Israel: Part One

A few weeks ago, Jerid and I had the opportunity to go to Jerusalem with our friend Alex Hawks from our church. I may have said this before, but his family has been in Utah for the summer so he has been our buddy on a few adventures, this being the greatest.

We decided on a Saturday/Sunday trip in which we would just stay one night at the YMCA right outside the old city walls. We figured if we left early enough on Saturday morning we could get through border control and customs quicker than waiting until it filled up later in the day. It's illegal to take any cars across the border in exception to diplomats, so that was our saving grace! Alex works at the embassy so we happily made it through every line and obstacle in record breaking time (even for diplomats). We made it through in around 45 minutes! You could tell that the arabs waiting in line to get across were going to be in line for hours and hours. Poor folks.

We made it into the city from the Hussein bridge in about 25 minutes. (I'm not going to get into too much detail about the differences in the city with the Isreal/Palestinian parts of the city because the more I'm here and the more I learn the more upset I get about the entire thing. So, I'll save that for another day, but let's just say this experience has opened my eyes to the reality of the situation.) So, entering the city we immediately went up past the LDS Jerusalem center to a lookout where you can see the entire old city. That's where our picture tour will begin.

I thought this sign was funny.









Hate, hate this picture, but this is Jerid and I standing in front of a view of the old city. You can see the dome of the rock above my left shoulder. Ohh... the spot of earth that holds the answers and dilemmas to nearly all of the worlds problems.








We found a parking spot right in from on Orson Hyde Park and we headed down the hill about 1/4 mile to the Garden of Gathsemene. Jerid joined the groups of crazy christians who tried to lean as far over the fence as possible to grab a piece of olive branch to take home. Luckily his arms were long enough, so we have a wonderful 3 inch piece of olive branch to remember it by :). Thanks babe!

















Next we headed over to the supposed place of Mary's tomb. This was the first taste we had of mere scary, dungeony, dark and gloomy sites where over the centuries places that should have been bright and lovely and peaceful have become, well, like this....








We didn't take too much away from this other than wanting to escape pretty quickly.








Next we headed to the cemetery that is parked in front of the East Gates of the city of Jerusalem.






We headed into the city in the newer East Gates. First we stopped at the old washing pools where Christ healed the blind and sick. We had to go down pretty far to get to the area that was being used when He was around.






Jerid, Melody, Alex and Matthew





Next we headed into the small streets of the city, walking the path of the Via Dolorosa. The path that Christ took while carrying the cross to be crucified.





There were marked spots along the way citing where Christ may have fallen, or where he received his crown of thorns, etc.











The last thing we did on our first day was visit the Garden Tomb. This is where I know that Christ was crucified and laid in His tomb. It was a wonderful experience because of the wonderful Christian group from the UK who preserved the site so well and carried the spirit with them while they let the public in. They really let open it up for you to chose for yourself whether this was actually the true Galgotha or not. They lay out the facts and tried to preserve the area to the best of their ability to resemble what it looked like 2000 years ago.

My favorite place in Isreal, by far.







Behind us in this picture is Galgotha (the skull). This was once a quarry that was set just outside the city walls. It was also on the side of a major street way. You can see the face of the skull directly between Jerid and I. Back in Christs day they would often times use the quarry as a place to stone people in punishment of crimes. We know this to be where Christ was nailed to the cross and died.





This was our tour guide. He was a wonderful man who cared deeply for Christ and for his atonement for us. He really drilled into us that this should not be a place to mourn but a place to celebrate that He Lives!





Inside the tomb. The only finished side of the tomb where one body laid. The other two spots were never finished.











Such a beautiful site! Jerid and Alex talking out side the tomb.









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Location:Jerusalem, Israel

Jarash

A few weeks ago we went to Jarash to see the old Roman ruins. We found some guy on the side of the street who offered us a ride up north for 1 JOD each. We couldn't refuse. So, we headed up the hill, about 45 minutes north, to see the city. It was super hot this day so we didn't stay exactly as long as I would have liked, but we had a nice audio tour with our portable device that explained a lot of what we were looking at. Because it was a few weeks ago and we've done a lot of touring since then, I don't remember a lot of details, so I'll just put up the pics and a website where you can learn more about the old city.

