Back from the Dead (Sea)

Greetings everyone! We have made it back to Jerusalem safe and sound. Well, a lot more sunburnt, but relatively safe and sound. Our 3-day expedition into the southern regions have taught us that Abraham and the Israelites who lived on the edge of (or in) the sun-blasted wilderness were people of much greater endurance than we are! Believe me, none of us will ever look down unsympathetically again on the Israelites who complained while wandering in the desert for all those years. (un)Holy cow. Your whole life starts to revolve entirely around where you can get water, and what you have to do to keep access to it. We saw many marvelous things -- canyons well over a thousand feet deep, desert waterfalls, ruins 3,000 years old overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, cliffs that loomed thousands of feet above the Dead Sea, floating in the Dead Sea itself, the caves at Qumran where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls -- and we are richer for the experience. But boy, was the Sun hard at work!

Over the next couple days, I'll try to catch up a little bit, but no promises. It is hard finding time, and in a couple days we leave for a 4-day trip up to the Galilee region. Maybe they'll have internet there where we are staying. Anyway, thanks for following along with us, and stay tuned!