Israel #3

I hope all is well with you. I'm sitting in the apt after taking a FREEZING shower. Something is wrong with hot water & I'm the one who had the privilege of finding out. It wasn't the kind of cold that’s almost refreshing either. It's the kind of cold that takes your breath away & makes you temporarily paralyzed. I prayed the whole time.

Today we went to the Dead Sea, Masada & Qumran. The Dead Sea is crazy. Jane said that the salt content is 33% & the Pacific & the Mediterranean has only 4.1%. Yea, thinking of it like that is absolutely crazy.

On the way to Masada we went through Jericho & also drove a good distance of the place where David ran away from Saul when he was acting a fool. Those hills are the very place that inspired David to write some of his Psalms. INSANE! He's my favorite so that was really special for me.

We stopped when we got to Sea Level to takes pictures by the sign. While we were there was a little guy with a camel who would let you ride it for like 5 shekels. I did it! It was fun. I had never ridden a camel before, but I liked it. I felt really tall.

Masada is an amazing place & I cannot wait for you to see the pictures. It'll blow your mind. It's this mountain where Herod made a getaway palace for himself and the fool was crazy, but he sure knew how to put a design together.

After Herod died, some Jews that were considered zealots made camp on the mountain. They changed it to a living environment for a city of people instead of just one man’s house. It's crazy. The Romans came to kill em off & when they got there the Jews decided to take the lives of their families & themselves instead of letting them be taken into slavery. While they were excavating, they found little pieces of tablets with the names of 10 men; they were the head of the city. It's so overwhelming. I know it's a VERY brief overview but that shows you why it's so important.

After that we went to Qumran. This is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. You can see where these guys, who called themselves the men of light, did rituals & wrote down the words on scrolls that they then hid into the hills of this place. A little boy actually found the scrolls in 1947 randomly by throwing a rock in a hole. Can you believe that? Jane said they have all of the Old Testament, except for Esther.

I took a load of pictures of that too because it's so amazing. I'm hoping to go to the museum in Jerusalem to see the real Dead Sea scrolls. We shall see.