Israel Slideshow

I know I owe you all one more post on Egypt. I promise its coming! Its amazing how life returns to being so busy so quickly! But to hold you over until I get around to the temples and pyramids, this is a slideshow Lori made that we watched with the sisters at the convent on our last night in Israel. Everyone in the group sent Lori 3 of their favorite pictures, so there are a lot of good ones! Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxelvD5RbkQ

Egypt Part 1





Egypt was incredible. It was definitely the poorest and least westernized country we had been in, so it was definitely more of a culture shock, plus we weren’t able to drink the water at all, even to brush our teeth. From the first moments at the Port in Nuweiba we could see Egypt was going to be very different. It looked like a scene from a couple hundred years ago with merchants picking up their goods from the boats in sacks balanced on their backs and heads and pulling carts overflowing with sacks and boxes, all crowding through customs. It was insane. Since the boat got in late in the day and we didn’t know how long it would take to get through border control, we just drove to our hotel in Nuweiba which is right on the Red Sea and becoming quite a resort town. It was beautiful. Lori and I got up early to see the sun rise over the beach.

Sunrise over the Red Sea

 The next day we drove to Mount Sinai where we toured St. Catherine’s monastery. It is right at the base of Mount Sinai, and was built in the 6^th century but until the 12 century, the only entrance was at the top of the walls, so you had to be hoisted up in a basket. They have a great collection of icons, including the famous Christ Pantocrator which is the oldest known icon to have Christ pictured in this way. 

From wikipedia, not my picture lol



The monastery behind some of my friends on camels



We had the afternoon off to relax, and in the afternoon left the hotel to go back to the monastery and begin the climb. I was really nervous about riding the camel for some reason, but it was fun! Way more comfortable than the donkey earlier in the week. We were on the camel for 2 hours as it carried us up about ¾ of the mountain on a switchback path. I was in a caravan with my professor Laurie, who had an international cell phone so my parents got a really great phone call: “Hi Mom and Dad! Guess where I am?” When we got off of the camels and our legs were still like Jello after sitting like that for so long, we continued the climb on foot. There was a staircase made out of huge boulders that you had to climb to get the rest of the way up, and it was intense. When I finally got to the top, my heart was pounding out of my chest and I was gasping for air. But as I approached the peak, there was a Korean group singing so beautifully and you could just tell that they were praising God with all their hearts, and it felt a little bit like they were also celebrating my making it to the top! It was really a perfect soundtrack to the beautiful view. The sun was just beginning to set, throwing rays of light over mountain peaks as far as you could see. It was so serene and majestic, it is not hard to imagine Moses having an encounter with the Divine there. This was definitely one of the best experiences of the trip, up there with the Sea of Galilee. After we had taken the necessary pictures, we said a prayer service that has been used by CTU students at the top of Mount Sinai for years and years. It was really beautiful. We started down the mountain, and before we reached the camel path it was pitch black. Of course my flash light ran out of batteries almost immediately. Thank goodness we ran into some other CTU people who had an extra. It was really peaceful to be walking in the dark, in pretty much the wilderness with no signs of life other than some other flashlights spread out over the mountain, some small Bedouin houses and the occasional camel that would come up behind you and scare the crap out of you!

The next day we drove to Sharm el Sheik which is another huge resort city on the Red Sea. Our itinerary had changed so that we could fly instead of taking a train one day, which means we had an extra day. Our very kind professor decided to give us a relaxing day after the Sinai climb at a resort which has some of the best coral reef snorkeling in the world! So we bought goggles and snorkels and spent all afternoon exploring the reefs on the coast. It was such a huge contrast from the desert and mountains the day before, but still so amazingly beautiful! I felt like I was in an aquarium, seeing all of the brightly colored fish that you never think exist in real life. There were huge fish over a foot long that had every color of the rainbow in their scales, and little black and white striped fish, and pink and green swirled fish. It was amazing. And the coral was just as colorful and varied.

Me and Lori in our snorkel gear

Since I didnt have an underwater camera, this is the best I can do :)

The next day we flew to Luxor and began our exploration of the ancient Egyptian temples and cities, so that will be coming in the next post!

Jordan!

