Rivsalem... a View from Jeru: JORD!

Liz, me, Koryl. Just sitting on a lonely bench
in Petra

me and Lizzy -- you can see the famous treasury
from Indian Jones through the way!

Sometimes you experience so many amazing things in life that you know it couldn't get any better....but then it does! Traveling around Jordan last week was phenomenal. The places we visited and learned about exceeded my expectations once again -- one of my favorites was Petra.

Petra is a city made out of the rock in the mountains...the sand stone. If you have ever seen Indiana Jones, then you have a basic idea of what it's like. I thought that the only thing in Petra was the treasury that you see in Indiana Jones. We all started running in full excitement when it barely came into view through the small passage. We took a lot of pictures and even paid 5 dinar to get our picture taken on a camel. After that a small group of us with my professor, Brother Huntsman (by the way, he has a pretty charismatic blog that he apparently updates quite frequently if you ever want to take a look-see. It's huntsmansintheholyland.blogspot.com) explored everything that we possibly could in the small amount of time that we had to be there. We hiked up to the High Place and met a little Bedouin lady who sacrificed us all. And by all I mean Tyler, Liz and me. She showed us her little baby, Muhammad. She then wanted us to climb on top of a big rock that was used for ancient sacrificing so she could pretend to sacrifice us while we took a picture. I didn't know what she was trying to do at first...so I might have been a little nervous climbing up that rock with the Bedouin lady...knife in hand and all, but we survived.

We looked through many various tombs of sorts...We just explored every NOOK and CRANNY that time allowed. After our lunch break, we began our trek up the steep, rocky mountain to the monastery. Most people took a donkey up the mountain, but we weren't allowed to do that for safety reasons. I wouldn't have done that anyway...I barely trusted my own two feet, let alone a donkey being led by little boys. At the top, we sat and looked at what I called a Spectacular View! I wish everyone could have seen how beautiful it was to look over the mountain-like wall that secured the city of Petra in ancient times.

I do love a good camel ride...even it if it IS in Petra :)

I don't think I meant to smile for this one

On the way out we had to really speed walk because we were running really late.... and it was a long way to the buses. We got to ride horses about a quarter of mile at the end, which was WAY fun. I almost forgot how much I love riding horses. It was a great way to end a very fulfilling, adventurous day in Petra.

Another favorite place we visited was Jerash. It was pretty comparable to Ephesus minus the hundreds of tourists. You'd think that someone would get really tired of ruins and then traveling to see more ruins...and that might be true, even for me...but the ruins in Jerash were remarkable! It felt more real to me, in that I could actually imagine people living there. I guess you can do that anywhere, but Jerash came to life for me. Maybe it was the intense gladiator show we watched prier to seeing the ruins. Yep. A live gladiator show. It was really funny and I laughed out loud practically the entire show. At first I didn't understand the humor and just thought they were being serious. I felt bad for them when everyone was laughing at them....but I eventually caught on and realized that it was SUPPOSED to be funny.

Lacey, me, Michael-Sean, Kaleb standing next to the river, Jordan.

I think one of the major highlights was the last place we visited. The Jordan River! We had a special devotional by the river where Christ was baptized. It was a particularly good experience. I sat there by the river and tried to imagine what it was like when that special event had taken place. I thought about what happened afterwards...how that was the beginning of Christ's ministry and how the people followed him. As I left the riverside....I guess you could say that I had a renewed desire to follow Him too.

The gospel is amazing. Learning is wonderful. Experiences are good too....put those all together and you are mightily blessed. That's how I feel right about now!