DAY 9

Can't believe it but I hit my head again! Have to get my head out of the clouds.


But what a hoot! The DC was everything we could’ve hope for and much more! (Boy I use a lot of exclamation marks!!!) Can’t wait to tell you all about the DC. But, in the meantime, to prove we were there, here is a picture.

Brother Lett was our GB rep and we caught a moment with him. How encouraging to the local friends (and the rest of us)!

Others may be writing about the DC, but the Israel Branch Overseer explained why we shouldn't be blogging about it. Personal emails are okay but I just don't have time for that. Anyways, that was the day before. By the way, our DC was on Weds, Thurs, and Fri. because the Jewish Sabbath starts Friday night. Before we left Israel, Inger had a meeting of her own.

It was real weird. Though we saw a number of cats throughout our trip, they were always on their own. This night, they all came together. I think they were planning a coupe or something. Prolly waiting around for Catwoman to show up. I didn’t trust the robotic one.

By the way. They do exist!

Now we off for the Dead (Salt) Sea via Masada. This was an optional tour and are we glad we took it. What a story! And now I’m gonna give it to ya.

Jewish Zealots who rebelled against Rome in 66 CE, went to Masada to make a stand against the Romans. It was a perfect location, steep hills that surrounded it on all sides,and rose one to two thousand feet from the valley floor.

As you can see it stands alone as there is no mountain or range of mountains immediately next to it that an army can climb and reach those on Masada. This made it very difficult to conquer. We took a tram up to the top.

But you could also hike up the “Snake trail” which traverses up the mountain. But the going is very steep and there’s no way an attacking army could climb it and still be able to defend itself from being picked off from the army on Masada above. It made this city virtually impregnable. But not impossible.

On top, the mountain was flat and covered about 3 or 4 football fields. There were various structures that housed 10-20,000 people.

 Here is how the Romans completed their 10 month conquest of the city. They had many base camps, like this one well below the city.

Using 15,000 Jewish slaves they built dirt ramps that went up to the city walls. Then they built towers from there that are shown in the picture below.

Next they used battering rams from these towers to pierce the walls. When they finally entered into the city through a couple of holes they made in the wall, they only found a couple of women and children alive. Everyone else was dead.

The women said that rather than surrender to the Romans, the men decided to have each man kill his own family. Then 10 of the men were selected to kill all the other men. Then one of the 10 men would kill the other nine before killing himself.

Apparently the couple of women who survived to tell this story had husbands who would not kill them. They were told by their husbands to pretend to be dead until the Romans came.

Next, we went to Qumran which we are told was a little kibutz (not kibbitz), that had followers that were very spiritually minded. Dating back to the 1^st century, these ones would go through “ritual baths” twice a day in an effort to be spiritually clean. They were also meticulous in their copying of Bible books. We have much to thank these Bible copyists for.

 The story goes that around 1900 hundred years later, a shepherd was looking for a straying sheep in one of the caves. He threw a rock in it to scare out the sheep, when he heard a jar break, like this one. In it was found some vellum with writing on it.

Here are a couple of caves that they found scrolls in.

A long story short, many caves were then found to have copies of Bible books. Caves 1, 4, and 11 we are told had the most complete writings found in them. Here is cave number 4.

 On the Israel side of the Dead (Salt) Sea, it was so lush and green. Entrance into the Sea was a sandy beach with much of the healing mud available. And as you can see, our visit was all business, no play.

Guess who started a mud fight? Guess who got yelled at by the lifeguard? One day your coordinator will grow up!

Don’t get the mud or water in your eyes. Wow! It burns like nothing I have ever had. And I have had paint stripper in my eyes many times. You go temporarily blind and have to be led out of water to the showers to wash it out.

 

This picture is of our tour company rep, Tommy. Just moments after this picture was taken, his Uncle David threw some mud in his eye. Ouch!

The mud and water are very therapuetic. It makes your skin feel so soft and exfoliates it. It also soothes a variety skin conditions. But we just liked floating and playing in the mud.

The Sea is 30% salt water which enables you to float. Oceans are only about 2% salt.

Here is a sister on our bus. We just had to get a picture. It was so much fun.

Sorry, I couldn't rotate this but it is too good to leave out.

But it looks like the lifeguard just left so I’ve gotta go! There are a couple of bros I need to give payback to!!!

Tomorrow, I will show pictures of the amazing resort we are at in Jordan.