Jerid tried on a traditional Kafia that he ended up buying. He looked pretty sexy in his arab wear :) We also bought an original oil painting from this guy. We're bringing home quite the collection of art, hope we can get it all back on the plane!


The southern gate to the city. Just inside these doors were stables to the left where you could drop off your donkey, horse or camel.


Inside one of the old palaces that is now used to display the most detailed stones that they've found. The ceiling is, as you can see, covered in soot and smoke from the hundreds of years of candles and fires inside.


Heading onto the main street toward the city center where the markets would have been. The layout of the city would have been pretty spectacular then. As you can see from the cracks in the streets, there were quite a few earthquakes that helped take down this city. The main quake in 700 something AD left the city lifeless.


Detailing on a fallen stone.


This was my favorite place. This was the public pool/bathhouse. In each of the crevices there were roman statues that had water fountains pouring out of them into the pool below. You can see the holes in the stones fed the water. There would have been huge canvases threaded through wooden beams that covered the top of the semi-circle so that the pool was partially shaded. when you look inside the pool, under all the garbage and fallen stones, you can still see the details of carved fish at the bottom of the pool.


This was some queens temple, I can't remember, but it was HUGE! As you can see by the pictures of Jerid at the top and me at the bottom, this was quite a trek to the top. Everything was still in great shape.





Jerid standing at the entrance to the northern ampitheater. The people must have been pretty short back then because Jerid had to duck in a lot of the doorways.


The Temple of Zeus (from the side) the temple is being excavated right now, so we couldn't get to it or get a great view of how magnificent it really is. This is set up on top of a hill above the city center.


A great view of the great size of the city. You can see the south gate at the very furthest point in the photo. About 1/4 inch right from Jerid's right shoulder.


Another great outing in a fascinating country. Can't wait to see it again when Jerid's parents come out. They're coming out for 12 days on July 11th, we're very excited! What a great opportunity they have to see this part of the world!

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Mustanji Family Dinner

Jerid and I took a trip to Dead sea about two weeks ago with our friends Matt and Melody. They are the other married couple that is here with BYU doing the same internship. While swimming in the Dead Sea (I'll have to tell the story of that experience another time) we met this family that was infatuated with talking to us and feeding us their home grown VaGoose (similar to a cucumber). The didn't speak an ounce of english but they managed to get our phone numbers so to invite us to their house for dinner. We didn't expect the call the next day but we were happy to meet them for some great Jordanian hospitality.

Matt and Melody weren't able to come out with us so we invited our friend Caleb to join us. We met the Father of the family as well as his brother (the only one with a car) at the seventh circle. Their house ended up being about 45-50 minutes outside of Amman in a little farming village. When we pulled up I knew we were in for an eventful afternoon.

The women and girls greeted us at the door with huge smiles and hugs and kisses to go with it. They had four beautiful teenage daughters that I couldn't help but notice, stared at Jerid and Caleb with googely eyes. :) The women do not eat with guests, so it was us three and the two men sitting around a big oval table being served by all five girls. They brought out the largest platter of Mansiff I had ever seen! This is the traditional Jordanian dish although they prepared it with chicken instead of Lamb (the Palestinian way). Thank goodness! It was actually pretty good other than the bowls of lemony goats milk that they are supposed to drench the rice and meat in. In the Arab tradition the more you eat, the more you love them. We ate until we had rice halfway up our throats and that wasn't the end of it. Lubna, the wife was hysterical. She would laugh and laugh and she kept grabbing huge spoonfuls of the disgusting goats milk and would feed it to me. I honestly thought I was going to loose it! They boys just sat there laughing. Jerid was sure I was going to puke but I held back and kept showing the family that I "loved" them.

