Weeks 5 and 6

To be honest with y'all..... it's been 2 weeks filled with school. Last week I was playing catch up with school work after being in Turkey for a week then this week we had midterms. So I really haven't been out much and I'm starting to get a little stir crazy! Thankfully we have had 2 field trips, Arab culture night and a free day to save me from insanity!!!!

Last Monday, May 26, we took a half day field trip to Jericho, the world's oldest city- or so they say. :)

On this field trip we saw the Quruntul Monastery, which is literally just built into the hillside. I'm glad I didn't have to build that! And it's in the middle of the desert. This monastery was built to commemorate the event when the devil tempted Jesus following his forty-day fast, as well as other scriptural events.

 While we were at Jericho we discussed Matthew 4 when Satan tempted Christ after his forty day fast. The big thing that we discussed is how Christ had an eternal perspective. When we focus on the now it keeps us from the eternal but Christ can see past the right now. Also, Satan is trying to create disunity between Christ and the Father but seeing God's perspective brings unity and Christ was able to see that perspective!

 The tower in the picture below is considered to be the oldest man-made structure in the world. They date it back to 8,000 BC! Now that is old!

I did make it out into the city one day last week but it Jerusalem Day which brought some political unrest in the city. We weren't allowed to go into the Old City so we decided to head over to West Jerusalem to visit the Biblical Zoo!!! Yeah, it was just a normal zoo but it does have a model of Noah's ark! It was fun to see all the animals but my favorite part was the sculpture garden. hahah. They had really amazing statues covered in mosaics! they were so pretty! 

Thursday night we had a very cultural evening! We had Arab Culture Night! There is a merchant in town that loves us BYU students and let us all borrow Arab dresses so we could all look amazing for the night! 

The evening began with 2 of the sheikhs from the Al-Aqsa Mosque coming to do the call to prayer for us. They also demonstrated their prayers and answered prayers. It was so strange to meet the men whose voices we heard ring out throughout the city daily! 

Then we ate a MASSIVE feast! We have a buffet dinner every night but this was the buffet dinners to end them all! 

and then they expected us to dance. hahaha. We did some traditional Arab dancing and man was it hard. We struggled big time but we had fun doing it :) 

I kind of love my professors!!! a lot.

Sunday for free day I went out to the city and just explored. I was the third wheel to the engaged couple. It was great :) We went to the Rockefeller Museam, Zedekiah's Cave, the Olive Wood Street, a lady's house where she excavated her basement and the Lithotrotos. By the end of the day I was exhausted but it was a great day! 

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of most of it. haha. whoops. 

A famous statue from the Rockefeller

The excavated basement

the cavern of the lithotrotos

 The SHEPHELAH!!!! That may be the most said word among our professors. I think it's just because it's a fun word to say :) shephelah. shephelah. shephelah. shephelah. see it's great fun.

Where this is where we spent our day on Monday for the field trip. We explored the tels and valleys of the shephelah. The Shephelah is the low hill country of Judea. This is the home of Samson and David and the location for many Bible stories. One fun part of the day is when my group was on top of one tel and the other group was on top of a tel 11 miles away and we sent signals to each other using mirrors! It was crazy cool. The idea originated from a shard of pottery that said, "And let [my lord] know that we are watching for the signals of Lachish, according to all the indications which my lord hath given, for we cannot see [the signal fires of] Azekah." Well we couldn't light fires to send signals but the mirrors worked great!

A lush tree in the middle of the desert. It's called the ghost tree.

underground cavern for birds

We explored massive underground passageways

Harry Potter anybody????

Bell caves! They had AMAZING acoustic so we sang hymns :) 

 My favorite part of the day was our visit to the Valley of Elah where David defeated Goliath. Our professor talked about the story and how we can apply it to our lives. He talked about how David was able to defeat Goliath because he had the Lord on his side. And when we have the Lord on our side we can defeat the Goliaths in our lives. We will all have our own Goliaths whether we have already faced one, currently facing one or going to face one.

I'm real good at slingshots.

So that's the last two weeks for me :) besides studying for hours for midterms!!!