Adventure Camp: Israel

The sun rose on day 7 over Jerusalem in a stunning shade of deep, blood red.  I've seen blood moons in the past, but never a blood sun.  The pictures I took are far from doing it justice but the sight is one that I will probably remember forever. In fact, I half expected it to signal the onset of the fulfillment of some Biblical prophecy but Jesus didn't come back yet, so I will continue to wait. ;)

Our first stop was to the western wall of the old city of Jerusalem.  It is more popularly known as the Wailing Wall but the locals simply call it the western wall.  I never knew before why the wall was so famous but I learned on the tour that it is the wall which is closest in proximity   

to where the Holy of Holy's was in the old temple and is therefore the most popular place to pray.  The part of the wall which is accessible is divided in two by another wall which designates where the men go to pray and where the women go to pray.  The whole experience is segregated by gender.  I am not a big fan of gender inequality but it served to reinforce how lucky we are in America to be considered equal, no matter what race or gender a person is. 

In the picture on the right you can see there is a woman praying by the western wall.  Surrounding her are pieces of paper containing prayers which are stuffed into small cracks in the wall.  The reverence and dedication with which people pray here was impressive!  Most people eventually start to bob up and down in fervency.  It looks a bit silly at first.  I am by no means making fun of them but it made me wonder how much of their prayer is for show and how much is actually genuine.  The Bible says when you pray to go into your room and shut the door.  To do nothing for human praise and not for show and to focus on your Father in Heaven.  The idea of public prayer like this seems a bit contrary to this command, but that's just my opinion.  

The picture above was taken underground and my camera flash makes it hard to see some of it clearly but it is a diagram of what the city of Jerusalem used to look like historically.  I believe the tour guide said that this is what it would have looked like during the second temple period (after it was rebuilt for the second time.  

After our tour of the western wall, we moved on to some more adventurous activities for the rest of the day.  First, we joined a team of archaeologists for a couple hours and helped them dig through three rooms of a cave to look for artifacts. Our team found pieces of bone, pottery, and shells! After we were done digging in the caves, we took the buckets of dirt up into the sunlight on the surface and used sifters to double check the dirt and make sure that we didn't miss anything.  We each got to take home a piece of pottery as a souvenir of our efforts.

The final stop of the day was rappelling!  I probably had the most fun out of everyone at this stop.  Unfortunately, most of the group was pretty scared to go over the edge but I was really proud of those who tried it for the first time despite their fear!  I do this all the time for work but I remember the first time I rappelled... I was really scared too!  The guy who belayed me had his nails painted bright pink!  I never got to ask about that but it was certainly an interesting choice.

I volunteered to rappel first.  When I got to the bottom I was surprised by the amount of local rock climbers that were there!  I thought we were the only group there but it was far from the truth.  This seems to be quite a popular spot! I enjoyed comparing and contrasting the differences between American rappelling and the rappelling systems that the Israeli's use.  Most of it was the same but not entirely.  I look forward to April when I get to go to West Virginia for a week to practice and refine the high angle rescue and rappelling techniques even further.

Stay tuned... there are still two more posts to go.  But for now I need a break (and you probably do too)!