A Day in the Bible

So today we got to experience a day in the bible land. It sound's cool doesn't it? Well it pretty much was. We got a few days to relax from Egypt and let us get back into the groove of things. That trip as a whole was a lot more draining than I thought it was going to be, but i guess that we did stay up really late all night every night and then the 2am hike up Sinai... yeah, well, we are very thankful that we were given a few days to recover.

Anyway, there is this little place that we like to call "Bible Land" and I don't remember the real name of it, but that's OK. It is this little place that is privately being funded that has 600 ish acres that they are trying to reforest with the native plants that were here in Bible times. They started with pretty much everything being gone after the wars. All of the wood and plants had been used up with the railroad and such, and so there was really nothing left but dirt and a little bit of plant life, and so they decided that they were going to take the area and forest it with plants that are only mentioned in the bible. They even have some cedars there although they don't get quite as big as the famous Lebanon ones. Anyway, that is a little bit about the area.

We got to try a few things just like people would hav e in the bible times. We got to bring water up from a cistern just like Rebekah would have for all those darn camels. That is one thing about this place, is that it is sustained like places in the bible are too. They do collect water during the rainy season into ancient cisterns that they have re-plastered in order to water the plants during the summer. Anyway, we got to do that, and they they gave us a chance to make our own spice which by the Arabs is called zatar, but which we know better as hyssop. By the way, this is a great spice, and they had dried the leaves out for us and we got the chance to grind it ourselves into a powder that we would then use later with our food.

After we got a little grinding in we took a train to the place were we got to try our hand at sheep herding! This was quite the little exercise I tell you what! It was a lot harder than you would think. The sheep had been raised to be herded a certain way, and so we were split into smaller groups of about 10 to take turns trying to herd the sheep from one place to another. I think that it would have been easier in the olden days personally, but i don't know sheep very well. The interesting thing about it is that the sheep are raised in the midst of goats, and the goats become the leaders of the gang, so if you want to get the sheep to move, the goat has to move too. Now, we didn't know that at the time, they wanted us to learn how to do it on our own. The thing is that goats and sheep like to eat. That is all that they do, is eat! Our group was one of the best, we were the first so we had to get all of the sheep rounded up and then also get then to the first station, and we did a pretty good job if i do say so myself. We got stuck for a little while, and I even tried to move the sheep by picking up one of the babies thinking that the mother would care. If there is one thing that you shouldn't learn from sheep it's parenting skills! That mom didn't move a bit even when her child bleated, crazy, but yeah.

We also got to make our own pita's, and we lit our own fire for it and everything. We had a great lunch of pita with date honey and the hyssop that we had made earlier. Put a little hyssop, a little olive oil, and a little salt and it's the best thing ever. We also made some popped wheat that was good as well. It was a great traditional meal that we had. We then got t

o learn about the pressing of olives in ancient times as well as getting our try at a threshing floor. You really learn to appreciate the work that the people had to go through in order to make their life each day. It is much harder than I originally had thought, but i guess that is one point of coming here isn't it, just to learn about the things that we read so often about in scripture. This is a pic of me and Ashley, one of the friends that I have made here.

In all it ended up being a great day that I was able to learn a lot in. We have another free day tomorrow and I think that i'm going to go out into the city and do something. It is great to have a day off from time to time, but i also don't want to stay holed up in the JC all the time, that wouldn't be the point either. Hope that you are all having a great time! Laters