Herro Herodium!

This past Wednesday we had our field trip to Bethlehem and various other sites south and east of Jerusalem.  To begin our day, we went up to Bethany where Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, resided and visited the Mount of Olives.  This location was quite significant in the Life of Christ containing some prominent events such as: the Olivet Discourse, the Triumphal Entry and His Ascension up into heaven.  It is so close to Jerusalem and has a great view overlooking the Old City from the east.  

After this, we ventured to some tombs outside Jerusalem that were known for containing the oldest piece of the Bible that we know.  In these tombs, a silver amulet dating back to 600 BC was discovered with the Hebrew etching of Numbers 6:24-26, which is the priestly benediction, "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace."  Once again, it is awesome to see verification of our faith and God's Word.

Next, we progressed south to the city of Bethlehem.  This city was not anything like I expected it to be, which was small, quiet, and peaceful; rather, the modern city of Bethlehem was crowded, hostile, and frankly uncomfortable.  Nonetheless, we observed the fulfillment of the prophecy in Micah 5:2 as seen in the birth of our Messiah in Luke 2.  We then were left to wander the city and check out the Church of the Nativity for a little while.   From here, we moved on to climb atop of the Herodian, which is a monumental fortress erected by Herod the Great in the time of Christ.  This was a very sophisticated and genius fortress not only because of its strategically defensive location but also because of its advanced water cisterns that were able to hold up to 400,000 gallons of water.

On our way back to the Moshav we made two final stops.  First, we pulled off on the side of the road and went into a local field outside of Tekoa, the hometown of Amos the prophet.  We read from Amos 5:6 which says, "Seek the Lord and live..."  This was the message that this shepherd from Judah had to take to Israel in the North.  So simple but so true and I cannot begin to even imagine of taking a message of destruction to a nation that is like your older bigger brother.

After this, we did some hiking in the Rephaim Valley.  This was a nice green valley with hills that we ran up and rolled some rocks down.  Nonetheless, this was the probably the valley that David chased the Philistines down and out of Judah three times.  So, this was a fun final stop and relaxing way to end our day.  Sorry for the delay in the posts... as you can tell, things are getting busier.  I encourage you to check out facebook for some more pictures if you have time. 

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Love you guys!