After dinner they proceeded to feed us desert and then some weird fruit off their trees, and spicy trail mix, and dates, and candy, and on and on. This is on top of the orange soda and Coca-Cola that they are refilling every time we take a drink. They were just so happy to have us! We laughed through the evening as we tried miserable to understand one another. We ended up having push-up contests and fun holding their pet turtle. It was a great time. They wanted to take a million pictures of us on their camera phone and I snapped a few with my camera. We ended up getting home around midnight, exhausted and grateful for our experience.












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Location:45 min. outside Amman

BBQ at the Hensley's

Jerid and I invited Yazan and his friend out to our house for a little BBQ. They told us that they would give us a call around 6 to get directions to our house. Little did we know that that didn't mean we would be eating any time close to 6 or 7 or 8 or even 9. We both had a late breakfast so we thought we'd just wait and be extra hungry for dinner. Was that ever and understatement. Nine o'clock rolled around and they still hadn't arrived. Finally we got a call around 9:15pm so we headed out to the town to meet them at the circle with the giant coffee pot. They took us to the butcher to get the meat that we needed for dinner. The butcher literally took an entire lamb hanging in the window and chopped a few pieces off and did whatever they do, right in front of us. I have to admit that I gagged a few times but other than that it was cool to see what they actually do before it gets in the plastic wrap at our grocery stores back home. We then stopped by the fruit stand to grab veggies and fruit for a fruit salad, then off to our house.

Yazan and his friend did all of the work for the BBQ. They prepared all the meat and veggies and started up the BBQ by putting a piece of coal on our gas stove until it was red as can be then they put it in the BBQ and put a fan to it so that the rest of the coals would catch fire. It wasn't until around 1:00 in the morning that we finally feasted. It was fantastic traditional Jordanian Lamb kabobs and bread. We had so much fun with them, we can't wait to do it again!












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Location:Marg Al Hammam, Jordan

Humanitarian Aid

Last Thursday we went with President Boyd to the Ministry of Social Development's storage units to get the church's portion of supplies that finally arrived in Jordan from the states. There is quite the drawn out process to get anything done with the government system here. It took President Boyd about two weeks to just get authorization to get into the storage unit to retrieve their shipment of goods. We labored hard from about 9:45am to 1:30pm, hauling boxes and loading wheelchairs. It was pretty funny to see how they reacted to a woman, a blond haired, blue eyed woman at that, working just as hard and long as they were. Haha! I was dripping with sweat and throwing boxes and laughing with the whole bunch even though I don't speak but three arabic words and only one of the egyptian men spoke any amount of english. Jerid was there for about an hour before he had to head back to the ministry and when he left all the men kept telling me to sit down and rest in the shade. I kept telling them... "la, la (no, no)... you sit down and rest, or start working harder!" They would laugh and laugh. Islamic Relief came later and helped as well. They picked up about 1/3 of the shipment. Olivia was the leader of their group and she was such a sweet, diligent woman. She kept hugging me thanking me for helping and telling me that we would be so blessed for doing the work. What an excellent example of service she was. She does this day in and day out.

Here are a few pictures of the day...



















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Location:Amman, Jordan

A day with Yazan

Jerid's friend from the states set us up with her friend Yazan to tour the city. He met us at the amphitheater at the city center to start the day off with not only a great view of the city but also a great workout! When we first got to the amphitheater I realized it was a lot bigger than I had previously thought. I had already decided that I was not about to climb the stairs to the top when I looked up and saw that Jerid and Yazan were already 10 sets up... so I got hopping with my tight jeans and all. These stairs were by no means little either, it took quite large steps to get up them. We took our time at the top with a few photo ops, then headed down to the two museums on the sides of the theater. Here are a few shots of the day.













Looking down from the large theater to the small theater.





Inside one of the museums.





A mock up of the traditional summer attire for the women of Jordan.





Jerid sitting in a window inside the small theater.






Heading into The Martyr King's Mosque... I had to wear a full black robe thing. So hot and stinky.





Jerid and Yazan inside the Men's mosque.





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Location:Amman, Jordan