According to a bilboard in Abilene, Texas, today is judgement day. May 21. And I am in Jerusalem. Hope something cool happens. We had worship on the southern side of the wall this morning. It was a great time of singing, praying, and reflecting. It can be cold and breezy in the morning, and we are usually out of the hostel by 6. But it only takes about two hours for it to be scorching hot. Im pretty badly burned, even though i have been bathing in sunscreen. We had to put on our water shoes or chaco's because the first thing we did was Hezekiah's tunnel. It is located in the City of David south of the wall. A relatively new discovery. It is mentioned in the Bible that Hezekiah built a tunnel to secretly get water into the city while they were being sieged and cut-off from water supply. The tunnel is about a yard wide, and in places only a few feet tall. It is very long though, and you can see chisel marks in the rocks. They also found Hezekiah's inscription in it. The water came up to my thighs in places, so we were wet. We came out of the tunnel at the pool of Sloam. This was found on accident because of a sewer line break in 2004! There are so many discoveries like these that have happened recently and support the Bible. Sorry, I didn't bring my camera on this outing because of the water.
Next we went to the new western wall archeological site on the western wall by the jewish plaza. At this site they dug down all the way to the first century Herodian plaza floor where Jesus would have walked many times. It was absolutely amazing walking on those stones and seeing the newly uncovered plaza. We didn't even get to do this when I came in 2005.
Afterward we went to another place I haven't been before. Solomon's quarries. Right by the Damascus gate, you can walk into a place in the wall and see a massive expanse of caverns that stretch directly under the city. Apparently, tourists don't usually come here, but it is an ancient giant cave carved by men right under them! It was probably carved out by Solomon and later rulers for construction stones. The rock that the mountains are made of (the bedrock) is the same stuff that you see on the streets and buildings in Jerusalem. We saw chisel marks in the stone, candle burns, and places where they began to cut large stones but stopped. I couldn't believe how big this quarry was.
Ecco Homo, our next stop, is the place (now underground) near the Via Delarosa where Jesus was most likely scourged and flogged.. It was the place where the Roman guards were stationed in Jerusalem. It was pretty crazy to see the actual floor where he was probably beaten.
We also saw big rounded rocks called bullets that the Romans used for Catapult ammo.
During the day I tried Arabic coffee at a shop with Weston and Laura. It was good. Different. It had that middle eastern spice to it. It was full of coffee bean chunks though. they just don't know how to do coffee here like we do in MERICA.
I also tried a desert called Baklava and a fruit called Rockfruit. Baklava is like a crescent roll coated with honey and stuffed with pecans. It's really good. Rockfruit is a soft and really sweet little orange melon. Weston and I got Shwarma in the market. Its chicken off of a rotating spick and all of the weird yummy things that go in a falafel. I don't know what any of it is. You can either get it in a tortilla or gyro bread.
After dinner we went back down Al Wad to the Jewish plaza, or Kotel. The western wall has recently been further excavated down to the giant Herodian stones. We went down to see them. They are unbelievable. People still debate how it would have even been possible to cut them so perfectly and move them. They are so perfect that you wouldn't be able to put a piece of paper through them. All without mortar. Tim thinks they are actually Solomon's stones, or at least made by Herod from the inspiration of Solomon's wisdom.
While we were down there a small rock fell off of the underground ceiling and hit me in the shoulder. Really? At the plaza I saw a patrol of 7 female Israeli soldiers. With guns. Definitely not something you see much in the US. I asked them if I could have a picture with them. They were really friendly.
I got to talk to Weston for a long time tonight. Im so glad we are friends. He is an awesome example and encourager to me.
I have been on antibiotics for my infection the past few days. It got to where it hurt so bad that I was limping. It has been prayed over twice, and tonight I noticed it is almost completely healed up. Almost no pain. Praise God.
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