Mark Jones – In His Dust

Day 4 

Today was perhaps better than Wednesday. I’m undecided.

Today, we checkout out the city of David (or where it used to be). This pretty much consisted of having a look at some old ruins, and watching a mini-movie of what the city would have looked like back in David’s day. Obviously it’s changed since then. The old city has moved completely. The only thing that has pretty much kept it’s original location is the Temple (mount).

We also had a wander through Hezekiah’s tunnel. This was a way of getting water into the city, without having to go outside the city’s walls. Major tunnel. I got more than a bit wet (didn’t roll up my shorts like Brian and Scotty did…), and it’s was pretty dark. But an awesome experience. It’s pretty much the oldest – non modernised part of Israel that I’ve been in, which goes right back to Biblical times (David’s time).

We also visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is supposedly the area where Jesus was crucified,where he was buried, etc. I didn’t enjoy this place overly much. The church(es) own/share this between about 5/6 different denominations or whatever. Plus, I got the distinct impression that people were getting a little too excited about ‘objects’, ’symbols’, ‘icons’ and ‘idols’. Wasn’t my favourite experience. Perhaps I’ll blog about it another time.

Day 3

Thursday. What a tiring day!

Today we (that’s Brian, Scott, Monica and Myself) went to a place (first of all) called Masada. It’s another one of Herod’s fortresses/palaces. This thing was huge, and on top of a very, very, large, high up hill – which of course we hiked up. Other sissy tourists got a cable car/gondola up to the top – but not the Re:Hope reps!

I of course, due to my lack of fitness (and asthma) was gasping for air by the time we got up the top. Apparently this was a ‘pleasure’ palace for Herod – which I’m sure, he enjoyed climbing to the top much more than I did. It was also used in the first Jewish-Roman war, where roughly 1000 Jewish defenders chose mass suicide, rather than fight the masses of Romans who built huge seige ramps in order to attack the Jews.

After Masada, we headed to a place called David’s waterfall – which is supposedly the place which Psalm 42 was based on – David’s favourite retreat spot. 

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my sould pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”. These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so distrubed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.

My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon – from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.”

OK. Enough of David’s waterfall. After that, we went to the Dead sea. This place is amazing. It’s 1378 ft below sea level, and it’s 8.6 times saltier than the ocean – and trust me, after getting a tiny bit of this stuff in my mouth, it’s freaking salty. Biblically, it was a place of refuge for King David – funnily enough it’s right near David’s waterfall! Because of it’s salty-ness, and the other chemically stuff in there, you don’t swim in the dead sea. You float. It’s crazy. Check out the pictures (which are coming soon!).

Over and Out.

Day 2

So on Wednesday Brian and I (my American/wanna be scottish companion) decided to throw cation to the wind, and head into the areas which aren’t exactly the ’safest’ places to go if your from America/Scotland. We headed into Bethlehem first off – where we checked out the Church where Jesus was ’supposedly’ born, as well as the Shepard’s field where (supposedly) the angel spoke to the shepards.

Our guide was a guy called Majde (That’s most likely the wrong spelling) who lived and owned a shop in Bethlehem. This guy was quality. Quality = a good guy. He closed his shop, went and filled his car up with gas, and offered to show us around the ’sites’. He was an x-tour guide as well - so he knew what he was talking about too.

In order to even get into Bethlehem though, we had to go through ‘the wall’. There’s alot of issues here with the Palastines and Israelies – so the security is pretty tight in between the 2. We’re talking passport checking, metal detectors, and guys with machine guns or uzi’s. Nothing that Ingraham (Brian) and me couldn’t handle obviously.

After Bethlehem, we headed off to a place called Herodian – which was one of Herod’s (for the time of Jesus) palaces/fortresses/citadels. This thing was genious. It was atop a man made hill (which thankfully we drove most of the way up!), and had a whole network of mad made tunnels underneath. Herod certainly took his safety into account when building this thing.

Driving about proved interesting as well. Every now and again there are checkpoints (more guys with machine guns) where cars get stopped, searched, etc. We didn’t have much of a problem though – perhaps because Brian and I were in the car?

Last stop of the day was a place called Hebron. If you know your Old testiment – this was David’s first capital city – before he went off and decided Jerusalem was a better place to live. This was where Isaac, Abraham and their two wives Rachel and Sarah were buried. The security was pretty tight here aswell. Apparently, the Mosque/synagogue (it’s split into two areas) place we actually visited and got shown around had a gunman come in a while back, and open fire on the people inside.

So, all in all, Brian and I had to take our belts off about 4 or 5 times each. It gets a bit repetative after the first 2 times or so. Metal detectors!

My favourite day so far!

So, On Monday I left for Israel, and have spent the past 2 days checking out parts of Jerusalem and ‘other areas’.

It’s been Brilliant. Yesterday (Tuesday) I spent a while wandering about the ‘Old City’ of Jerusalem. Obviously that’s the ‘current’ old city. Seeing as it’s been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. I went and saw the Western wall too – which is the remaining part of the retaining wall around the temple mount from the Second Temple from the time of the Roman destruction. After that, we climbed the Mount of Olives and looked out on the Old city from the Top. Just an easy first day.

It’s amazing to walk in the land where Jesus walked 2000 years ago. It’s honestly quite exciting. Having said that, it’s obviously changed dramatically since then. But you can still see where certain things were, areas where stuff happened, etc. It’s going to be really interesting to read through the old testament again and be able to relate that to a real life experience – having been in Israel.

I’ll blog about today and the next few days later. And I’ve still to get photographs to go up with this as well (can’t transfer them to a computer here).

Stay tuned. Haha.