Hi everyone! Sorry it has been so long. We didn’t have internet often in Jordan and Egypt, so I didn’t try to post. I will work on those entries now that I’m home! Jordan was a really neat country, I wish we would have had some more time there. We started off in Gerash which was a Roman city of the Decapolis (a loose association of gentile cities in the time of Jesus). It was a really beautiful site with huge monuments, and we have not seen a city like it since Ephesus. It had lots of colonnaded streets and temples and a beautiful theater in which there were Jordanian men playing bagpipes and drums! It was really odd at first, but our guide explained that bagpipes originated in Mesopotamia, and the Scottish changed them a little. They are a really traditional Jordanian instrument and we heard them at another site, and at a wedding reception at our hotel that night! It was really strange to hear bagpipes in the Middle East!

A view of Gerash



The bagpipes in the theater



Then we toured the acropolis of the ancient city of Amman. There were nice temples there as well, and a small museum containing some Dead Sea scrolls, with way less security so we could take pictures. And statues that are some of the earliest carvings of people…whose noses look like Michael Jackson’s? Our guide was proud of the fact that MJ bought his nose from Jordan, haha!

The next day we saw the site of Jesus’ baptism on the Jordan river. It was interesting because Israel is building a platform directly across the river from Jordan’s site, and the river is only about 10 feet wide, so its not very scenic. The Bible describes John baptizing people at “Bethany across the Jordan” and archaeologists found the site Saint Helena built a church on by using a mosaic map from the floor of a 6^th century church that we also got to see in Madaba. The map shows the Holy Land of the time, so you can see Jerusalem and pick out the main street and the Holy Sepulcher, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea (with a fish swimming away from it because it is too salty), the Nile River Delta, and other cities. It was really amazing. We also drove up to the top of Mount Nebo where Moses looked over into the Promised Land before he died. It was really a spectacular view. You can see the green fertile land surrounded by nothing but desert, and imagine how exciting it would have looked to Moses after wandering the desert for 40 years.

Me by the Jordan river



The Madaba Map



The view of the Promised Land from Mt. Nebo



Then Saturday we went to Petra! It was one of my favorite sites on the whole trip. The city was almost magical. You start off down a really long and narrow corridor between two huge winding cliffs of beautiful sandstone swirled with reds and purples. Along the way were niches carved into the stone with images of the three goddesses who the Nabateans prayed to, who would then take their prayers to the main god. Then suddenly through the opening ahead you catch a glimpse of the “treasury”, then the passage opens up to the full view. It was just stunning. It is amazing how they carved the whole thing out of the rock. It was actually a tomb of a king, and never used as a treasury. And unfortunately we couldn’t go inside, so I didn’t get the Indiana Jones adventure we were all hoping for, even though we were humming the theme song the whole time.

Going through the siq



The first glimpse



Me and Lori in front of the Treasury



After the treasury, the path opens up to the city, where there were several other smaller tombs carved into the cliffs, and caves that were homes. There was one that we could actually go and walk around in. The swirls of red and purple on the walls, ceiling and floor are absolutely beautiful! Further down was the Roman city with columns and temples, and a Byzantine church with beautiful mosaics. We stopped for a quick lunch, then got on some donkeys to climb up to the monastery! The donkeys were neat to ride… a little scary because mine and Lori’s kept trying to pass each other for the lead on really narrow and steep steps next to a deep ravine. But they were fun! They took us about ¾ of the way up the mountain, then we had to get off and climb the rest of the way. The monastery was beautiful. Very similar to the treasury, but less ornate. It was a temple tomb that may have later been used as a church. Then we climbed up further to a high point advertising “the best view in Petra.” I don’t think I will ever be able to explain how physically intense all of our hiking and climbing has been. My leg muscles are incredible though! haha. It really was beautiful seeing all of the mountains from that high. All along the path going up were Bedouin men, women and children selling trinkets and jewelry and sure enough there was a tent at the top selling souvenirs too. We talked to the man and asked if he has to walk up the whole mountain everyday, and he said no, that he lives right there at the top! What a front yard! He also played for us on a little guitar and sang. After getting back down to the bottom we had to walk an hour to get back through the site to the bus. Fortunately after a certain point a horse ride is included in your ticket price, so we rode horses up the last part of the hill. The next day we got on a ferry boat to Egypt! More on that later!

