Jericho

Marhaba! I haven’t blogged for quite some time now, and I feel a little overwhelmed because we’ve done so much! I’m probably going to split up the posts to each thing we did so it’s not a big long confusing blur. I’ve done so much since I've had contact with this blog and everyone reading (all 22 followers....). So Monday the 16^th we went to Jericho: the lowest city on the earth.

 It was a one day field trip focused on the biblical aspects of Jericho. We went to the Tel Es-Sultan, a tel (mound of land that is layered with different cities) there is a tower in the ruins that we saw that is believed to be the oldest man-made structure in the world. 

It has evidence of Canaanite habitation and was the starting of the Neolithic period (interesting…nerd?). We studied the scriptures, especially Joshua 2 and it made it real to be sitting where the walls possibly fell. 

            Then we traveled through the Judean Wilderness and went to the Quruntul Monastary. It is on the Mount of Temptation, where the devil tempted Jesus following His 40-day fast. Monastaries were built here during the Byzantine period to commemorate the event, along with other events like the Good Samaritan story. We came from Jerusalem, which is up in the mountains down to Jericho which is far below sea level. This gives new meaning to when we read that people go “down” to Jericho. It is completely dry, baren, and empty, but beautifully vast and expansive. This is also the area in which the story of the Good Samaritan happened. The barenness and dry lack of….anything…makes me appreciate the story so much more. Not only that the man would have been in so much pain, but what a sacrifice it was for the Samaritan to stop. I know that he would have already been worn out himself, barely making it through the land without the burden of someone else. I hope that I would have stopped to help someone if I was in that situation, but I wouldn’t put it past myself if I wouldn’t have. It’s a rough place. 

            Then we went to Herod’s Winter palace. This guy was pretty evil, considering he lived extravagantly, ordered the death of all baby boys, and killed quite a few family members including his wife. It was a pretty sweet palace, though. He had baptism fonts, a pool, and a huge palace. It looks like this right now:

there were little kids there showing us their baby goats!

xoxo more posts soon!