The Shephelah - Lowlands 9/14/09

Hello! Today was the date of our second field trip. We went to the Shephelah, which is the lowlands of Israel. We mainly visited five valleys of the Shephelah, which all had fortresses to protect the cities in the hill country to the east.

Some cool ones that we went to were Bet Shemesh, which is where the ark of the covenant was returned to the Israelites in a cart driven by two milk cows....And I'm pretty sure they opened the box cause they were curious and there was a curse on the land that wiped out all the people. That's kind of fun, right? Also, there was a cistern there, which is a cavern of sorts that the people dug out in the rock underground and then plastered the walls so they could store water there and not have the water seep out through the rocks. It was really cool, we got to go down and take pictures and stuff. Very fun. Also a lot of people collected pottery shards there. I didn't get one though. Oh well. I did almost sprain my ankle there...that was fun. I just stepped off a rock weird and rolled it a little. It only hurt momentarily, and then it was fine. Whew! Dodged a bullet there.

This is Bet Shemish. Do you like the fanny pack? They're very convenient. And I'm going to resume refusing to wear one, after Jerusalem. Maybe that's it...maybe Jerusalem just makes everything cooler :)

This is descending down into the Cistern....it was really cobweb-y and steep, but very, very fun. I have inherited the Dave Clark love of dark caves, and cool climbing areas and etc. I think I'm a little more skittish than my wonderful Dad, but hey, I do love it, still :)

This is inside the cistern...

Next we went to another valley, and it was pretty sweet....We went to this big Cistern there, along with a subterranean olive press, which also was sweet. We got to talk about the Atonement and how Gethsemane is derived from the word "Gath Shemish" Which means oil press. That was really cool also. The rock in that area was pure white and reflected the sun at us from all angles. I really don't think I've ever been so hot in my life. That and I am sporting a slight sunburn from my adventures in Tel Aviv yesterday...which by the way, I still think are amazing.

Next we went to the "Bell Caves" which were really awesome! They reminded me of Southern Utah / Zion a little bit. The rock wasn't red or anything, but there was just huge rock walls in a bell shaped cave, which holes at the top. I think it was man-made though. Still, really awesome. And the acoustics were unbeatable. We sang hymns and a girl names Kathleen sang a song for us, and then two girls named Lizzie and Anna sang that primary song that starts "Whenever I hear the sound of a bird..." in harmony. It was so beautiful to hear both songs from those three girls! I loved it. And we took some awesome pictures....again, coming soon hopefully.

After that we went to Tel Lachish. which apparently was one of the most important cities in Israel in Old Testament times. That's really cool. I don't know if I've blogged about this before, but a Tel is an ancient city that has had many generations and civilizations build one after another on top of each other. Usually it's because the city gets destroyed by fire, earthquake, or war. One of those three, usually. So it's an "A.D" (Dad :) ) or and Archaeologist's Dream, because there's layers of cities and civilizations right underneath each other. Pretty cool stuff. This one they haven't excavated all the way, so it still has it's volcano shape. (Because the city gets higher and higher as they build on top of each other, and starts to cone because usually they use the older outer walls as reinforcements on the outside for their walls, and it's flat on top because the level it for a city. They do this because of defense reasons, mostly.)

We then went to these caves called the Caves of Mikhal....I think. I'm a little rough with all the names. I think this was my favorite part. They were so cool! You have to hike up a tiny tiny ways from the road and you find this little opening in a rock, and it goes down to a little room, and the little room has a tunnel that is probably two and a half feet wide and about three feet tall. Just perfect height for human crawling. So you crawl on all fours for about ten yards, and then the cave opens up to this cavern. You have to climb down a ladder to get to the bottom, which isn't very high, maybe ten feet? So the first room had all these little cutouts carved into the wall. We went somewhere earlier that had a Dovery, where they raised Doves, and it was similar, but I don't know how you'd raise doves in this cave. Then there was an opening to a larger room that had some really small tunnels going all over the place with holes in the walls and ceiling that you could stick your head out of after climbing up through the walls. It was pretty sweet. Someone said they climbed up one and saw a tarantula the size of their face....ummm glad I wasn't there for that! :) Anyway, we had a really cool devotional about light and darkness, and how Christ is the light of the world. We all turned off our flashlights and headlamps and sat in complete darkness. This was darkness with absolutely no light. Nothing for your eyes to adjust to after a little while, and Bro. Manscill talked about the blind man that Christ healed at the gate to the temple, and etc. It was really cool, then we all turned on our flashlights and sang hymns and a couple guys shared stories about their missions and experiences with light they had. It was really cool. Aaand then we played. Everyone was crawling everywhere and lifting each other up and climbing and taking pictures and etc. It was so fun. I almost can't believe that BYU not only allowed us on, but they also took us there. None of us would've been any the wiser had they not taken us. I just loved that they're so open to adventure out here. I guess you'd have to be, in the Holy Land :).

After that we made our last stop of the day to the Valley of Enoch. Sounds awesome, right? Well.....it's the valley where the story of David and Goliath took place. Isn't that awesome? I saw the valley with the two hills where the Israelites and the Babylonians stood on opposite sides, and Goliath, who was 9'6", stood and challenged any of the Israelites to battle who would come. And nobody did. Then David, who wasn't even in the army, but just a helper who was instructed to bring food to his brothers, showed up at the right time, and couldn't believe that nobody was willing to die for their God and country. That nobody had the faith. So he volunteered. Then everyone tried to give him armor like Goliath had, and swords and etc, and he wouldn't take it. He had faith in his God and wasn't about to give up his advantages of the skill he'd acquired with his sling and his agility. So he went to the riverbed and picked up five stones, and then he stood facing Goliath and charged at him. It took one shot, and he hit him right in the forehead and lodged the rock right in his head and killed him. It was a neat experience to stand there and everything, but it didn't really hit home until Bro. Manscill invited us to pick up stones to take with us and I was walking around and, lo and behold, I see the very riverbed where he went to pick up the stones. It was dry, so I didn't see it before. How cool is that, though? It happened right there! And now I have 5 David and Goliath stones for some very lucky primary class to hold in their hands at some date in the future.

Ooh I forgot to tell you also, they gave us slings to try to hit a box they set up across the valley, and we all learned how to sling stones just like David did! I got really close. I aimed perfectly and it would've hit it had I let go when it would've gone a little higher. Dang, right? But it was still really fun.

After that we headed for the Center. We were all super super dirty. It was fun, we looked kind of like explorers, and even though the day was hot and dry, everyone had a great time. It was probably one of my most fun days yet, just because we got to go so many places and do cool things. I'll get pictures up here sometime, I promise. I love you all!