over to the right (so now we were on the left side of the path), but this was all just a big lie to get us to be shocked when we turned around and the treasury of Petra was right in front of us.  I was so glad he did it cuz it just made it that much better to turn around and be shocked with the carvings.  It was so amazing when you finally walked out of the cliffs too.  Anyway, then we went to a synagogue at the end of a suuuuuper huge hike of doom.  The synagogue was really neat, and there was a great overlook called the end of the world overlook.  After lunch I went with a group that went up to the “high place” where they did sacrifices.  It was so high up, and it was a great view down. Then we drove to Amman and just walked around the city again and stuff.  

Petra!!! (and the goofy Genie pants)

Random guy at Petra with a donkey with a Scream mask...

          On Wednesday we went to Jerash, which is one of the best preserved Roman cities in the world (and the best outside of Italy).  There were some great ruins there, and some people playing bagpipes and drums in the amphitheater, and we got to see a gladiator show where they had Jordanians dressed up as Roman soldiers, and gladiators fighting, and a chariot race.  Later that day we went to the Jabbok River which is where Jacob wrestled with an angel and his name was changed to Israel.  Then we went and saw the biggest and newest mosque in Jordan (or at least the outside… we couldn’t go in).  After that we went to a church building and the Amman branch president gave us a little fireside thing.  After that we came back and had another chill evening.  

 Jerash ruins and gladiators

Jabbok River

Biggest and newest mosque in Jordan

          Then on Thursday, our last day in Jordan, we went to the Abdullah Mosque and we had to wear these super funny cover-up things. They looked like graduation gowns with hoods, and people were calling it a death-eater’s convention. After that we went to the Amman citadel and saw some of the ruins, as well as some of the Dead Sea scrolls.  With the Dead Sea scrolls, they had the copper scroll, which was the only metal scroll they found. After that we drove to the traditional baptismal site of Jesus in Jordan.  There is no water left there though, because the water level has dropped significantly since Christ's time.  There was also a Greek Orthodox Church of St. John the Baptist there.  Then we crossed back into Israel and came back to Jerusalem.  It was a really great and memorable trip.

Abdullah Mosque

Amman from the citadel

Dead sea scrolls

Traditional baptismal site of Christ

Jordan River

Church of St. John the Baptist

Goliath, Herod, and Temple Steps

          Wow, it feels like we got back from Galilee yesterday almost, and now it’s already time to head out to Jordan!! We leave tomorrow morning and we will be there for four days.  Anyway, this week we had a lot of class and a lot of little field trips too.  A big group of us went to the Via Dolorosa and went through all of the Stations of the Cross with some monks on Friday (July 16th).  We had church on Saturday again, and then on Sunday a group of us went out onto the rooftops of Jerusalem to see the city.  We tried to go to the Church of John the Baptist (they have what they say is a part of his actual skull), but unfortunately it was closed.  We did some shopping too and I got these really goofy things called genie pants that everyone gets that are these silky pant things that are pretty much like a skirt, but it is all connected at the bottom.  It’s really weird, but they are really comfortable and good lounging pants.  

Shopping in the Old City

I thought these cigarette boxes were funny

          Then on Monday (19th) we went to Tel el-Safi (or Tel Tsafit) which is Gath, one of the five cities of the Philistines where the ark was kept for a while and where Goliath was born. Then a bunch of us went to a few other places.  First we went to Castel which is a bunker area from the 1948 war.  After that we went and had lunch at an Elvis diner, but most of us didn’t actually eat there. It was funny.  Then we went to the Church of St. Mary of the Resurrection which is a possible site of the road to Emmaus which Christ walked after he was resurrected (Luke 24:12-32).  Then we went to Ein Kerem to go to the Church of John the Baptist which they believe is the place he was born (Luke 1:57).  After that, we walked by a well of Mary on our way to the Visitation Church which commemorates Mary visiting her cousin Elisabeth (Luke 1:39-55).  It also had a rock which they say is where John the Baptist was hid when Herod was slaying the children two years old and younger. They were all nice churches and it was a good experience and fun day.  

          Oh, and on the field trip I hurt my hand climbing a fence to get out of the bunker place.  I was climbing over the fence, and had a guy come and grab my foot and help me down, but I accidentally kicked him in the face with my other foot, so he kind of dropped/threw me and I kind of jumped off and ended up falling onto the ground (from fairly high up).  I am fine, but I did cut up my hand and I’m forming a pretty awesome bruise on my booty. :) 

Gath excavations

Castel bunkers

Ashley + Climbing = ...

