Day 84

Today was a field trip to the Christian Quarter of the Old City. Instead of renting the nice tourist buses for the day, we got a city bus to take us over to New Gate.

Some of the places I had already visited, but it was cool to go back and hear all of the history and stories that go along with some of the churches that we walk past every day. The first place we went was to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. There was a pretty garden in the middle and we sang some hymns in the chapel out of their hymnbook, which had some of our songs, like Angels We Have Heard On High, and some that we don't have, like Amazing Grace, Come Thou Fount, and Go Tell It On A Mountain.

The next place we went was the Church of Alexander Nevsky, a Russian church with some really pretty paintings telling the story of Christ's arrest through His resurrection. There was also a small hole through one of the walls that is supposed to be the traditional "eye of the needle".

Next we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I've been there at least 5 or 6 times at this point, but there were so many little chapels that we went into today that I didn't eve know existed. It is co-owned by the Armenians, the Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox, and the keys are held by a couple of Muslim families so that the relative cooperation between all of these sects can be maintained. It was really fun to explore all of the little side rooms all over the church- you could really get lost in there with all of the nooks and stairways there are inside.

Our last stop was at St. Mark's, which is another competing site for the Upper Room where the Last Supper took place (honestly I think the place we went yesterday is more likely the real one). A lady named Justinia from Iraq gave us an introduction to the church, and mentioned some of the miracles that have taken place there. There is a painting of Mary the Mother and Jesus as a baby that was supposedly painted by Luke while Mary was still alive, and people who have prayed there have experienced the gift of tongues and the healing of cancer. Downstairs was the upper room- it's downstairs because things are always built on top of each other in this city, so all of the old buildings are usually deep underground.

We had a sack lunch, but I came back with a group before lunchtime so we ate out on the grass on the 7th floor. Then I spent the afternoon napping, reading scriptures and trying to get ahead on some of the reading for this week. We get to "sleep in" tomorrow because breakfast isn't til 8, which is actually really exciting for all of us :)