Hezekiah's Tunnel

 We visited the City of David visitor's center with the students, and enjoyed a 3D movie about David's conquest of this little finger of land south of the temple mount.  Thanks to Lisa for helping with some of the captions.

 Emily loves 3-D glasses

 

 Lisa is awesome!

 We toured the ancient site of a building which was probably King David's palace (above), then a home which was built up against the retaining wall holding up the palace (below).

 Then it was time to enter the tunnel.  Down and down we went to reach water level.  Emily dropped her flashlight through a grating to an archaeological site by the cyclopian stones (massive stones comprising the wall protecting Gihon Springs).  A helpful employee went downstairs to get it, and we fixed the flashlight with a bandaid. 

 Becca Winters was Amanda's buddy in the tunnel, and she taught us how to sing "Scotland's Burning" and other songs (Becca's grandparents are friends of ours from Chapel Hill).  Amanda and Emily were very brave in the cool water, requiring only a little help at the beginning when the water is deepest.  The tunnel is a fun, cool place to get wet and sing, an engineering marvel, and a testament to the ingenuity of ancient people who needed to extend their most precious resource to an expanding population.

Lisa went through the tunnel with Kristy Christensen and Amber Whittaker (whose grandparents work at the storehouse with Grandma and Grandpa Judd).  

At the end we posed in the greenish retaining pool. 

At the Pool of Siloam, we reflected on the miracles of the Savior.  The pool was originally massive, but now only a fraction is excavated.  We usually hear the shrieks and giggles of Palestinian schoolchildren having recess time in the fenced yard above us, but this time school was already out for the summer.

We walked back through a hillside quarry and tomb complex.  I've heard it said that after the best rock has been quarried, the softer rock was used for tombs.  These tombs may have belonged to King David's family.

The rocks wall above Emily may date back to the time of Melchizedek.

 This is a very nice park along the western side of the Kidron Valley.  Behind the placid appearance, however, lies a simmering controversy which has flared up intermittently between the City of David settlement and the residents of Silwan.

 Feeling marginalized by the excavations and investments, and well as claims of neglect toward the Palestinian villagers, many Palestinians consider Israeli development in Ir David/Silwan to be a destabilizing force in the area.


Below is a replica of the plaque commemorating the completion of Hezekiah's tunnel as workmen from opposite ends met in the middle.  The original  plaque is in Istanbul.  Why?  That's nobody's business but the Turks.

On the way up the path, Dallin spit water on Amanda, then Amanda spit water on Dallin. And now he is giving her a piggy-back ride.(Spoiled Girl).  [Did I mention Lisa was helping with captions?]

A few days after our Hezekiah's tunnel experience, we visited this section of the separation barrier that surrounds most of the West Bank.  Our guest speaker, Jewish lawyer Danny Seidemann explained that while the construction of the separation wall coincided with a dramatic decrease in the number of suicide bombings, at the same time, it threatens to radicalize Palestinian residents of Jerusalem whose access to work, family, and medical care has been hampered.  Queen Rania of Jordan told an ABC interviewer, "Moderates in general need to speak up more, and when they speak, there needs to be somebody listening on the other side, because this is a debate that affects how future generations think and feel."  (to watch the interview, click here)

  We are grateful to be here.  It is a complex world that we live in, and we don't pretend to know all the answers, but we are glad to have the chance to learn.   .