There Must be Something in the Water

From the high rises of Dubai in the Middle East, husband Doug and I continued our tour to the low lands of Jordan. I'm serious about the low part, Jordan shares a border with Israel and a stretch of that divider is the Dead Sea. This body of water exists at 1,407 feet BELOW sea level, a contrast of the lowest natural -- --from the highest man made building.

From the glitz of Dubai, we flew into the grit of Amman. I could see the patchwork of farmland as I was peeking out the airplane window. This was a surprise as I always believed this to be rocky, sandy and barren land. I was right on two of those beliefs. But agriculture is important and crops were plentiful. Fresh vegetables were piled along the road for sale. Trucks were loaded with basketball sized cabbage and cauliflower, and camels were let in to graze on fields of tomatoes because, as our knowledgeable guide informed us, there were too many to pick to make it profitable. So, the farmers rented out these gardens to camel herders. Vine-ripened tomatoes being stomped by camels was almost more than I could take.

Growing up with a background in more Sunday school than geography, I knew Jordan to be more than just a map in the back of my Bible. I often refer to Moses as the world’s first tour leader. I've led some trips that felt like forty years, but Moses did it without stops at Cracker Barrels® or senior coffees at McDonald's®. When I get to heaven I'm gonna shake his hand. So I was interested in seeing some of the places Moses trod. We stood on Mt. Nebo where Moses is said to have looked out over the Promised Land. I just want to say it didn't look too promising to me. I saw milky white rocks covering the honey colored sandy soil… that was all I saw in the milk and honey department. It was rainy that day, and as we walked back to the bus we noticed a beautiful rainbow that broke through the clouds and ended, yep, that's right, in the Promised Land. Pretty poetic.

We visited Bethany (Beit el-'Obour in Arabic) which means “the house of the crossing”. This site is recognized as the place where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Although the river Jordan's path has altered, the area is the destination of many Christians pilgrimage. Many continue on to the existing banks to follow in a baptism. What struck me at this site was this is one of the places that Jordan and Israel are divided by this narrow river. Guards were posted on each side to keep their citizens from illegal crossing into the country. The flags of each country waved as people walked into the water for immersion. The people of these two countries, divided by a simple body of water that four men could reach across.