Sunday, April 22
Both buses arrived at the Tel Dan Nature Reserve. Roman warned us that this would be our most physical site of the trip because we'd be walking a trail that was all rocky and had parts of the Jordan River running through it. We crossed a bridge over the Jordan, then started on a paved path.
Trees and foliage surrounded us on all sides as we passed from the paved path to a wooden walkway, which eventually ended up at the beginning of the rocky trail.
"Please, everyone mind your step and be careful." Roman cautioned through our Whisperers.
Before I set foot on the path, a few other people pointed out a little crab, just chilling between the first stones at the trail's entrance:
(Look close)
After snapping a picture of the tiny critter, I hurried on ahead, albeit carefully to catch up to either Haley or Miss Virginia. I saw Virginia first and joined her, helping her when I could, although she did an excellent job hiking along (and occasionally up) the rocky terrain on her own. We stopped for a moment to catch our breath, and for Roman to show us something. He stood beside a thin tree that wasn't much taller than him and invited us to take a leaf, rub it between our fingers, and smell it.
"Bay leaves!" Some of us said. To this day I wish I'd taken a bunch back for my brother, to see what culinary masterpiece he could whip up with them.
Roman then brought our attention to a mess of trees that grew wild all around us, and, more particularly, their leaves. But these weren't bay leaves:
"Now take these leaves and rub them between your fingers." He said. We did, and they were rough, like a lighter grit sandpaper. "Now imagine having to wear these all over your naked body. Those, my friends, are fig leaves, the very kind Adam and Eve wore after they sinned in the Garden. No wonder God killed an animal to make clothes for them, because that would not be comfortable to wear, especially in the winter time."
We continued down the path and soon came to a place where you could either keep straight on the path or take a sharp right up some stone steps and follow another path that consisted of just dirt. Roman took us up the stairs where we got a magnificent view:
Now, as we began to follow Roman, he stopped a boy in our group from touching a certain tree (he, his brother and their parents were with us. They were a cool family and I liked them a lot, especially the boys, because on various occasions, the two brothers often reminded me of when my brother and I were kids).
"Please," Roman emphasized to everyone. "You must listen to me. I want you all to have a good time on this trip, but at these nature reserves, you have to be careful what plants you touch. If I say you can touch it, you can touch it, if I say no, then don't touch it. I only want to keep you safe." He then gestured to the tree the boy (we'll just call him Abel for all intents and purposes. And we'll call his brother.... Cain? By the way if you're the family and you're all reading this... I'm sorry, but I mean no disrespect, just lighthearted jest) almost touched.
"This tree is deadly poisonous. If you were to take the sap of the tree and put it to your lips, there is no cure, you'd be dead."
Abel's eyes widened and I could tell his life was flashing before them.
"See I'm only trying to protect all of you," Roman said. "If you see something but don't know what it is, don't touch it! Ask me first what it is." He then eyed the brothers jokingly. "Of course the tree is also pretty useful if you want to poison your enemies... or even your own brother."
Everyone laughed and we walked on. The mood soon lightened when Roman started conversing with Cain and Abel about them running ahead of him. You see, on our first day he'd told us the importance of always letting your tour guide go first instead of running ahead: "Thou shalt not put any other tour guide before you." He'd said. "That is the first commandment of tour guiding."
"You know," he was telling them. "My grandfather was a shepherd and one time he told me, 'Roman, you know what you do if you have a goat that keeps running away?' I said, 'No, I don't'. And he answered, 'Roman when you find that goat, you break it's legs, then bind them up and carry that goat on your shoulders for a few days until the goat heals; then it will follow you around like pet dog and never leave your side.'"
Although most of us were laughing at this tale, the brothers immediately drew back, but stayed close to Roman anyway, (before I move on, I'm not at all meaning to put these boys in a negative light. They had their annoying moments, what kid doesn't? But all in all they were really nice and very amusing and I think they amused Roman must of all, probably they reminded him of his two boys; I think he handled them well the entire trip) even I fell back a little.
We followed the path deeper into the woods, with fig trees towering above us, blocking out the sun and casting an enchanting yellow/green glow on the dirt path.
We came to a crossroads, with one path pointing towards an emergency exit, that took you the fast way out, and the other pointed towards "Paradise", where many believe the Garden of Eden once was.
(The path to Paradise...)
We headed down the other path and quickly came to the ruins of Dan. Here we stopped and waited for the white buses group to join us (they had taken the Paradise path). Everyone sat or stood beneath the shadow of a large olive tree, which, Roman told us, is a tree that's nearly impossible to kill.
