Negev Field Trip

We took a field trip to the Negev Desert!! The word "negev" comes from the Hebrew word for "dry." Fitting for a desert, aye? This is the wilderness that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob passed through to go to Egypt/go back to the land of their fathers to find a wifey. Hagar and Ishmael were also cast out here, and where the Lord told Hagar about the posterity of her son. It's a beautiful wasteland. There were several parts of our trip, not all of them purely spiritual. There were some cool cultural experiences too!

 We went to a Bedouin weaving place. The women here are employed to weave these beautiful tapestries, and they are educated in exchange. It's a really cool support group set up, and they sell their tapestries all over Europe. They shear the sheep, spin the wool, dye the yarn, and weave the fabric all by hand. It was really neat to see.

 We got to sit in a tent made out of the burlap fabric that they wove themselves. They gave us delicious chamomile tea that was SO delicious and incredibly sweet! There was a sweet Arabic girl who gave us a tour and told us about the place. It was kind of hard to understand her because of the way she spoke, otherwise I would tell more about what she said...

The colors of the yarn are so vibrant and beautiful! The yarn is two strands of wool thread spun together.

They were so kind to dye yarn in my favorite color :)

This is how they dye their fabric. Don't ask me the process, but I thought it kinda seemed like cooking spaghetti noodles. Maybe I'm hungry...

Some of the carpets that they wove! I was going to buy one to support women's rights and education and stuff, but they were upwards of $500. Nevermind...

Me and my wonderful roommate Sara. I love this girl :)

Tel Beersheba (pronounced bearshayva)

I'm going to be honest, this site wasn't my favorite. I liked it because we wore hard hats and I kind of felt cool, but other than that, it was a bunch of dirt with not a lot of archaeological substance that I was interested in...I literally can't even remember why I was standing by this dirt thing. It's obviously the remnants of a Canaanite home, but...

The archaeological remains of a palace of a governor. You can see all the rooms in the place.

This is something that was really cool. The people in the Beersheva desert come by water only occasionally. They build giant underground cisterns in which they store rainwater runoff and stuff. We got to go down into this uncovered cistern, and it was totally like going spelunking. I thought of Steve the whole time!

The entrance of the cave. The rest of it was too dark to take pictures, so this is my only documentation of going into the underground.

This is a replica of an ancient altar that they uncovered at Tel Beersheva. It follows the layout for the altar of sacrifice. It has the four horns on the corners, but that's about where the accuracy of the altar stops. It's made of hewn stone, which wasn't allowed. There was a lot of inaccurate worship going on at this time. King Josiah put an end to that a while later by outlawing any kind of sacrifice EXCEPT at the Temple at Jerusalem. He wanted to keep an eye on religion to make sure it was practiced correctly.

This is the ruin of an ancient temple. This was a sacrificial altar. And this is my lovely roommate Michelle. :)

This is actually pretty neat. This is an ancient Holy of Holies. You can tell because...well, I'm not an archaeologist  so I can't really remember why. The two stone pillars in front were where incense was burned. The pillars in the back represent God. That's probably how they knew it was the Holy of Holies. However, there were two little stone-gods, which means that they weren't worshiping quite correctly. 

A view of the Governor's palace from the bottom of the hill. 

Judeaen wilderness

This is the Judeaen wilderness, where Jesus Christ went to fast 40 days and to commune with God. It was absolutely empty and devoid of life. I really liked it. It had a very peaceful feeling about it. I think that Christ was setting a beautiful example of going into nature created by God to be close to him.

There was a monastery built onto the cliff wall. The monks here meditate their whole lives in solitude on top of a cliff. Pretty sweet, eh? Batman should've come here to train as a ninja.

Mountain goats :) 

Jericho

The oldest city in the world!! It is also famous for it's bananas, which I did not have, unfortunately...this is the spring of Elisha, the one that he purified so that Jericho could again be inhabited!

You can see the fountain now, instead of me. Pretty, right?

This is a stone tower dating back to 9000 BC. It's the OLDEST STRUCTURE IN THE WORLD!!!!! LLLAAA!!!

\I got to see this stone tower IRL. It's right by my head. Perhaps the most epic moment of my existence.

A piece of the wall of Jericho!! You can see the mud bricks. There is some ash, as you can see by the dark spots. Perhaps the remains of ancient ash when the Israelites captured Jericho and burnt the city..? The church is true either way :)

Lizzy standing by the wall of Jericho ;)

This is the source of the spring of Elisha. He was prophet after the great Elijah, and the mantle of the priesthood was just as strongly with him as it was with his predecessor. He cleansed the water so that the people could inhabit the city. The Lord performs miracles through his prophets, and the miracles have not ceased!!

A little inscription telling us about Jericho!

This is one of Herod the Great's many architectural phenomenons. He built tons of palaces and during his reign. This is the ruin of one of them, and there's a story that he drowned his nephew here because he was a threat to his rule. Herod was a nasty guy, but he died a nasty death. Which is good. :)

This is the remnant of a bridge spanning the valley to go to the palace. See, I'm walking across the bridge...

Okay, crazy story to go along with this guy. He literally appeared out of nowhere. He just came out of the ruins and wanted to take a picture of me. So I hesitantly consented, and then he put his ARM around me and leaned his head down toward my chest and I freaked out. For some reason I thought he was going to grope me or something, so I ninja jumped away and he looked really confused. So we tried to take the picture again, and I got as far away from him as possible. So this picture is the result of that awkward experience. and then he disappeared back into the rocks. SO WEIRD.