Jordan and Ramallah

This has been a fun and busy week for the Judds!  Frank led the students in a tour of the historical and Biblical sites of Jordan.  In the historical category, they visited Petra, Ajloun Castle, Madaba, a famous mosque, and the Jordan Museum.  

In the Biblical category they saw Mt. Nebo (where Moses caught a glimpse of the promised land he would never enter), Machaerus (Herod's pleasure palace where John the Baptist left this mortal existence), the Jabbok river (where Jacob wrestled with an angel before reconciling with Esau), Jerash (one of the ten Roman cities at the time of Jesus), Amman Citadel (where Uriah the Hittite, husband of Bathsheba, left this mortal existence), and Bethany beyond Jordan, a possible location for the baptism of Jesus Christ.

Side Note:  I heard a very nice pastor say that the reason Jerusalem has two or more possible sites for almost every story about Jesus (ex: baptismal site, Capernaum, the upper room, Gethsemane, Calvary, the tomb, the ascension, etc.) is so we as fallible humans don't idolize the site and get distracted from the real message of Jesus Christ.  This made a lot of sense to me.  We visit the sites to envision and explore the landscape where these stories took place, but the real message of the Savior is to repent, come unto him through his servants and ordinances, and lift those around us so they can come unto him, too.

The Jordan trip went smoothly, and many people commented on Frank's excellent teaching and organizational ability.  Just a little brag on the hubby!  

I don't have any photos from his trip, so I borrowed some from 2011 above.  If you want to see more posts about Jordan written by Carrie five years ago, click here.


The other BYU moms and I worked out a plan to help everyone enjoy the out of country field trips if they wanted to.  So this past week Sister Esplin went to Jordan, and Sister Ludlow babysat the two middle children, while I got to pal around with the oldest and youngest, ages 9 and 3.  While all the big kids were at school, Tommy and I had a blast!  Like a blast from the past, back to the time when days were measured by playgrounds, hot dogs, and homemade playdough.  We sang nursery rhymes while we washed our hands, threw dodge balls at each other, and counted stairs to help tired little feet keep going, and going, and going.  Tommy walked up three big flights of stairs every morning to wave to the kids on the school bus, then three flights back down to have our daily fun.

It was a team effort, with Brother and Sister Heiner pitching in for Monday dinner and FHE.  We ate tacos and then flung Nerf sling darts at each other.



Brother and Sister Heiner both said their favorite scripture is "My father Lehi dwelt in a tent," both because Sister Heiner's grandpa was a tentmaker, and because of the way tents gather and give shelter and comfort to people when they are away from their permanent homes.  People who gather together in a faith community are supposed to be like a tent, strengthening the stakes and always lengthening out the cords to welcome more people in, especially those who may feel like they are on the outside.




My girls and the Ludlows were amazing helpers and everyone was safe and happy, except when I told Tommy his mom was coming home tomorrow, but I forgot to say tomorrow night, so he woke up the next morning and cried  because she wasn't home yet.  Oops.  Better drown those tears in playdough.

One night we ate on the balcony:  French fries, pita pizzas,  and chicken nuggets (careful not to buy the nuggets filled with corn!  Although, I guess that would count as a veggie...)  

Everyone was happy when the Jordan contingent returned!  In the middle of all the Biblical and historical enlightenment, Frank came across a store that sold Cheetos, a welcome souvenir!  One last note on Jordan:  they experienced extreme heat on the trip but came back to cooler temperatures as fall is starting to creep toward us.

Lisa says hello from the other side of a hair straightener.

 To celebrate my happy helpers, we had a rare treat: aerosol whipped cream for our waffles.



Emily made this miniature version of the Christus statue out of sticky tack.  It's about an inch high.

Another artistic outlet is drawing on the whiteboards in all the classrooms.  The kids go up to practice their piano songs but usually end up with some whiteboard masterpieces as well.

En route to a clothing store (it seems a whiteboard marker attacked a white shirt) we saw this interesting graffiti.  The Hebrew says, "Shalom."  So it was a very artistic, peace-loving graffiti tagger at work here.

Just today I had the rare and wonderful opportunity to visit Ramallah.  Since it is in the West Bank and on the other side of the separation wall, it is usually off limits except on special assignment.
Sister Anderton, on the left, needed helpers to come along as her husband (a pediatric anesthesiologist) trained medical students on neonatal resuscitation.  So Sister Christensen, on the right, and a few others came along.  Sister Christensen is from Madison, Wisconsin, and she and her husband manage the tourist that come to the BYU Jerusalem center three days a week.  I get to help with some big tours on Wednesday.

The training, sponsored by the LDS Humanitarian services, was held at the Red Crescent building in the middle of Ramallah.



We were right between a nice soccer field and an UNRWA refugee camp (established after 1948, not related to the most recent refugee situation.)