(Resting in the shade of an enormous olive tree.)
"You can't poison it." He explained. "You have to dig up the roots, that's the only way to be rid of it."
Still listening to his occasional observations, I walked, not too far away, around the site to see what all was there.
(Seriously whose child is this?! He was from a different tour group altogether.)
I found the ruins of a what used to be a house and walked inside:
When the other group joined us, we gathered beneath a huge oak tree that grew next to an ancient limestone staircase and all sat on the steps. I would've sat on a part of the tree itself, but I, and at the same time other people in the group, noticed ants crawling all over it, so I settled for one of the stone steps.
(Behind Ron stands the remains of the Temple of Dan. The metal structure was erected to show us how big the altar would have been and where it was placed.)
Ron was given Roman and Susan's mics and began to tell us the history of the city of Dan (also found in Judges 18):
"Tel Dan is where the Tribe of Dan, descendants of Dan, the son of Jacob, settled." He began.
"You see God was ready to give them a land that would be their inheritance forever, a good land. But the Tribe instead turned aside to the land of Laish, where we are right now, and they settled here. They also adopted the pagan idols and images of the locals and built a temple here. One of the idols they made for themselves was the image of the Golden Calf, remember that? In the story of Moses when he went up to Mount Sinai and stayed there 40 days, the Israelites got restless and asked Aaron to make them a God. So Aaron collected everyone's gold jewelry and made a Golden Calf for them to worship. That was the image that the Tribe of Dan recreated for themselves. Archaeologists actually found a couple of these Gold Calves on either side of the altar you see behind me."
Troy then stepped in to say that because of Dan's disobedience, they were left out of their inheritance mentioned in Revelation 7. If you look, you'll see all the tribes listed, except Dan.
"This year is your time to accept your inheritance," he said. "Don't be like the Tribe of Dan, take hold of what God has for you. He is giving you only the best, don't let your eye wander to the wrong places."
We all got up and headed up a path that curved around and let us get a good, last view of Dan before we moved on.
(As it turned out, those steps we were sitting on lead right up to that is described in the Old Testament as a High Place, where cultic activities and idol worship occurred.)
(With a corner of the High Place still in view off to the left, Roman pointed to the far off mountain ranges, declaring that Lebanon was just beyond them.)
As we started down the exit path, Roman would reach down now and then to pluck small samples from various plants. When asked what they were for, he simply answered, "I will give you all a demonstration soon."
He also gave us this urgent message through our Whisperers: "Please everybody stay on the path, this area was used during the Six Day War and there are still underground bunkers that haven't been filled in. If you walked off the trail you could step in the wrong place where the over-grown grass could be hiding a bunker and you could fall in and get seriously injured."
He wasn't kidding, off to left of the path, barely a couple feet away, I spotted one:
A little farther ahead, he stopped and told us to gather around, then showed us the plant samples he'd collected:
A single shaft of barley, like the kind Ruth had gleaned in Boaz's fields (Ruth 2).
Some type of wild peas, the pods were so tiny they were less than a half inch long!
Wild mustard plant (pictured below):
(Roman showed us the seed pods on the lower half of the shaft. Also, this a picture from Google, I had managed to bring back samples of each of the plants he showed us, but let's just say they didn't preserve well.)
"When Jesus told His disciples that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, He didn't mean that their faith was just too small," Roman explained. "He meant that they just weren't holding on to their faith long enough for it to grow."
As we continued down the path, Roman said that if we picked one of the little yellow mustard flowers, chewed it a little with our front teeth and spat it out, we'd have a faint mustardy aftertaste. So I decided to try it, and was not disappointed! A little while later, Haley suddenly pointed to the right of the path, at the largest dandelion we'd ever seen!
Of course, you can't just pick a dandelion fluff and not make a wish!
(Haley, your wish was on point!)
I also found a dandelion (regular sized) and made my own wish:
(Pretty sure I was still riding on those Beauty and the Beast vibes too!)
The last thing we saw at that site was Abraham's Gate, or the city gate of Dan that was around in Abraham's time. It was given this name because of the story in Genesis 14, where Abraham travels to Dan to rescue his nephew, Lot.
(A huge canopy covers the site, to protect it from the sun and weather)
(Unfortunately, the gate had been sealed by archaeologists.)
We soon got back on our bus and headed to a restaurant close to our next site for lunch. I ate a sandwich made of chicken shawarma, tomatoes and lettuce, wrapped in pita bread.
(YUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!)
No comments:
Post a Comment