More tombs and houses in the hillside



The monatery from the peak



Me on the peak



The Dead Sea and the Negev desert

Wednesday we went South to the Dead Sea and the Negev which means both south and desert, because the southern part of the country is all desert. First we stopped at Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. It was a small community of Jews who had broken away from the temple because they believed the priests were not legitimate and that they were preparing for some cataclysmic battle between the Sons of Darkness and the Sons of Light, so they were very aesthetic. But whatever their beliefs were, they studied the scriptures and kept them in caves where they were hidden until the 1940s. As you know, these are some of the earliest copies of the Old Testament scriptures. We already had seen some of the scrolls, so it was neat to see the community and caves that they came from! 

Me infront of one of the caves the scrolls were found in

Then we went to a public beach at the dead sea where we swam…or floated…for a while. It was so weird because it just doesn’t act like you expect water to act. When you lean back in it, your feet just pop up and its like you are lounging in a chair, only you’re in water. Then its really difficult to get your feet back under water! And because of all of the salts and minerals, the water has a very oily feel to it. When you get out and the super hot sun immediately evaporates the water off of you, you are left with a really thick layer of salt on your skin! It was kinda gross, but definitely fun!

floating!

Then we went to Massada which was a city built on top of a huge plateau where after the first Jewish-Roman war, the Romans were breaking through the city walls and the Jews planned a mass suicide because they would rather die than become Roman slaves. Today many Israeli soldiers hike up the mountain with all of their packs and gear and take their oath to serve the country from the top vowing “Masada shall never fall again.” It was a really great site with ruins of Herod’s palace on the edge of the cliff from 30 BCE, which was beautiful, and a gigantic cistern at the other end with nice examples of a synagogue and houses and storage rooms in between and stunning scenery all around.



The Massada Plateau



Herod's Palace



John "sacraficing" me at the temple

Thursday we went to Arad, which is an Israelite city mentioned in the Old Testament. There is a temple there with monoliths dedicated to Yahweh and possibly Asherah who was the female counterpart to Yahweh. This was during the time of David when temples outside of Jerusalem were forbidden. There was also a good example of a house from about 3000 BCE.



The Holy of Holies in the Israelite Temple



 

As we were driving to the next site a heard of wild camels crossed the road!



Then we went to Avdat which was a prosperous town on the incense trade route between the Mediterranean and India. It was inhabited by Nabataeans, not Israelites, but eventually converted to Christianity and has ruins of two basilicas. The side of the hill have tons of cave dwellings which was where the residents of the town would have lived. The houses were carved into the white chalky hillside, and there were a few that we could go into. It was incredible how much cooler it was inside the caves compared to the 105 degrees outside. You could see counters and storage holes for pottery inside, and niches in the walls for oil lamps with black burn marks still there. It was a really interesting site.



We got to the hotel and Laurie our professor told us that we were near a canyon, so after a long hard day of walking through the desert, Lori and I decide to go back out into the desert to this canyon. It was only a block from our hotel, but we went on a trail that took us up a mountain that looked like a camel to a great lookout. It looked like the Grand Canyon only wider and more shallow. It was stunning. My pictures don’t do it justice.

 

That night we had a Bedouin dinner! It was a tourist stop, not a real Bedouin community, but still neat. We ate in a huge tent supported by palm trees, sitting on cushions around a huge tray of food: chicken, potatoes, veggies, a thin chewy pita they called Bedouin bread, and hummus. After dinner we went to another temple where a Bedouin sheik sat and told us about Bedouin life and played music for us.



A view of the inside of the tent

The next day we started at a nature trail near Avdat. It is a trail through another canyon. This one was made of white chalk which was beautiful, and there were ibex playing all over the sides of the cliffs. The stream running through the canyon led to a trickle of a waterfall which is believed to be the site where Moses struck a stone and water came flowing out for the Israelites. It was such a beautiful walk!  

Ibex on the cliffs



the stream leading to the waterfall



Then we went to Beersheba where Abraham lived for a while, and God saved Hagar and Ishmael from dying in the desert. The ruins we saw are from a much later period than that though. It was a small little town, and was the southern most point of the ancient land of Israel.



