I haven't posted anything about how fun it was when Sarah came to visit. 
Everything really worked out great as far as my schedule and being able to spend time together. I wish we'd been able to have a bit more time to just sit and talk, but as it was, we got to do some really great stuff together. Who would have thought that we'd we able to spend time together in Jerusalem? We both marvelled on that fact multiple times while she was here.
On the morning she arrived I woke up feeling so excited that I was going to see her. When we finally got in touch with each other we made plans to meet up outside Damascus gate. I always have to be in a group of 3 so I recruited two friends and the three of us headed up to the Old City. I'll never forget seeing Sarah, running through the vendors and people outside Damascus gate, waving her arms and yelling "Schwestie!" It feels so good to be loved.
The next day Sarah (and her two traveling buddies) came with us on our City of David and Hezekiah's tunnel fieldtrip. On this fieldtrip we explored the remains of the Jebusite village that David conquered and made into his capital. It was a really great to learn more about the boundaries of the original city and to see how it continued to expand under David's and Solomon's reign. It was also interesting to think about the growth in terms of Lehi's family and where they would have likely lived when they were here.
Everything really worked out great as far as my schedule and being able to spend time together. I wish we'd been able to have a bit more time to just sit and talk, but as it was, we got to do some really great stuff together. Who would have thought that we'd we able to spend time together in Jerusalem? We both marvelled on that fact multiple times while she was here.On the morning she arrived I woke up feeling so excited that I was going to see her. When we finally got in touch with each other we made plans to meet up outside Damascus gate. I always have to be in a group of 3 so I recruited two friends and the three of us headed up to the Old City. I'll never forget seeing Sarah, running through the vendors and people outside Damascus gate, waving her arms and yelling "Schwestie!" It feels so good to be loved.
The next day Sarah (and her two traveling buddies) came with us on our City of David and Hezekiah's tunnel fieldtrip. On this fieldtrip we explored the remains of the Jebusite village that David conquered and made into his capital. It was a really great to learn more about the boundaries of the original city and to see how it continued to expand under David's and Solomon's reign. It was also interesting to think about the growth in terms of Lehi's family and where they would have likely lived when they were here.One of the highlights of the fieldtrip was when we walked through Hezekiah's Tunnel. 
Jerusalem's main source of water came from the Gihon Spring at the bottom of the Kidron Valley (they also use a lot of cisterns, because the city gets about the same amount of rainfall annually as London does, except that it all comes at once in a few months in the winter). Unfortanately, the spring was outside of the walls of the city, which is a bad thing when you know that the Assyrian army is on it's way to attack you. This was the scenario that led King Hezekiah to conceal the spring and build the tunnel around 700 B.C. to bring the water directly into the city. 
It was quite the engineering feat and they figure that they had people working around the clock for weeks to get it done before the Assyrian's arrived. Fortuantely, they finished in time and the Assyrian's weren't able to sack Jerusalem. The tunnel is about 533 m long and runs under the city before it empties into the Pool of Siloam. The water came up to between our calves and thighs and was pretty cold. The word "Gihon" means "gushing" and I guess in the old days, before they monitored the water levels, there were times when the students would wade through it and it would come up to their necks!
Jerusalem's main source of water came from the Gihon Spring at the bottom of the Kidron Valley (they also use a lot of cisterns, because the city gets about the same amount of rainfall annually as London does, except that it all comes at once in a few months in the winter). Unfortanately, the spring was outside of the walls of the city, which is a bad thing when you know that the Assyrian army is on it's way to attack you. This was the scenario that led King Hezekiah to conceal the spring and build the tunnel around 700 B.C. to bring the water directly into the city. 
It was quite the engineering feat and they figure that they had people working around the clock for weeks to get it done before the Assyrian's arrived. Fortuantely, they finished in time and the Assyrian's weren't able to sack Jerusalem. The tunnel is about 533 m long and runs under the city before it empties into the Pool of Siloam. The water came up to between our calves and thighs and was pretty cold. The word "Gihon" means "gushing" and I guess in the old days, before they monitored the water levels, there were times when the students would wade through it and it would come up to their necks! The pictures above are of us descending into the tunnel, us in the tunnel, and us at the Pool of Siloam.
Another great highlight of the Sarah's visit was seeing Bethlehem together. Because Bethlehem is in the West Bank, the security wouldn't let her ride with us on our bus, but she managed to get there and found us at the Church of the Nativity. It was so fun to turn around in the courtyard and see my sister standing there. It just made me so happy.
After going through the Church of the Nativity, which is a Byzantine (3rd Centuryish) church that is supposedly built over the cave where Christ was born, we walked over to the Peace Center and looked at nativities from all over the world. A nice Palestinian guy took our picture for us, with the Church of the Nativity in the background. (He was also very nice to follow us around the museum and tell us about how great Palestine was, much better than America, and about how he had never kissed a girl and was waiting until he got married. At that point we told him I was getting married too and then excused ourselves from the museum.) :)
The stained glass is from the Church of the Nativity. The other picture is of the partition wall. It was interesting to go through the border. I'm really having mixed feelings about the Palestinian-Israeli situation, after being here.
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