EGYPT Day 2

We left the Kibbutz after eating breakfast and packing lunches. We spent the day driving to our hotel in Cairo, Egypt. The bus in front is our other bus load of students. But, look at the van -- the load is as tall and wide as the van!! This is our bus driver trying to kill flies. The funny thing is, they would open the driver's window and try to shew the fly out, letting in more flies! It was entertaining.

This is our assistant bus driver, also trying to kill the flies. I think he was successful on this one!

The big building straight ahead, is actually a ship sailing along the Suez Canal.

This is the entrance to the canal crossing. When we came here in the past we spent several hours loading buses, cars, and people onto a ferry and then crossing to the other side of the canal and unloading buses, cars, and people. Now, there is no ferry.

You drive through a tunnel, under the canal. Not as fun as the ferry but much, much faster!

We were hoping to expose the students to the crazy streets/drivers in Cairo, but the main highways now go around the busiest parts. It was still fairly crowded, as you can see, but not stomach-lurching as before.

Kerry explained what you are seeing below. When a family purchases an apartment, they often purchase several for children to have when they marry. Each resident paints and decorates their private apartment as they wish. Hence, you get one building with a myriad of colors.

This is the hotel that we stayed in our first night. It is called the Oasis -- you can see why! Remember this Jackson clan?

EGYPT Day 1

We left the Center about 7:30 a.m. Our first stop was at Tel Beersheba. It is high between 2 wadis (dry river beds) and had both good soil and great underground water sources. In ancient times this city was 1) a regional market town, a busy trading and military post and very defendable.
Beersheba means "well of seven" or "the well of the oath". Abraham dug a well here and affirmed his rights to it by swearing an oath with King Abimelech. Other events that took place here: Abraham starts on his journey to Mt. Moriah, to sacrifice Isaac, from Beersheba; Isaac sends Jacob from Beersheba to find a wife; Jacob is living here when he finds out that Joseph is NOT dead and they all leave for Egypt.
This picture is of a four-horned altar. This was a sign of power. And if someone wanted to claim sanctuary here they would hold onto the horns of the altar. The "sanctuary-claimer" here is Kaleb Muhlestein -- 9 year old faculty son. This is Professor Muhlestein teaching about the four-horned altar. Notice the hard hats:

This cute girl is Professor Muhlestein's 12-year old daughter, Tashara. The hard hats were for our later trip down into the water system of Beersheba -- low ceilings! :)

Over the left shoulder of this handsome fellow in the hard hat, is one of the gates of Beersheba. Ancient cities like Beersheba had a way to make their gates harder to access by enemies. They would build several gates, each one forcing the enemy to turn direction before attacking the next gate. If they made it through the boiling oil and stones being thrown down on them and actually conquered the first gate, they would then have to turn to attack the second gate. This left them vulnerable to arrows raining down from the gate towers. It also made it impossible to use a battering ram. Pretty smart, huh?

Another view of the gate. Gates of the city were also a meeting place for the Elders, who would gather there each day and "hold court". Anyone, who had a complaint could go to the gate and speak with the Elders who would then rule on the issue.

They were also considered a "no-man's land" because those who had been cast out as unclean, could come to the gate and the Elders would decide whether or not they were now clean and could be allowed into the city.

This is one of the wells for the city, as our good looking guide is pointing out [with his thumb]

As we walked through the city, I took pictures of things I thought were interesting: This is called a casement wall.

The wall behind the stone pillars is another casement wall: 2 walls running parallel with each other and then the space between the walls is filled in with rubble and dirt to make a wider, thick wall.

Rather than hoping you could see the actual room in the remains, I just took a picture of what it would have looked like. This is a drawing of a four-bedroom house.

There was a modern stairway that took us up to a look-out platform. The following 4 photos are looking in each direction from the platform.

The next 2 pics are of the stairway going down into the water system. It looks scarier than it actually was. In ancient times, cities like this one would find a water source outside of the wall and dig a tunnel up into the city, so that under siege, the people could access the water within the safety of the wall. They would hide the source on the outside so the enemy couldn't tamper with it or have access to it themselve. So, we went in here and came out, outside of the walls.

Us at the altar -- then we turned in our hard hats, thank goodness!

Our second stop of the day was to Tel Arad -- another site like Beersheba. The line that you see below is the division between the original stone -- below the line, and the reconstruction above.

This is the sacrificial altar of Arad. These are the next human sacrifices! ;)

In Exodus it says, And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build if of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Notice the unhewn stone of the altar, below:

Remember in the movie The Ten Commandments, when the slaves are stomping straw into the mud to make bricks for the Egyptians? Well the little stick things in this picture are pieces of straw!

This is the holy of holies.

The excavators have found something down below here -- we tried to see to the bottom, but it was too dark. I think there were 3 levels of ladders that we COULD see.

Our final destination for day 1 was a kibbutz right near the Egyptian border. Kent was still not feeling well (he'd been sick all the week before we left). So, he and I went to our rooms at the kibbutz while the rest of the group went out into the desert. They played in the sand dunes, learned about kibbutz life, and had some kind of short scripture discussion/pondering time. Here is what our room looked like:

When the buses returned and everyone had checked into their rooms we were fed a hamburger dinner by the pool. They had blankets and/or low tables where we could sit on the ground to eat. The burgers were very good but Israeli style, not american. The meat was hamburger, the "buns" were pita and toppings were mostly things you would put on a falafel. Delish!!! They also had french fries and drinks. The rest of the evening people swam in their beautiful pool and then we all hit the hay. We had an early departure the next morning.

no pics, just some thoughts

Kent and I went to Bethlehem today for hold church for the 2 families that live there. We went with 2 service couples from the Center. Here was the process:
We drove about 20 minutes to Bethlehem. There is a huge, cement wall all around it so we had to park and walk across the check point. We had to show our passports and then we had to walk a couple of blocks to the home where church is held.
We had sacrament meeting in their living room. One of the fathers, Mohammed, blessed and passed the sacrament. Then we had a testimony meeting. Mohammed's wife, who isn't a member and doesn't speak English bore her testimony. Mohammed translated for her. She has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the prophet Joseph Smith. She hopes one day to become a Mormon.
While the adults had Sunday School, 3 of us women tried to have Primary with the children. You can tell that they receive no discipline and they don't speak any English. It was an adventure and that's all I'm saying!
After Sunday School, the women and children prepared some refreshments while the men had a very brief Priesthood meeting.
The trip home was the reverse of the trip there, only we had to go through security on the way out of Bethlehem. It is very sad to see this wall, enclosing the town of Bethlehem. Despite the hardships these people are so gentle & sweet and want so badly to have the blessings of church meetings and feeling the spirit.

Just something to think about as you casually walk to church, drive where you want, and meet in a chapel.

new bathrooms

FINALLY!!! This is the downstairs bathroom.

This is from Nancy: Wow!! Whose house is this really? I can't believe how good it looks!!!! Thank you, Tiek construction and the Robins family for taking care of it and putting up with it after we left!
The drawers are nice and big.
I had them put the towel rack right in front of the shower so when someone gets out, they can just grab it instead of walking to it! That way the floor won't get wet also because they put up a small towel rack at the sink.

This is upstairs.