Jordan Day 4- Sunday

A bit more of a personal view to finish off my field study blogging- a copy of my final reflection paper:

It was the very end of the last day of our last field study. I stood on the mountain, my mind going numb with the thoughts of Moses and what he must have been feeling when he stood here. He had been working his way through the desert and now stood on Mt Nebo with his first view of the promise land. This is what he had been waiting for, searching for, longing for for so long. Yet, there was still a part that was being held back; he couldn’t see it all- there was still a huge chunk missing. What could it be? Only Yahweh knew, but it was the promise land and so Moses knew it would be good.

I thought about my life and compared it to Moses’. The Lord had brought me through some desserts already, and, as I looked out into the promise land of my life, I saw so many possibilities: people, loving people, people loving Jesus, travel, adventure, a chance to make a difference in others lives, a family, living in the deserts of foreign countries, living in America, photography and art, making a dent in ending human trafficking and sexual slavery, children, more school…the possibilities in the promise land seem very bountiful, but I can’t see it all and don’t have a lot of direction.

It will be back to the desert for me when I get home. Back to school which is not an easy place for me. But the desert is a place where people’s life skills are honed and people gain wisdom and understanding. A desert is a place of lessons to learn and faith to hold onto. It is a place where we must strengthen our trust, it is a place where faithfulness of heart, spirit, and mind is demanded completely.

The Lord has shown me over and over again his faithfulness. I know I can trust him and that he always only has the best for me in mind, and he loves me more then anyone ever could. My job now is to be faithful in what he has given me to do (finish school) and be faithful in the relationships he has trusted me with in Portland.

As I turned back around to walk back to the bus, I knew, after my glance at the promise land of my life, just like Moses, I was going back to my wilderness. I asked for strength, because I knew I would need it. Ultimately, here is my decision, here is my desire, here is my decree: I will be faithful, for the Lord has been faithful to me.

Ash and me in front of our hazy futures...

Jordan Day 3-Saturday

The morning sun's bright light christened the massive rock faces in beautiful shades of red and gold. We all couldn't help but stare in wide eyed wonder at the majestic sculpted rock surrounding us. We had just begun our third day in Jordan, and, from what I had seen in my first few minutes in Petra, I knew it was going to be magical.
After walking through this very narrow ridge we had this first glimpse of something amazing...

Ta-da! The treasury! I('m standing in front of it) It is carved out of a single rock face. Incredible.

The ancient city of Petra was the capital city of the Nabataeans, a desert wondering people group whom Herod the Great's mother came from (see blog post Negev-Sunday to see another Nabataean structure). Petra was re-discovered in 1807 and has been estimated to have been built somewhere around 25 BC-50 AD (right around the time of Jesus!!!). This giant valley (Wadi Musa) claims around 750 different monuments, so, as you may guess, we had a lot to cover in the 5 short hours we were there.

We split up into groups quickly, and I found myself with 5 of my wonderful, but very athletic and energetic guy friends. We booked it for the first hour, running up hundreds of steps, jumping over big crevices in the rocks, and scaling steep hill sides.

Trey, me and John on the top of the high place.

It was great fun, and we saw a lot of great sights in that first hour, but the adventure really began when Trey and I got separated from the group and were sort of lost (though he would never admit to that) amongst the cliffs for a good hour. Trey made me climb down some pretty intense “short-cuts” where I knew it would take just one faulty step and.......(-: But God gave this klutzy girl sure footing for the day, so I made it through those cliffs and canyons safe and sound with a giant smile and my face!

I'm not sure how, but we climbed down that crevice in the rocks...it was almost completely vertical!

Why do jumping shots look so cool? I love the sun in the background.

All along the way there were Jordanian people selling little trinkets to the tourists.

More cool rocks.

There was one point in the day when, after we had met up with some other friends, Trey got separated from the group. I didn't want to leave him behind (just in case he fell off a cliff or something, and he had been my spotter when I climbed down those rock faces) so I went on my own to look for him. Here is where the best part of the whole trip happened: I ran into a little Bedouin girl named Anwar who was selling jewelry to any tourists that happened to go by. After I spoke to her with the tiny Arabic I knew, she began to talk to me in English while I hiked around. She told me to come sit in her little cave and have tea with her, but I insisted that I had to find my friend before he got to far away. Her response: “It's OK, you come sit with me and I be your friend!” I couldn't help but grin as I thanked her for the offer but tried to explain that it was important for me to keep going. I held out my hand and asked if she, as my new friend, would like to join me as I searched the desert and rocks. She joined me for a bit and then went back to her little table of wares. I saw her a few more times as I passed near her and after I finally found Trey, 5 of us went back to her little nook in the desert so I could buy a necklace, take a picture with her, and say goodbye.

Anwar and me. I will never forget this precious little girl.

Incredible hu?

I could have spent at least three more days here, but we needed to continue on and so we headed to a fabulous lookout over the Rift Valley.

Can you figure out which one is me? Me, Ash, Kayt, and Liz

We had a few more stops, but at our last stop at the end of the day we stopped to talk to a few women.

