Day 85

We had class in the morning, a couple of hours of New Testament. The whole time we could hear these explosive noises coming from outside. We weren't really sure what was going on, but later we found out that it was all of the Jewish students celebrating their graduation exams. They kept doing fireworks pretty much all day. After class we had an orientation meeting for Jordan, since we leave on Monday. It was kind of like the one for Egypt, but not quite as intense. We're not supposed to eat fresh vegetables or drink the water, but most of the food is ok, even fruits if we peel them ourselves.

We had our field trip after lunch, to Herodian and Shepherd's Field. Herodian is one of the many palaces that Herod the Great built around his kingdom. It is a fortress, but with bath houses and pools and lots of other luxuries. During the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Jews turned part of it into a synagogue. We sat there and read some scriptures about Herod. Even though he did a lot of evil things, like killing a lot of his family and having all of the innocents slain, we talked about some of the good things he did like building a lot of really amazing buildings all over the Holy Land.

The next place we went to was Shepherd's Field, which overlooks Bethlehem. It is one of the very likely sites of the angel's visit to the shepherd's to announce the birth of Christ. We had some quiet time there to read and explore, and then we had a Nativity program. People acted out Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds, Wise Men, and Angels, and we sang a bunch of Christmas hymns. The Nativity is something I've done a lot of times, usually at least once or twice every Christmas season, but it was really an amazing to do it there with Bethlehem in the background. After the program, Brother Brown told the story of Christmas from the other side of the world. He talked about the signs that the people of the Americas were looking for that would tell them that Jesus was born. It was so cool to see both sides of the story told side by side, and to remember how important that event was to all of us all over the world.