Biblical Experiences

The last field trip we went on before going to Egypt was to Neot Kedumim. This place is an Israeli National Park (I think?) that showcases biblical-type stuff. We saw a cistern and talked about it for awhile, along w/ different kinds of leaves and plants. We saw some different types of buildings that would be used for Sukkot (aka the Feast of Tabernacles), tasted date honey, learned about the Torah, made pitas, and a bunch of other things I can't remember. I was liking everything we did up until the pita-making. After we ate all I wanted to do was go home and take a nap, so I didn't really love the second half of the trip as much.

We got to try herding sheep so we could see what it would have been like. Brandt, being a farm boy, was a champion shepherd so it really wasn't too hard for the rest of us since we just followed his lead. Some of us got a little confused though and decided to herd goats around instead of sheep. Bless Johnathon's heart.

Brandt, aka the Champion Shepherd

Johnathon demonstrating his goat-herding skills

This little guy loved me

Another thing I liked doing was crushing our own hyssop. Hyssop is mentioned a few times in the Bible and was used for several things. I can't remember all of the uses, but one of them was that it was used to dip and smear the blood over the door during passover. It was also used as a type of spice, and we even dipped our bread in some of it during our first tour of the Old City.

Jenna, Lisa, me getting ready to crush our hyssop

Before

After

I ended up w/ tons of it, so I'm bringing it home w/ me. Hope you're excited to try it, Mom & Dad. :)

Partway through the day I decided to finally try some of the cool features on my camera. I'm definitely not a photographer, but I was pretty happy with a few of my pictures. This was one of my favorite 'artsy' pictures of the day (keep in mind I'm a complete rookie) :

Close up of a fig tree

Another cool thing we did, which wasn't necessarily related to the Bible, was turn this water wheel. People used this type of set up to water their crops back in the day. I thought it was fun, but I'm sure it gets old if you have to do it all the time.

Next post: Egypt!