When we came back to Jerusalem, Saturday we just walked around town. We stopped at Basil’s store for the last time. Basil is a friend of our professor, and has become a friend of ours too. Since he knows us, he always gives us the best deal he can, and it is so nice to not have to barter. He brings us delicious tea that is for the shopkeepers and tastes like mint and honey. It is just nice to know someone in the city, and he is great for advice about the city and to get a good opinion on the politics and events going on. We will definitely miss him!



Basil with the ladies!

Yesterday was our last day in the city. We had a passion walk, and walked from the garden of Gethsemane, to the site of the upper room of the last supper. Technically we would have to go back to the garden after that, but it is quite an uphill hike, so we only did it once haha. Unfortunately the church that commemorates the high priest’s palace and Peter’s denial was closed. But then we walked to where the praetorian would have been, then to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where Calvary and the tomb are. We read the passages from Mark that fit all of these places and it was very powerful. It was a good reminder that Jesus’ death and resurrection is the real reason any of us are on the trip, and that any of these sites are even here today. It was a great conclusion to bring the experience of Israel full circle to the real meaning. I finally got to go into the tomb! It was crowded and rushed, and covered with so much marble and decoration that you cant see anything, but just the fact that its probably one of the most archaeologically correct sites in the city made it worth it!



The chapel at the upper room where the last supper took place. The figure on the far right is of a woman because women were certainly present even though they are never depicted.



Then we finally got to go up to the Dome of the Rock. To get there we went through the Western Wall area, and it was fitting that we spent the last day in the city at the holiest sites of each of the three religions. The mosque was so beautiful up close. So vibrant. And the temple mount around it was really neat, like a park with trees and children playing.

A group of us at the Dome of the Rock

We leave for Jordan tomorrow. Our last few days here were spent in retreat, which wass really helpful for processing everything we have done and seen so far and what it means for us. Two weeks from Wednesday I will be back in the US!

Hiking through a Wadi and more

This will be a shorter post because we haven’t seen too much in the past couple days. There has been some tension in town because of the peace talks, so we have been laying low and avoiding certain areas prone to conflict. Sunday was the day the President was going to decide to let the settlement building freeze expire or extend it. We thought it would be better to stay out of the city that day, so we played games and watched movies in the convent. He let the freeze expire, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of conflict yet thankfully, at least where we are.
Thursday we toured the property of the Passionist Priests’ house next to ours, and the Sisters of Charity next to them. The houses are built on land that used to be part of ancient Bethany. They have a fantastic 1^st century Jewish Mikveh, the most complete one we have seen. It is the ritual bath in which Jews purified themselves after touching something “unclean” or before going to the temple, etc. This one in Bethany is important because Bethany was the last stop on the pilgrimage route from Galilee to Jerusalem, so many pilgrims would have stopped there to purify themselves before going on to the city. Jesus would have stopped here to purify himself, especially since he stayed with Mary and Martha in Bethany while visiting Jerusalem. There have only been two other mikveh’s found in the area, one dating from a later period, so this has a really good chance of being one used by Jesus. There are two sets of steps, one “unclean” set to go down, and another “clean” set to come back up after bathing. It was neat to see the graffiti inside the mikveh from when they re-plastered the walls and from the crusaders.

The entrance to the Mikveh

 

 Saturday was a really neat day. We walked along the pilgrimage route between Jerusalem and Jericho, which was the path Jesus and the disciples would have taken from Galilee. It goes through the Judean wilderness, which basically means the desert. It is also the area along the Jordan River where Jesus went for 40 days after being baptized by John and was tempted by Satan. I have no idea how he lasted 40 days because we barely lasted the 5 hours it took us to walk through. And unfortunately we did it in the heat of the day! It was about 104 degrees and we were hiking through the wilderness. We were sweating out water faster than we could drink it. I’ve never been so sweaty in my life. The path is through the Wadi Qelt. A wadi is a dry river bed, and you could see where water carved the rocks, but there hasn’t been water here in decades, maybe centuries.
We started on a paved road that led to the monastery of St. George. I have no idea how these monks get these crazy ideas to build monasteries in the most difficult places possible, but there it was. Along this road there were many Bedouin men offering their donkeys and camels as taxis! Then we walked down into the canyon and past the monastery and continued our journey in a single file line along a narrow path on the side of the cliff. It was really beautiful. When we could finally see the oasis of Jericho in the distance we cheered! It was a really neat experience. Not only do I have a deeper appreciation for Jesus’ temptation in the desert (I’m sure many in our group would have traded their first born child for a cold bottle of water), but also for the passage in Isaiah that announces the coming of God where the way will be made straight and every valley shall be exalted and every mountain made low. How amazing that would have sounded when you are used to walking in terrain like this! If we had a straight path we could have cut out time in half!

