Jericho

Yesterday, we took an excellent field trip to the city of Jericho. First, we visited the site of New Testament Jericho where King Herod's winter palace would have been. This is the site where Christ healed a blind man before walking up to Jerusalem. There were only remnants of the archaeology digs that had taken place here, but it was very cool to be looking at yet another place Jesus had walked and performed a miracle. Jericho was one of the first ancient cities because it has an excellent water supply and is warm all year long. Thus, they were able to settle and have agriculture instead of being nomads and wandering for food and such. Next, we made a quick stop at a large sycamore tree in the city. This symbolizes the man that climbs the tree in the New Testament to see Christ. We stopped for a quick picture, but then proceeded forward.

The next stop was Tel Jericho, which is a little mountain made by civilizations being built on top of one another. This is the site of Old Testament Jericho. On this site is what is known as the oldest building in the world, which is a sweet tower. Apparently it dates back to 8000 BC!!! This is also the site where Joshua fought and the Lord knocked down the walls! It's amazing to bring the bible to life by seeing how these are real places.

After that, we moved on to climb a huge mountain to visit an awesome monastery that is built into the mountain. This was simply an amazing architectural feat. This is where Jesus was tempted to turn a rock into bread and they have a rock that they believe is the exact rock that he was tempted with. The monastery is literally built into the side of a mountain and there are caves where monks often live a life of solitude. Even though I was sweating more than I have ever sweat in my entire life, this was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.

Lastly, on the way back, we stopped at the Judean wilderness to talk a bit and read a few scriptures. We also had the opportunity to sing "Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd", which was awesome. We all decided that the person that wrote that song had never been to the Judean wilderness though. He writes about being hungry and helpless and COLD-- it's definitely not cold there. Anyways, it was an amazing field trip and I'm still amazed that I get to see places from the bible that really exist and are not some far off land. I'm living where they lived and following their paths.

On Thursday we leave for Egypt and will not be back until the following Thursday so don't expect anything from me since I'm leaving my computer in Jerusalem.