 Today's advanced Neonatal Resuscitation training drew about two dozen people from Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, and Jerusalem, with the expectation that they will bring the training materials (including a few neonatal mannequins) back to their hospitals and communities and teach others.  Future training sessions will cover the basics for dozens more students.  Not that I helped with any of that stuff.  I helped correct the pre-tests and print certificates (though, unfortunately, I've never really mastered mail merge.  That would have come in handy today).  Next week the Andertons head off to Burma to do this all over again!

Lunch was amazing!  Chicken, fish, beef stuffed in football-shaped crispy breading, rice, potatoes, with all the trimmings: hummus, tahina, creamy white stuff, spicy red stuff, carrots with raisins, purple cabbage, yum!  Later when I got home I fed my family one casserole with one veggie and one fruit.  I clearly lack imagination compared to the amazing local chefs.

It was nice to chat with all our companions.  The Heiners leave us next month to return to Highland.   They left a house they had lived in only six months to come on this assignment.  And they came with only four weeks' notice!  We are thankful for their loving watchcare over the center and the students.

 On the other side of Christine sat some female doctors, conservatively dressed in traditional Palestinian styles, who were recertifying to keep up on their skills, like a CPR refresher course, except with ventilation, intubation, hypovolumation, and lots of other fun technical stuff.  We headed home about 4:30.  Others will help for the rest of the week, so this was my one big chance to see Ramallah from the inside.

Through the Desert, Below the Center, Searching for Treasures

It's been another fun and busy week here, starting with my birthday!  I did 43 push-ups, plus one to grow on, but they are getting shallower as the years go by!   Unique gifts included a book by Elder Groberg, a bouquet of flowers, packets of ranch dressing mix, hearts taped to our door, and a few hearty happy birthday songs throughout the day, one from as far away as Florida (my parents are serving at the church's ranch in St. Cloud).  

We had a Relief Society Board meeting that night, and I met with members of the compassionate service committee to brainstorm ways to get to know and meet the needs of the women in our branch.  The prevailing solution:  cupcakes.   

The next morning, bright and early, we headed to the desert on a bus with no name.  The kids were out of school because of Eid el Adha, when Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael to be obedient to God (celebrated with lots of delicious food and extended family togetherness).  So it is fitting that we had a lot of family togetherness in the warm southern deserts where Abraham established a well (Tel Beersheva) and where Bedoin still maintain the semi-nomadic lifestyle which Abraham and his descendents knew so well.  We saw several altars, but no one was offered on them.  (No climbing on the antiquities!)

We dropped a rock into the well, and waited, and waited, and waited, and finally we heard it hit bottom.

Since Abraham's time, Beersheva grew to be an administrative outpost with a heavy wall and elaborate gate system.  There were three layers of defense in the gate (six chambers, three on each side of the entrance to keep out unwanted intruders.  Kind of makes me think about the many ways we are gatekeepers for what comes into our homes and families.  Of course during times of peace, those same chambers were used for business and administrative purposes.  

Amanda and Emily posed near one of those gate chambers at Tel Beersheva.

Associate Director Roy Huff and amazing professor Frank Judd stand in front of a huge storage area.  This southern outpost would have hosted (and probably taxed) desert travelers.  "From Dan to Beersheva" was a common phrase to describe the area controlled by Israel.

Amanda was focusing on the small picture, like a colony of snails.

Beer Sheva had a sophisticated water collection and storage system.  We walked down the cistern and marvelled at their storage capacity.

Couldn't resist a picture with my sweetie in front of the altar!  This altar was found in the city but disassembled, with its hewn stones in secondary use, suggesting that it had been decommissioned when Israelite worship was centralized and regulated.  It's not clear exactly where the altar had originally been located in the city.

The Bedoin Weaving center we visited in past years was closed for the holiday, so we went to an overlook near the home and tomb of Ben Gurion. He was dedicated to the kibbutz movement and preferred to live out in this rather hot, dry, and lonely place.  

Avdat was a new stop for us, very delightful and providing a glimpse into the trading outposts of the Nabateans, whose stronghold and capital city was the famous city of Petra.  Ruins of several Christian churches were here, as well as a large enclosed area for caravans, lookout towers, tombs, and cisterns,

Cross shaped baptismal font, found near one of the Byzantine churches.

This may have been a tomb or maybe had some kind of industrial use.  Residents of Avdat were able to terrace and irrigate the harsh slopes for raising grapes, and they have one of the largest winepresses I've ever seen.

Our last stop, Tel Arad, is noted for also having a decommissioned temple, but unlike Beer Sheva, the altar at Arad was made of unhewn stones.  It has two incense stands and a standing stone in what would have been the holy of holies.  Here is a photo from the Israel museum, where we went almost a week later.