The beginning of our hike

Monastery of St. George

 Sunday we had Mass in a cave on the Passionist property. It would have been attached to a house like I described in my post about Bethlehem. The Passionists believe it was Martha and Mary’s house, but there is no proof.


Monday we had Easter Mass in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where Jesus’ tomb is. It was really nice! Then some of us walked around town and did some shopping which was nice. Today we did the same. We are getting down to the end of our time here in Jerusalem, so we are making sure that we spend all of our shekels and get all of the souvenirs we have been eyeing over the past weeks. Tomorrow we go to the Dead Sea and surrounding area for two days. Then we come back and have a few retreat days, then it is on to Jordan and Egypt! 3 weeks from tomorrow I will be on a flight home. I cant believe it!

Around Jerusalem and a Little Town called Bethlehem



The day after we got back from Galilee was the eve of Yom Kippur, so the city was basically shut down, which was a blessing to give us a day of rest from the whirlwind week! The next day was Yom Kippur, so we still took it easy and just walked up the Mount of Olives to a church on top dedicated to the “Our Father.” I think this church started the trend of having scripture and mosaics in several different languages, because in the original church there were reports of finding inscriptions of the Our Father in Greek, Hebrew and Latin. That inspired the current church to have the prayer written in over a hundred different languages. There were really so many that I did not recognize at all. Even Cherokee Native Americans had one! And several languages were written in Braille as well. It was really neat.

The courtyard of the Pater Noster church with some of the different languages

The next day, Lori and I went to the Citadel and the Tower of David. It is part of a fortress Herod built, that was mistakenly identified as David’s before they knew where the real City of David is (on the complete other side of the modern city). The museum there was really interesting. Instead of artifacts, they had really well-done visual representations of the history of Jerusalem. We are getting so good at our history that we could identify many events without reading the descriptions!

The ruins inside of the fortress

Monday we walked around half of the city on top of the walls! It was really neat! We walked around the Christian and Muslim quarters. Some of the time we were just looking at the sides of buildings that are built right against the wall, but most of the time we were looking at the rooftops, which are basically the people’s backyards with swings and laundry lines. It really gave us an appreciation of the residential life of the city, which you can forget about when all you do is visit the shops and tourist attractions. There was also a great view of the Temple Mount from the Damascus Gate in the Muslim Quarter. Then we went to the basement of a convent called the Lithostrotos. They have pavement from the 1^st century where Jesus might have been in prison, and in the marble pavement is a engraving called the “Game of the King” which was a dice game prisoners would play. The winner was king for the day and could do whatever he wanted, but at the end of the game he was killed. Something like that. I didn’t really understand, but it was interesting to see!

Walking along the top of the wall

Part of the Lithostrotos



Tuesday was one of my favorite days. We went to Bethlehem! Bethlehem is in Palestinian territory so we had to go through a checkpoint in the wall separating Israel and Palestine, but we didn’t have any problems. We started out at Shepherd’s Field, which is the field where the shepherds were watching their sheep when the angels appeared to them announcing the birth of Jesus. We had Christmas Mass there, meaning we used the Christmas readings and sang Christmas carols! It was so moving to be in the place the songs are referencing! And lo and behold, a shepherd walked his sheep through the field below us while we were watching! So picturesque! While we were waiting for the bus to pick us up, we started talking to one of the vendors selling olive wood and bags, and it turns out, he works in Pittsburgh during the Christmas season! He has a kiosk in the Pittsburgh Mills Mall selling olive wood! It is such a small world! He was so friendly. He was sharing with me how since the wall was constructed, the cost of living in Bethlehem has gone up. At the same time, tourism has gone down. So it is becoming very difficult for people who have been dependent on tourism to make a living. Please, after November 20, if you are in the Pittsburgh Mills Mall, stop by his kiosk and buy some olivewood! He really needs the support! This year he is hoping to have a kiosk near the food court. His name is Gassan, and he is really a nice man! We exchanged emails, so he will remember me and give you a good price if you mention that I told you to go to him!

