Hospitality in the desert

We can start by saying that we spent day number 2 in the desert on the hottest day of the year. Per our tour guide Mr. Ronan the Negev desert was up to 125 degrees F. Since our hike to Masada was closed we took the gondola to the top where we learned about Herod the Great, his sons, the splitting of the land, and the ultimate siege of the jews. Although Masada is not in the Bible it has extraordinary history that helps us to encapsulate the entire picture.

From there we headed to a place where the Bedouins live and rode camels! We had a wonderful lunch and afterwards sat around a fire to learn about the true meaning of hospitality and what it means to truly welcome strangers and be set apart as God’s people.

Our next place was in the city of Arad where we sat in a Bat’a or father’s house. It was a typical house built 3000-4000 yrs ago. Here we learned about insula which is how people lived: fathers house, which was expanded upon as the family’s sons married.
Our last part of the day we floated in the Dead Sea.

Our tour guide gave us mud which has several minerals to help us reverse age. (So if you don’t recognize us upon our return this is why!) The Dead Sea is between Israel and Jordan and is approximately 32% salt which is 32x saltier than our oceans! Our bodies were completely buoyant as you can see from the pictures. Due to the amount of salt, there is no living creatures or plants.
Day 2 is a wrap!

Written by Sarah Gardner