It is very interesting to stand in these ancient structures, or ancient rock piles, you could say, and imagine what it was like for people long ago, or imagine what meaning the archaeologists can derive from the confusing jumble they find when they excavate a city.

That night, I caught a tiny lizard, and Emily enjoyed holding him for a few minutes before letting him go.  Good thing my kids don't mind lizards, or else they'd be freaking out frequently.

Amanda had some fun with Lou, a friend from school.  Pictionary was a successful game for these two artistic girls.

We enjoyed our private faculty family tour of the mechanical areas of the center on Thursday, ducking under beams and pipes and weaving around the pillars that support the 8 story structure.

Tarek is head of security and also a fitness buff.  Just like Spencer.

At one point in the tour, it is customary to write your name on the walls.  We found our names from the past and many names of people we knew.

Also on Thursday, Lisa performed a flute solo at the Formal Talent Show.  She did a fabulous job with Entr'Acte by Bizet, and I was glad she asked me to accompany her, although I made mistakes, but it was fun to be able to play the grand piano in the auditorium.  Like driving a Cadillac.  Which I have never actually done, but I imagine it would be both thrilling and terrifying.

After a PTA meeting at the school on Friday, we walked to the nearby West Jerusalem open air market called the Shuk.  Kayle Branson showed us some of her favorite stores in the area.  It is nice to know that we can find many things we need or want, it just might take longer than back home in the one-stop-shopping mart.

The Shuk was full of people scurrying about, many getting ready for the Sabbath which would begin at sundown.  Beautiful braided challah breads, chocolate croissants, delicious nuts and fruits made it worth braving the press of humanity.  We tasted halva, dried cantaloupe, dried watermelon, and spicy dried bananas (almost better than doritos!)  I bought roasted cashews and almonds, bread studded with walnuts and seeds, and two burritos from a kosher burrito cafe.  We added our own cheddar cheese at home.

Pushing through the Shuk became more difficult the longer we shopped.  The narrow alleys became more congested as our bags got bulkier.  I was bumping into my friends and strangers and people were hurrying me forward or cutting me off.  I thought of the Savior walking through a crowded street with many people pressing around him, yet in the midst of all the sensory distractions he was sensitive enough to discern the touch of the woman who was healed of an issue of blood.  Amazing!

The kids had a playdate at Eva's house.  Her mom made them mozzarella-stuffed soft pretzels--heavenly!  As I lingered to enjoy a pretzel, the kids started an indoor water fight.  They look so innocent, but they were all soaking wet when it was time to get in the car.

Slightly out of order, these silly pictures are from the previous Friday when Brother and Sister Esplin went to a synagogue with students.  We hung out with the kids and made sticky playdough, then we got carried away with chocolate cupcakes on the porch.  

Trying to carpe every diem,  we spent a few hours on Sunday afternoon at the Israel museum with the Ludlows and the Esplins' oldest daughter.  The Judd's and Ludlow's oldest daughters were both home writing essays.



We followed the student's scavenger hunt written by Jeff Chadwick, and while there were three or four things that we couldn't find, overall the kids had a great time.  We bribed them just a little to get the three-page scavenger hunt started, but after they got the momentum going they stayed until close checking off all the items, from a tiny ancient scroll of priestly blessings to a huge basalt lion.  We saw treasures from all over the country, from Dan to Beersheva.

The model of the old city of Jerusalem helped us visualize what it would have looked like two millenia ago.

From the ancient to the cutting edge of modern technology:  After viewing the Dead Sea Scroll display, we checked out the Nano Bible.  Suspended in the tube in front of Amanda is a square the size of a grain of sugar on which is incised the entire Hebrew Bible.  I found out later you can buy your own nano bible for $99 mounted in a pendant, but of course it won't do you much good without an electron microscope capable of 10,000x magnification.

A few items from our scavenger hunt:  Ram's horn capitals, which are seen on the 5 shekel coin and also found at the City of David.

Ancient papyrus letters were sealed with string and tiny bullae or blobs of dried clay which  were imprinted with an official seal.  These bullae were like tamper-evident seals and also proved the sender was authentic.  These particular bullae contain names found in the book of Jeremiah and 1 Chronicles.

Amulets inscribed with the priestly blessing, "The Lord bless you and keep you..."  These were dated to the late 7th century BCE, the oldest quote from the Bible outside of the Bible itself.

 Modern art--huge and quirky and oddly reminiscent of bacon.

This sculpture turns your reflection completely upside down.

Of course, we couldn't take any of the treasures home with us, but we took home a head full of shared memories, an appreciation for the craftsmen, artists, and historians of the past, and the archaeologists and curators who interpret and preserve these treasures.  The scavenger hunt taught us that our kids will do anything for the promise of a few Bugles corn chips.  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.