I thought that I would go ahead and finish up the last day of our Jordan trip because it was short and because I leave for a week long trip to Egypt tomorrow. So this is really the only time in which I will have time to post this. I imagine when I get back from Egypt, I will do a few posts about that. From here until next semester, I will be living with a family in Bethlehem. The husband and wife are the principles of a local Christian high school, and they have two young boys that love to play video games. They also like Star Trek. So, I imagine that my winter break updates will be reflecting on exciting things that I learned this semester in other classes, that I never talked about, reflecting on the semester as a whole, and the adventures I have in assisting with a large 3rd grade Palestinian class. I'm sure the stories will be endless.
Anyways, back to Jordan. Our trip from Petra to the Medea Plateau was long and tedious. By long and tedious, I mean that it was an hour and a half and I had to go to the bathroom worse than I have in my entire life. Well... I was stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel of New York City for two hours once when I was about 12 years old... I nearly wet myself then, but this was almost just as bad. This was the situation: I didn't have to go when we left Bozrah. Not that it would have mattered, seeing as there were no bathrooms and I didn't see a decent place outside to go to the bathroom. Plus, there were two little Arab boys running around and I imagine I would have been scarred for life if they had ran into me while I was peeing all over some archeological site. Little did I know that our hotel was so far away and that there was actually a group of people that had to go to the bathroom, and they were switching off and keeping guard so that everyone could go. But me, being the solid introvert that I am, immediately went back to the bus as soon as I took the pictures I wanted. So I never had the chance to know that this potty group had formed. When I got on the bus, our professor told us that we had an hour and a half bus ride with no bathroom breaks. I passively aggressively asked, “No potty breaks?” Implying that I really had to go. She just smiled and shook her head. Minutes later, while I'm dancing in my seat, she walks to the back of the bus to see how the other girls' potty-venture went. She came back and told us that it was fine. I, once again, said, “Oh, I wish I had known that was happening.” Again implying that I really had to go. And she just smiled. I danced in my seat; I hummed; I shook my legs up and down; I tapped my feet. The professor was sitting right next to me and she was blissfully unaware that me, who is known for immediately passing out on the bus, was wide awake and practically jumping up and down and yelling to get her attention. So I finally said, “How long till we get there, because I have an emergency situation.” The girl sitting behind me had been in my position before, and started telling me how she felt my pain. All the while, our professor just smiled and laughed and seemed unphased by my distress. Eventually, the tour guide heard of my problem and was able to get the bus driver to take a detour and get us to our hotel thirty minutes faster. I've never flown off of a us so quickly.
As if a long day at Petra and traumatizing emergency bathroom situation wasn't enough, this was supposed to be the worst hotel. Supposedly, the girls that had gone the previous year woke up with cockroaches in their hair. I wasn't really looking forward to that. But, I think they must have been over-exaggerating or they must have stayed at a different hotel. It wasn't awful. The rooms were clean, the beds were tilted funny but they were made, and there was hot water. Of course, every time you ran the shower, it took a good 30 seconds for it to fully turn on, and then it would slow down to a trickle again, and then it would turn off and return to just the bathtub faucet. It was like a game. So it took a long time to shower, but, who cares? It was hot. This is what my Grandpa would call a “missionary experience.”
All that aside, I had a really great night's rest and was ready to tackle our last day so that I could leave and return to JUC. I never thought I could miss Jerusalem so much. Our first stop was within the city, at Karak Castle. It looked like a pretty cool Crusader Fortress, but I couldn't tell you a thing about it. Our tour guide talked the whole time, and it was so cold and windy that I just could not force myself to pay attention to him.
We then went to Dibon, the capital of Moab. After the exodus, this is where the tribe of Reuben was supposed to have settled. Anyone remember what Reuben did that he shouldn't have? He slept with his father's concubine, which was a serious power play in ancient times. When a son no longer felt like his father could run the family, a son may lay with his father's concubine to attempt to take over. This happened right after Dinah, Jacob's daughter, was raped at Shechem. Jacob decided not to do anything about the rape, because they probably had peaceful connections with Shechem. But Reuben and his brothers took matters into their own hands and slayed the whole town. So, when Jacob was about to die and was blessing his children, he told Reuben (Gen. 49:3-4):
“Reuben, you are my firstborn,
my might, and the firstfruits of my strength,
preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.
Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence,
because you went up to your father's bed;
then you defiled it—he went up to my couch!”
Jacob basically told Reuben that he was wrong for such actions. Therefore, the very thing that he judged his father for – being wavering and unable to control and care for his family – now he would have the same for the rest of his life. This describes the land of Moab. Moab was in between Edom and the Medeba Plateau. The Plateau is very similar in geography, but much larger and flatter and, therefore, easier for farming and travel. This Plateau is supposed to belong to Reuben, but many people wanted the Plateau. And so, the Reubenites were never really able to hold onto it.
We then made our way over the plateau and up to Mount Nebo, where Moses looked out on the Promised Land before passing away. This was truly a touching place to be at. From the heights of Mount Nebo, you can look out across the Rift Valley and look upon Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Jericho. Now you can't see all of Israel, but you can see a good deal of it. Through Jordan, we had looked at the Abrahamic covenant fulfilled in Jacob and his children, as well as the Mosaic covenant, looking out over the land that the people were promised. What was so touching about this, for me, is that both Abraham and Moses were promised such amazing things, but neither of them saw their fulfillment. They just trusted God anyways. Everyday, I assume that I'm doing something because God wants me to and I'll eventually know what that reason is. Never do I think that I may never know what that reason is. God may ask me to do some major things with my life without showing me or telling me why. Couldn't tell you how that fits into my life yet, because it's a large concept to try and process. But, it's an interesting thing to think about.
After Mount Nebo, we had another hour or so to kill because the graduate students were running late. So we went to the major mosaic distributor for Jordan and made pottery:
After such fun, we went towards border crossing, which had the potential to be really awful. Thankfully, it was call to prayer and we were able to pass about 12 buses that were pulled over so that all the passengers could pray. Border crossings was the most unorganized thing I've ever experienced. First, you have to unload all your baggage and form a barricade of people through the waiting line so that nobody cuts in front of you. They seem to think that we're all dumb Americans and that they can just cross in front of us if they ask us to move. Then you give your baggage to a guy behind a counter, along with your passport. Then that guy sets your passport on top of your baggage amongst a field of other bags with passports sitting on top. I tried not to take my eyes off my passport the whole time. It seemed too easy for someone to steal it. Once you get your baggage, you wait through another line that funnels into a single file so that you can go up to a counter with one person checking passports and judging your level of threat. I was the third to last person in our group to go. There were two lines formed: one for our group, because it was so large, and one for everyone else. They seemed to be alternating passport checks with one person from each line. So, after the person next to me had been checked, I ran up to have mine checked. But some Muslim lady with her two kids tried to cut in front of me. After an hour of this nonsense, I was not having it and I didn't let her pass. The guy just gave me a look and took her passport and talked said something to her in Arabic. Then he looked at me, put a sticker on my passport and circled something. Little did I know that I was the only person to be considered a threat. Go me. I thought for sure, as I was sitting in the waiting room all by myself, that I was going to be stripped searched and interrogated for hours. Thankfully, they just took me into a room the size of a closet and searched me with my clothes on. It still felt invasive.
Anyways, that all sums up Jordan. I'm looking forward to Egypt, but not the 15 hour drive through the wilderness of Sinai tomorrow.
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