The fields of the Shepherds

Sheep!

Then we went to the Church of the Nativity. This is one of the oldest churches still in use in the world. Helena built the first church in the 4^th century, and most of it was destroyed so Justinian built one on top of it in the 5^th century. In the middle ages when the Muslims were destroying all of the churches, they saw a mosaic of the Three Kings in this church, which looked like them, so they didn’t destroy it! That’s why the church has been able to be in continual use for so long! In the church is the cave where Jesus was born, which you can touch. The site has been reverenced since the 2^nd century which makes scholars think it is pretty authentic. Don’t worry, Jesus was born in a manger. The area has a lot of caves carved into the soft chalk rock, and people would often build their homes in front of the caves, using the caves as part of the home. In the winter, they kept their animals in the cave because they provided warmth for the rest of the house. To separate the animals and the house, the mangers would block the cave. So when there wasn’t room in the inn, Mary and Joseph may have been in the back cave of an inn or house. Not the picture we imagine, but a more archaeologically accurate representation. Pretty neat! After the church we went to the olive wood shop that is owned by friends of our professor. We got to see them carving the wood which was really interesting.

The Church of the Nativity



The grotto where Jesus' birthplace is reverenced. Its so decorated you cant even tell what you are looking at.

Then we went to Bethlehem University to talk to students about life in Bethlehem and how the Christian presence there makes such a difference. The school is the only Christian college in Palestine, and was built in the 70s. Most of the students are Muslim, but that makes the school one of the only places in Israel where Christians and Muslims can learn together and become friends with each other. The video we watched about the school said that no one knows when peace will come to this area, but when it does, Palestine will need well-educated, well-rounded citizens with open hearts to rebuild Palestine, and those people will come from Bethlehem University. The students shared with us the hopes they have for the future, and the fears that they have for today. It really gives such a different perspective on the conflict, as simply living here has. The news does not portray it accurately, and that was one of the most important things the students wanted to tell us. 

The chapel in Bethlehem University



Yesterday Kasia and Kate and I walked around the city ALL day! We wanted to go to a museum, but it was closed because of Sukkot. It is really amazing how the holy days of each of the 3 religions really affects daily life as far as what is open, which buses run, where you can go, etc. Anyway, we walked around all 4 quarters. It was the first time I had been in the Jewish and Armenian quarters. I also find it amazing how each quarter is like going into a completely different world. In the Jewish quarter we saw a lot of the booths they have built for the feast which was neat. We went to “The Burnt House” which is the remains of a house that was burned down when the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in 70 CE. It had a video presentation about the destruction of Jerusalem that gave a good idea of what life was like, and that the whole city was destroyed, not just the temple. The churches we wanted to see in the Armenian quarter were closed, but we were talking to a shop owner who told us to go up the staircase near his shop to the roof because there is a good view. What was even better than the view, was the fact that the rooftops were like another street. They are paved and all connected, and people were walking around. We felt like Aladdin! 

A Sukkot booth in the Jewish quarter



The Burnt House

On the rooftops



We went to the Christian quarter and climbed to the top of the bell tower of the Lutheran church of Christ the Redeemer. It had a beautiful view of the whole city! Then we went back to the Holy Sepulcher (where Jesus’ tomb is). The line at the tomb was still way too long, but we were able to go to the chapel upstairs on the hill of Calvary and reach your hand under the altar and put it in the hole where the cross would have been inserted. That was really amazing. Then we went to the Western Wall to see the Jewish people getting ready for Sukkot. We got there too early, but since the wall was empty we went and prayer. The woman praying next to me was reading the Jewish scriptures and was actually weeping. I couldn’t help but cry myself. It was a really moving experience to pray there. We saw a few families coming to the wall with their palms and fruit, but we had to leave so we could make it to dinner. We might go back another day this week.

The view of the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives from the bell tower



It is hard to see, but to the left of the altar is part of the stone of Mount Calvary, and under the altar where Kate is in the blue shirt is where you can reach through and feel the hole.