Jordan Field Study

Wow what an amazing experience it was to travel to Jordan for four days! We just arrived back two days ago and our time in Jordan flew bye. I didn't really know what to expect when we went to Jordan because I really had no idea that it was related to the Biblical in such a deep way.



During our stay in Jordan we went from up north to down south. We covered an amazing amount of land in only four days. The first day we got caught in the rain but here at JUC that doesn't mean anything at all and we found ourselves standing out in the rain listening to Dr. Wright teach. We were able to travel all around Gilead, Edom, Moab, and the Mediba plateau hitting all the capital cities of the regions. All the places were awesome but here are a couple of my favorites:

Jerash, We went here on the 2nd day and it was an amazing spot! I never knew just how deep the impact that Rome had on the cities over in Jordan. This site was complete with a theater, hypodrome, temple to Zeus, huge cardo, much more and my favorite the artemis temple. It made me feel like i was in Turkey again. I liked the Artemis temple so much because in Ephesus there once existed one but all that is left standing there is one pillar, at Jerash there were amazing remains that gave me a great Idea of what would have stood there.





Another place we went was the Jabbok Wadi. Jordan has 4 main wadis that flow into the rift valley and this is one of them While at this spot we read the story of Jacob wrestling with God. It was awesome to look at the story and then look up and see the exact spot that it happened. We talked about how God molds and changes people as he did with Jacob and as he is doing with us. It was awesome


The sweetest place that we went was Petra! It was an amazing site that shocked all of us! I did not know people made such structures 2000 years ago. When I thought of Petra before I thought that all it had was the famous treasury which is displayed in Indiana Jones but once being there I saw that there was a theater and hundreds of amazing tombs carved right into the solid rock. Here we talked about the Nabateans and there relationship to the Bible and how possibly the wise men came from this location.


Our last spot we visited was Mt. Nebo. We were blessed with the exact view that Moses had as he was looking into the promise land right before he died on this mountain. Dr. Wright applied this view to our lives and gave us a fitting lesson for our last stop on physical settings. He talked about how the future was hazy for Israel as they were entering the land and how also for us our future is hazy. It is in fact over beyond the river but we don't know it yet. It was great lesson to end on and a challenge to all of us!




I can't believe how fast this semester is going. we only have a week and a half before finals and yet there is so much to do. Josh arrives in two days and I am overwhelmingly excited for him to visit and to share with him some of the things that I have been learning during my stay here in Israel!