My ashy shoe mark on the guy's face that I kicked

Elvis Diner statue

Church of St. John the Baptist & traditional birthplace

Church of the Visitation

          On Tuesday we went into the Old City again just to hang out and do some shopping.  It was funny because one of my friends wanted some earrings from a shop, but there was a miscommunication on the bargaining and the price, so in order to get the price she wanted, the shop owner wanted me to take a picture with him.  He really liked my eyes or something kinda creepy like that.  Anyway, sooooo I ended up doing it, cuz I didn’t really care.  Then he was joking about how he was going to look at it every night and stuff.  Then as we were leaving he asked if I was single, so we told him that I had a fiancé back home (we always either say we are married or have fiancés or something so they don’t bother us as much, haha).  Anyway, then he was like “Oh no! I thought you were single! I’m sorry...” etc, and then he showed me that he deleted the picture and everything and it was funny.  

          On Wednesday (July 21st), we had another field trip day.  It was a good day because it was just about Christian Jerusalem, so we just went to the Old City and went to a bunch of the different sites.  First we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, so that was nice to be able to go through with our teacher who actually knows about all of the history of it.  Then we went to St. Andrews church to see the remains of the Herodian arches that they say were part of the judgment gate that Christ walked through, even though they are actually from after that time.  Then we tried to go to another Armenian church, but it was closed, so we just looked at the outside courtyard.  Then we went to Christ’s Church which is a Messianic Judaism church.  After that we went to the Church of St. Mark which is supposedly the house of St. Marks (John’s) mother Mary.  It is a traditional site of the Last Supper (upper room, even though it is actually in a basement), and where the spirit was poured out and the twelve apostles were filled with the Holy Ghost on Pentecost (Acts 2). Then we went to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, which is actually still in use today.  The view of the city from the tower there was amazing. After that we were free to do whatever we wanted, so I went to get shawarima with some friends and then did a little bit of shopping for olive wood gifts.  

Crazy shopkeeper guy

Church of St. Mark

Jerusalem

          On Thursday we had class and then a small group of us went to the Russian Orthodox Convent of St. Mary Magdalene.  It is an awesome church with cool gold domes in the Russian style.  That afternoon we had a class field trip, so we went to the Herodian which is a fortress build by Herod the Great.  This is one of the places where Herod might have been when Christ was born and/or when he gave the decree to have all of the babies age two and under killed.  It was pretty sweet, and we got to see the tomb area of Herod the Great too. Then we went to the shepherds’ fields overlooking Bethlehem and got to explore there for a bit.  I went to a watchtower there and stuff and it was pretty neat. Then we had a Christmas program there in the fields. It was a good little nativity program complete with shepherds, wise men, and everything.  Oh, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but every Friday we aren’t allowed to go out into the Old City or East Jerusalem until 3PM, so we make humanitarian aid kits for people in the Gaza Strip and other places.  It is pretty neat to be able to do that, and we have made over 10,000 kits this summer.  

Russian Orthodox Convent of St. Mary Magdalene

The Herodian

Tomb of Herod

Shepherds' fields Christmas Program and Bethlehem

Making humanitarian aid kits

          Today was a great day.  We had a good half day field trip into the city to do Herodian Jerusalem.  It started at the Western Wall.  We went down the Kotel Tunnel which goes underneath the Muslim part of Jerusalem along the Western Wall.  It was neat to see it.  There used to be bridges going over the valley from the city over to the Western Wall of the temple mount, so we got to see the ruins of those underneath the current city.  Then we went to the Burnt House Museum which shows a house that was burned when the Romans destroyed the city and the temple in 70 AD.  After that we went to the Wohl Archaeological Museum which has ruins from more Jewish homes that were burned and destroyed by the Romans.  Most of them had mikvahs (baths for ritual cleansing), so they were probably priestly homes. Finally we went to the Davidson Archaeological Park on the southwestern part of the temple mount.   We saw ruins from the original gates of the temple mount (this corner is probably the "pinnacle of the temple" corner - Luke 4:9) as well as the southern double and triple gates along with stairs that Christ most definitely would have walked on.  Neil Armstrong went there once and he said "It means more to me to stand on these steps than to stand on the moon."  It was a neat experience.  Anyway, that was my last week or so. I am so excited to go to Jordan tomorrow!!

The Burnt House

SW corner of the temple mount

Double gate and steps where Christ (and Neil Armstrong!) walked