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.   . 

May 23rd!

Thanks to Megan for her captions in this blog post!

 On the 23rd of May, we went on a field trip to the Negev Desert, or visited a Bedouin camp in the Negev area. In this photo, the guide is showing us large pots used to boil the sheep wool to dye it.

 In a big box of yarn, we found a very small kitten- its eyes and ears were still closed. We watched as it mewed and climbed feebly over the yarn. There was an adult cat nearby, but I'm guessing it was the father, because the kitten was still hungry. The photo shows the top half of the kitten's body, not its paw.

 There was a shop that we got to explore that sold all sorts of products made of sheep's yarn. This is a photo of one of the mini pillow key chains. We bought a few of those.

 At a Bedouin town, we all sat in this open building while our guide translated for us and the leader of the village. There were lots of pillows and mats that we sat on, and it was windy outside. The hole in the middle of the floor is a fire pit. This was an unrecognized village, or the government does not acknowledge it, and they are trying very hard to become recognized, so they can receive the same services as other towns.

 These are pictures of some of us walking back from the Bedouin village to the bus. It was very bright, that's why Amanda is squinting.

 These are pictures of my birthday party. We invited my Young Women, Seminary and Sabbath School teachers, and we had it on our balcony overlooking the city. The dessert was very good!

P.S.  Megan is now 16 years old.  Wow!

 Megan's school put on Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, and Megan painted props and made the program. 

While I'm bragging about Megan, here is a beautiful screen printing she created for art class.  

Still Loving the Shephelah

 Last Monday we joined the students on a field trip to the Shephelah or low hills area to the west of Jerusalem.  If this sounds familiar, it's because we've visited this area several times.  It's a fun area to visit, and we've been two other times with friends and family.  Besides being fun, we are able to see firsthand how the ancient inhabitants of the land dealt with everyday challenges, like heat, hunger, thirst, war, and death.

Megan and Carrie didn't come along this time because they were swimming and playing tennis with other LDS youth from Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Galilee.

The first place we went was Tel es-Safit or Gath.  This is in an area of soft, chalky limestone caves, such as this one behind Emily.

 The hike to the top of Tel es-Safit was enjoyable because of the cool breeze blowing up the hill.  Emily, Tashara, Sabrina, and Amanda stopped in the hollow of this rock.

 At the top, we could see the excavation site where Jeff Chadwick spends his summers.  Gath means press, as in Gethsemane, which means press of richness or oil.  This was the hometown of Goliath, and David later found refuge here from King Saul.  This tel is a good example of multiple layers of civilization built up the side of a hill on top of earlier structures.  The crusaders built a tower on top, as well.  Click here for a site where you can learn more about Gath.

 A signpost points the way to the 4 other major cities in the Philistine pentapolis: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron.  In general, the cities on the west of the five main valleys were originally under Philistine control, and the cities on the east were controlled by the Israelites, and these two jockeyed for position until the Assyrians and Babylonians swept through.  I had always seen mountains as a symbol of strength and communion with the divine, and certainly back home mountains are a place of recreation.  But here in the holy land, I think it's fair to say that throughout history, mountains have primarily represented military might.  A community could flourish under the protection of a strong defense.

On the way down from the summit, the sun was out in full strength.  By June, this area is pretty dry, but the thistles are still in bloom.

The cacti are also happy this time of year.  Amanda is worried because I asked everyone to pose closer to the cactus patch. 

 The occasional shade tree was also a welcome relief.  This one grew nearly parallel to the ground.

After Gath, we were happy to find a cool underground hang-out, like this columbarium, or dove-cote in Mareshah.  The dove's holes are up above.  It's hard to get great photos in this dark, mossy, cruciform cave.  

 Troy Terry wanted to get a dove's eye view.  Centuries ago, the doves raised here were useful for food, for producing fertilizer, and for export to Jerusalem for sacrifices. 

The brightness of the outside world made a good contrast with the dim cave. 

Emily finds another refuge from the sun.

 Here in another cave, students learn about the olive press. 

Emily measures the compressive and tensile strength of the limestone.  She enlarged a natural hole and played with the dust.

 Carrie gets bonus points for sharing her hat with Amanda.

Emily loves posing with students.  Jamie is wearing the traveling orange shirt that gets worn by a different student every day. 

 Jarrett and Emily hit it off in the bus, with Emily taking pictures of Jarrett's silly faces. 

 This cistern would have collected runoff water for the community around the olive press.  Centuries ago, it was discovered that boiling the soft limestone in water would yield a waterproof stucco with which they could coat the inside of a cistern.  But as Jeremiah 2:13 points out, cistern water was always second rate compared to spring water.  This is a powerful lesson about the importance of always partaking of the living word of God.  Especially as we get older and our minds become more like a leaky cistern.

 The house behind the trees covers the dual entrances to a huge cistern complex.  There was storage for enough runoff water to support a very large community.   If the winter rainy season was very wet, the larger cisterns would mean farmers could keep their plants producing longer into the summer season.

Do we ever have seasons of overflowing spiritual experiences, followed by times of trial?  What do we do find and capture the Living Water? 

Mareshah has a nice gift shop with cold treats.  We learned that the taller the ice cream bar, the harder it is of the child when it breaks and falls.    

 Inside this cave, people were buried in niches along the walls.  Emily loved these little holes and filled her hair with chalk as she explored.  This is a Hellenistic style burial tomb, with paintings of animals and people.

Drew and Amanda pause at the shady entrance to the tomb.

Emily plays hide and seek with Jefferson. 

Lisa was feeling cool in the shade.

 At the Bell Caves, a hole in the hard limestone ceiling made a spotlight below.

Emily said this spot reminded her of the Holy Ghost.

Amanda says,  "It's like you're in the light and all around you is the darkness."

 After singing several hymns in the bell-shaped caves, the students made the most of the lighting, posing as Joseph Smith receiving the First Vision.
 

 Lisa describes this photo, "I feel alive!"

And this one below is captioned, "The aliens are taking away my hat!"

 After Maresha, we went to Lachish, where Israelites in 586 B.C. watch the Babylonian troops come closer to Jerusalem.  Letters on potsherds found here reveal that guards were watching the signal fires at Azekah, and when the signal fires stopped, they knew they were next to be conquered. 

 Not even the tall walls or thick doors of Lachish could save them from the invasion.  Emily poses near the threshhold of the gate.

At the Valley of Elah, Emily filled my pockets with rocks, and Lisa and Amanda practiced slinging. 

 Amanda was the star of the reenactment of David and Goliath, playing the role of Goliath's head.  Scott Rowley played the rest of Goliath.  Amanda said she loved being taller than everyone.

Lisa enjoyed the part when David (Julie Rencher) held up Goliath's head (Amanda).

After a long day on the bus and in the sun, we were tired but grateful for the chance to drive and climb and walk through biblical history.