israel post 6

So, moving on to more of Tuesday, 4-30...

From the Jordan River, we headed to Beit She'an, the Roman Decapolis Archaeological Ruins. Through some of these posts, you'll need to remember that the temperatures were lingering at 100 degrees. We were told it would be 60-80 degrees during this time of year, and boy was that way off!! So at all of these rocky places, we practically felt like we were in a skillet!! Anyway, back to the Ruins. Beit She'an sits at the junction of the Jordan River Valley and the Jezreel Valley, essentially controlling access from the interior to the coast, as well as from Jerusalem to the Galilee. So it was a very important area of control. When we arrived, Yuval gave us some history and then turned us loose to explore! As you can see in the second photo, there is a huge tel in the background (remember, a tel is a hill that has been created by layering one civilization on top of the previous one, until it turns into a hill). Many people hiked to the top of the tel, but by the time we did our other exploring, we didn't have enough time. But that's ok. We really enjoyed nosing around in the ruins. A lot of the areas had descriptive plaques nearby, describing what we were looking at. The one that the boys enjoyed the most was regarding the Roman baths. It talked about how the men would go to the baths, and in order to suds up, they would wrestle! Oh yes, that became a running joke for the rest of the trip :)

The people along the middle road can give a good depiction of the size of the ruins and the tel...pretty massive...

Me with Ms. Kimberly...so glad we were on the same tour bus!! It was nice getting to see all of these things together with her.

And one BFF deserves another! Chris and Neeley enjoyed their time together too!

Walking the ruins with my man...

From there, we travelled on our way to Jerusalem...along the way, I captured a lot of photos from the bus window. So much interesting stuff to see. So, when I arrived, I thought that Israel was a lot more modernized and more "city" than I expected...but this leg of the journey showed me more of Israel the way I had envisioned Israel. Sandy, rocky, not much around. The photo below is more of how I pictured it! Yuval pointed out the nomad villages too, which was interesting. The second photo shows the bedouin, a group of predominantly desert-dwelling Arabian ethnic groups traditionally divided into tribes, or clans. These clans are not citizens of any country. They sort of float undisturbed for the most part. The great thing about the bedouins is that each one had a donkey or two! :)

Finally, we were nearing Jerusalem, where we would spend the rest of our trip. We entered into a long tunnel, and right at the end Yuval put on the national anthem of Jerusalem...and we burst out of the tunnel and there it was, laid out before us! Kind of crazy. Below is a photo of us with the panoramic landscape of Jerusalem behind us.

Our first stop in Jerusalem was the Mount of Olives.Jesus is said to have spent time on the mount, teaching and prophesying to his disciples and also coming there on the night of his betrayal. It is the place where Jesus stood when he wept over Jerusalem. This is also the place where Jesus ascended to heaven as recorded in the book of Acts 1:9–12. The top photo shows the view of Jerusalem from the main spot on the mount that we visited. The most interesting thing, to me, was the cemetery right at the mount location. It has been used as a Jewish cemetery for over 3,000 years and holds approximately 150,000 graves. That in itself is interesting, but here is the fascinating thing -- this cemetery is here because it is believed that since the Mount of Olives is where Jesus ascended to heaven, it is also where he will be returning to Earth when the time comes. So the bodies that are buried right here feel they will be the first to rise out of the graves and ascend to heaven. I'm a pretty young Christian, in that it has only been a few years...so I don't have a lot of Bible knowledge yet. But that seems odd to me! From what I have read, I feel that it will be more of a "simultaneous" rising up...everyone who has been saved by Jesus, all at ONCE. And something else that just struck me as odd -- I wish Yuval was here to ask! These are Jewish people buried here...and the Jewish people do not believe the Jesus was the mesiah...so why are they concerned with being buried there??? Hm. Need to look into that more.

There you have today's photos :) I still have more to share from Tuesday. More tomorrow!