Day 2: We woke up to a glorious morning on the Dead Sea. We made our first stop at En Gedi,
literally an oasis on the western shore of the Dead Sea. This is the site where David hid from Saul during one of the episodes when 
Saul was trying to murder the future king. We were all amazed at the beauty of this place—waterfalls, caves, lush vegetation, and animal life in the middle of a bleak desert area! If I needed to hideout from an enemy in that part of the world, I would have chosen the same cave! A few miles away, we visited Qumran, the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. We all listened in awe as the story was told of the shepherd boy who stumbled upon the scrolls and how God faithfully allowed this ancient documents to be retrieved, restored, and preserved for the world to see how carefully the Lord has protected the transmission of his Word.
We then drove to the Israeli-Jordanian border and after several hours of changing buses, clearing customs and passport control, and a few other miscellaneous mishaps (Becky Pine was momentarily detained when she was mistaken for an American celebrity—which one, we are still uncertain!), we arrived in Jordan. We obtained a new guide for our time in Jordan and his name was (no kidding) Aladin! Immediately, we drove to the ancient city of Jerash, one of the best preserved and most complete provincial Roman cities. Jerash was one
of the Jordanian cities of the Decapolis, a confederation of ten Greco-Roman cities dating from the first century A.D. It’s known for its excellent state of preservation and the ruins there indicate that humans lived in this city for more than 2500 years.We then drove to Petra and stayed in a hotel just outside of the ancient ruins. We were all exhausted but excited about God’s faithfulness to us throughout the day and the adventure that awaits us tomorrow!
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