Canyon Life

I got home from Amman, Jordan two days ago. Yesterday I was down for the count with a serious case of jet lag. I didn't think it was a real thing, jet lag. I guess when you don't sleep for 48 hours and the sleep you did get over the last few weeks ranged from 3 to 6 hours a night, it can all creep up on you. Plus we all seemed to catch a stomach bug, one of our group was throwing up on the plane. Yikes. No good. But we made it home safely! I am very happy to be back with my boys.

The trip was amazing. If you know me, you know why I went. I won't throw out the details here. I'll just toss up some pictures of the highlights. We left on the 5th of July, and landed in Frankfurt, Germany on the 6th, just in time for dinner. Which was weird, because we had just eaten breakfast on the plane. We had a short layover, so we ventured out into the city via train. We walked around Frankfurt, got some fun food (bratwurst, kidney sausage, pastry, marzipan) and headed to the river. It was beautiful, the atmosphere was fun, and I would love to go back someday. 

That night we jumped on the next flight to Amman. We landed around 2am and got picked up by our friends and a few taxi's. By the time we made it to our destination and our rooms, it was 6am. Long night! The next day, the set up for our camp began. We had three days to prep.

Here's the breakfast we woke up to most days, hummus, fruit and vegetables, olives and flat bread.

This is the area where we set up the stage.

Got the posters up!

Jordanian fast food, shawarma. It's a wrap with hummus, vegetables and chicken or lamb.Very good.

The Dead Sea, where if you shave your legs and then go swimming, you die. Not really, but it burns like crazy. The floating was fun, you can't sink if you wanted to. I felt like a buoy. It was hot too, probably 110 that day. They had a pool nearby, it was lovely and refreshing.

Angela and I. She was my roommate for the last two weeks. I love her.

Cat in Arabic is bissa. I love that. Cats are vermin in these parts. They scavenge and jump out of trash cans to scare you when you get to close. We had to chuck the trash in from afar.

Breakfast again, this time I added eggs.

Stage is set, decor is done!

This was fantastic, 9am, this guy comes around! Traffic jam.

Oh, the food at the markets was fantastic to look at. So many olives, so many spices and dates and figs. Always fun to explore.

The front of our church, after we decorated it a bit. This was the first night of registration.

Here they come!

Awww, Angela is tired.

Driving out to Jerash, passing a mosque. There are mosques on every corner. Literally. Here's the fun thing, all those towers have speakers attached to them. Four or five times a day, they do the call to prayer. Starting at 3:45am. It's loud. You can't escape it. It will wake you up. Sometimes they chant, sometimes they talk, sometimes I don't know what they are doing.

The coliseum entrance at Jerash, where they did the chariot races.

Main entrance to Jerash. Beautiful. Jerash, or Gerasa, has many biblical ties. They think that the parable of the Prodigal Son was based here, as well as the story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding, and Jesus sending demon possessed swine into a river to drown. The Jabbok river runs close by, the same river where Jacob wrestled with God. For a country that worships an entirely different god, they have no trouble believing any of this history happened.

Outside walls of coliseum, stables and entrances, tombs were off to the right.

Amphitheater. Very large, very hot.

Temple of Artemis. Artemis was the patron goddess of the city. The other was Zeus, but most loved Artemis. She was chosen because whatever god they had before her had similar attributes.

After the fourth night of camp, Angela and Jim earned back rubs.

I love you old rock from ages past. I also really loved that Brita water bottle. I think I drank 50 bottles a day.

This guy, he's our tech guy at church, he runs all our systems. We call him the renaissance man. Know why? Because in addition to all the tech stuff, he was a professional ballroom dancer, helped produce things on Dancing With the Stars, and he's a biblical archaeologist. Say what??? I know. Who'd a thunk? We had the best tour guide ever. But he kept wanting to dig everywhere. Here he is getting into leading worship at camp.

I was in charge of games. Jordanian kids are competitive. These little guys weren't, they just wanted to play, but the big kids. Wow. I threw a tug of war at them and chaos erupted. In a good way. I think. Barely any injuries.

Arabic hymnal. So pretty.

Amphitheater at the Citadel, downtown Amman.

Smaller little baby amphitheater, right next to the big one.

Halfway up one billion stairs to the top of the Citadel ruins, I turned and saw this view. Almost worth the climb. Our tour guide said he knew a short cut, I thought the best short cut would have been a taxi.

View from the top, Amman is huge.

Temple of Hercules and some pretty stones I saw.

After the trek to the top of the Citadel, we had lunch at this fantastic place call Jafra. They had Turkish coffee. This stuff I stocked up on and took home. Oh dear me. It was heaven.

Angela hugging headless statues, me and Melani, and our delicious lunch.

Mount Nebo, the mountain where Moses led Israel to so they could see the promised land. Moses was not allowed to enter and died on Mount Nebo.

Minus the smog, this is the view Moses had.

This is the team right after we got back to church from our trip. We don't look too bad!

These were just a few of my favorite memories. We are still sorting through the rest of the pictures. I am so glad to be home. My mom is here visiting and my brothers are due here Sunday. My 11th anniversary is tomorrow, so hopefully Brett and I can get out and do something together before the mob arrives. Brett was so awesome about this whole trip, he stayed here with kids, fixed up the house, did some projects to surprise me, and I think he actually missed me. Nothing like two weeks away from your spouse to make the heart grow fonder. I seriously hope he'll consider going next year though, I think he'd love it.