Even in Bethlehem…

So we’ve spent our first two and a half weeks here working pretty hard.  We got in late at night and the next day hit the ground running: meetings, programming, planning, office work and manual labor.  10-12 hour days.  In the blazing heat.  But it looks like some consistency is right around the corner.  Programs officially start on Tuesday!! At least my program does.  Our CEO was in town for the past three weeks and while he’s here I guess everybody pulls super long days, but he left yesterday and now things’ll calm down a bit, which is OARSOME!!!

You saw pictures of the tire wall/composting toilet we were building… well we’ve been doing lots of other beautification projects to our leadership center and while it’s a long ways from being finished, it’s finally usable.  Check out our plastic grass, fire pit, more walls for the bathroom , and the grand staircase leading to… nowhere right now.

 

Pretty sweet huh?  Eventually those stairs will lead to a sweet garden…someday.

Since these past couple of weeks have been so focused on preparation… there were some scouting trips necessary.  Tough job.  One of the programs here caters to Christian Palestinian college students at Bethlehem Bible College and new this year… We actually got the program in their course listing so students can take it for credit! Sick!  The idea behind the program is to challenge Palestinian Christians to truly live out there faith by loving their enemies/muslim neighbors.  Christians and Muslims here are pretty separate and they like to keep it that way, but our program encourages students to rethink how their faith should shape their life, especially within the culture they live. Super Cool!  I’m not in charge of this program, but I do assist the technical side of adventures.  We use adventure rec to help teach some of this stuff and my job is setting all the anchors and ropes and what have you.  So last week, we took a trip to the world’s oldest continually inhabited monastery!  WOW!

This place is called Mar Saba (look it up on wikipedia or google it) and this monastery is built into the cliffs overlooking the Kidron Valley (that’s right THE Kidron Valley).  One of the parts of our program has the students going out near the monastery and rappelling down a “wadi” (a dried up waterfall) and then hiking out past the monastery.  So we hiked out there so I could see what it looked like and how I could set up anchors and did some rappelling and shot a promo for Paidia while we were at it.

Looking down Kidron (by the way, that river is totally nasty, all sewage and pollution from Jerusalem)

 
Me filming Erich, our CEO

Oh Yeah

 

 
Really skinny picture, the wadi we descended

Good Stuff.  A couple of years ago, one of the first times they were out doing this, some of the monks came over to the group that was rappelling this thing and were very concerned.  All throughout these canyons are these little caves called “monastic cells.”  These were little dwellings carved into the rock that the old school monks all had to get even more away from the world.  Apparently about two thirds of the way up this wadi, there was a cell that belonged to pretty prominent saint, I don’t remember his name though.  The monks thought that Erich and the group were trying to destroy or vandalize this cell which they revered so much.  After clearing up the misunderstanding, Erich found out that no one had actually been to this particular cell for centuries because the waterfall that forms every winter had washed out the trail that was carved into the cliff.  These monks expressed that it was nigh a life dream of theirs to visit this cell so… a week later, Erich came back and hooked them all up helped the access this cell where they brought all these candles and incense and did all sorts of praying inside. 

Two years later, Erich finally had the pictures of the monks rappelling printed and one of the objectives of our trip out there was to gift them the pictures.  We were pretty blessed to be granted entrance seeing as how technically you aren’t allowed in if you aren’t Greek Orthodox or if you are a woman (sadly, Char had to wait outside).  At any rate, we were granted access and got to take a look inside.

 
That little door in the wall down there is the entrance.

The main courtyard, that domed building there is where the tomb of Saint Savva (the greek saint for whom the place is named) was originally buried.

They were growing lots of basil plants inside, smelled GREAT.  Check out all the little rooms carved into the rock.

We got to go into their main church too, but no pictures.  It was fun chatting with the monks though and hearing some stories.

The weekend finally hit and it was great to have a day off.  So we decided to head to the Church of the Nativity, where apparently Jesus was born.  We picked the wrong day.  Today was a huge holiday for Jews and Arabs and they city was CRAZY.  It’s the Jewish new year and the end of Ramadan for the Muslims and there were people everywhere.  So don’t really have any pictures of the church, not postworthy anyway, but we plan on going back when there’s less people around.  What we did see was kind of disappointing though.  There was this huge church erected over the spot where Jesus was believed to have been born, and the actual spot was marked with this silver star (you can wikipedia this stuff too) which believed to be the exact spot where Mary gave birth… and there were all these people crowding around it and kissing it and… it was kind weird.  I was sitting there watching and thinking that I’d much rather see the actual stable or inn or something more humble than an ornate church…And maybe stuff like that can’t stand the test of time, but I definitely didn’t feel prompted to fawn over a silver star set in marble… 

We didn’t stay for very long because it was packed and it was really hot and we decided that we’d rather not brave the crowds so we headed home.  But of course you can’t go home without your super-mocha-frappa-happiness.  That’s right, even in Bethlehem:

 
I never realized it was actually run by TWO guys.

This is a long one, so I’ll leave you with a fun picture.  Our CEO is letting us use his vespa since he’s not in the country anymore.  Use your imagination to see the two of us on there… together… so much love!