Back from my Sabbatical

So, I finally made my way back to al-Husn after wandering in the deserts of Jordan and Israel. As I mentioned earlier, the first week was spent with the Germans touring all of the good Jordan sites. Immediately afterwards, Caroline, Marlise and I went with Abouna Imad and about 25 al-Husn Christians on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. My loot consists of only a bag of incense, but I think it's pretty good loot. I'm going to be posting photos and commentaries daily for the next two weeks, covering all that happened in the last two weeks. So please stay tuned; I don't want to go through all this trouble to get carpel tunnel syndrome just to find out that I'm talking to myself here.

Marlise was really, really happy during the trip. She's a big archeology buff, and so Madaba was quite the treat. We had been there before, but had only seen a couple things. With the Germans, we were able to see lots of ancient mosaics that had been made in what was once a mostly-Christian city. Today, the Christian population of Madaba has shrunk considerably due to immigration from Jordan to the U.S.

Marlise is wearing my hat. The sun in Jordan is so hot that you'll get a headache really quickly if your head isn't covered.


Caroline teaches Ameen Al-Saddi how it's done in da hood. Not that she's from da hood. Or even the hood. We and the Germans stayed at one of the Twal (i.e. Abouna's family) houses in Madaba. This is the patio area on the third floor - much cooler during the night than indoors. I was really excited to practice my German, so I didn't much sleep the two nights we spent here.

Ameen Al-Saddi, al-malik al-ardu (king of his land) surveys the promised land from Mt. Nebo A running joke throughout the week that Ameen and I had between us was that Ameen was king of the promised land. As the week progressed, it turned out that Ameen was really king of most of Jordan - in fact, of every place that we visited. Whenever I thanked His Majesty for allowing me to visit his lands, he always responded gracefully with the same message, "no, no my son, do not thanks me. Thanks God for giving me, Ameen, your king, this land that you and my people might enjoy it and thanks God for it." He was a trip the whole trip. Behind Ameen is a representation of the bronze serpent that Moses wrought on Mt. Nebo.



That evening, we watched the sun set over the Promised Land from a hill near Mt. Nebo. The view was majestic and tranquil at the same time.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post on the Jordan River!