This lovely woman let me take a picture of her beautiful son while her friend invited us to come have dinner at their little house. We regretted that we had to turn them down as we ran to meet the bus and the rest of our group. Maybe someday we will be back...

Jordan Day 2- Friday

Day two rose with blue skies gleaming and the sun shining; it looked like a promising day for the students of JUC. Off we headed to the Amman citadel and museum where we were greeted with the first of the many, many columns we would be seeing this day.

The packed and crowded capital city of Amman

Courtney and me posing with a sweet statue face in the museum. See the resemblance?

Fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls!

This is the remnants of the "Balaam text". It actually talks about Balaam (see Number 22) and how he was a seer of the gods. It's cool when secular findings match up with the Bible...just more evidence in the truth of God's word.

We continued on to Jerrash-the city of a thousand columns. It was spectacular. It was different then all the other sights we saw because every time you walked up a new hill there was another amazing mess of columns and ruins to see. It seemed as if the columns would never end. Just a tiny picture of maybe, maybe a tenth of all the ruins.

We were in this theater with AMAZING acoustics. The bagpiper and drummer played several songs for us. Marcus even got a little bit of drumming time in...

Here's a better view of the theater

Me, Ash, and Kaytlin being silly at the very top of the theater

And then to Ashleigh and Kaytlins dismay, I insisted on our typical weird pose with the columns! What would a beautiful mass of columns be without us showing them a little love???

The Jabbok river was our next stop, and though not an amazing sight to see, it was a great place to talk about some insights from the Bible. The Jabbok river was possibly where Jacob wrestled with the angel. Dr. Wright shared about Jacob and how he is a great representation of us. We strive so hard to separate ourselves from the sinful men and women of the Bible. We read about them and laugh at the fact that God still uses them through all their screw ups, while all the while being so proud that we are better then them. We are so blind to think that. The truth is, we are Jacob- a clever deceiver, doing all that we can to better ourselves while God, in his grace and majesty chooses us to be his despite our selfish actions. The story of the Bible is our story. The stories of the men and women actually paint a shockingly realistic picture of our lives. It is only in our pride and foolishness that we see ourselves as somehow above these people. We are them. We are the ones God send his son to redeem. This class time was a good reminder.

We finished off the day at a "mystery" sight. We weren't allowed to read the sign and we had to explore the ruins and try to piece together what we were looking at, who built it, what time period it was from, etc. It ended up being Tyre, a pleasure palace from early AD

Dan high atop Tyre as the sun sets.

Galilee-Monday

Day three began with one of my favorites moments of the entire trip- a boat ride on the sea of Galilee. The weather was perfect, the lighting amazing, and the colors bright and pure. We spent some time just cruising around taking in the feel of the sea.

It was stormy and at times started to sprinkle, but we were undercover and so the rain just made it feel all the more realistic and moody.

One of the guys who took us out gave us a demonstration of how the cast net is used. He threw it out over the water a few times and them drew it back in being careful not to tangle the net weights on the end of the net. We discussed the fishing in the sea now and back in the time of Jesus. There are apparently 18 different types of kosher fish in the sea along with several kinds that are not kosher. Someday I hope to return and fish in the sea.

Our next stop along the sea was Kursi, the place where the demon possessed men were healed when Jesus sent their evil spirits into the heard of pigs that were nearby. Kursi has some ruins and an old temple to the pigs.

We then went to a very interesting Talmudic city called Qasrin. Talmudic is the Jewish description of the city while Byzantine is the Christian description. We spend an extended amount of time in an insula, a house that is a box of rooms. We talked about the different elements in the house and how they may have related to Jesus during his time. Dr. Wright spoke of the Christmas story and how it is probably wrong when it says that Mary and Joseph went to an inn and were refused residence. What most likely happened was that Mary and Joseph actually went to stay with distant family and were probably not refused a place to stay but refused a place in the traklin (the common room where guests slept) and instead were given a place in the stable, or back room to stay as it would be more private and conducive to a pregnant woman. Kind of put a different spin on my picture of Jesus' birth.

Random column at some of the synagogue ruins of Qasrin.

The next stop was Capurnum where we saw the church built over the possible residence of Peter, his mother-in-law, and maybe Jesus. We also got to explore some ancient synagogue ruins. It poured the hardest I had ever seen when we first arrived and we all got soaked!

A modern little Russian church in Capurnum as seen through the rain stained window of the church built over Peter's house.

We took a quick stop at the Jordan river-it was kinda dirty and not nearly as impressive as I had imagined.

Kaytlin is "baptizing" me...

...and then I baptized her.

Our final stop was a beautiful climb down the Arbel cliffs. The view from above was breathtaking as we saw for miles and even got a glimpse of a beautiful rainbow. We then hiked, climbed, ran, and slid down the cliffs to the bottom of the mountain. It was a great end to a busy informative day. Ash and me-I love my roommate! and what a view!

Part of the cliff.

Layers- a puddle, a cliff, a city, and the sky beyond.

The colors and lighting were unreal!

See the tiny people climbing down? Don't worry, we had some hand rails to hold onto.