Wandering in the Desert

There is most certainly a God in heaven, and He rained down blessings on us today – literally.  We woke up to rain in Jerusalem!  Quite unusual for the locals, but just the ticket for us, if you ask me.  It cooled things off considerably and today it only reached 90 degrees.

We were out of our cushy hotel pretty early this morning to get a jump on the desert scene.  Because it’s the Sabbath, most tourists head out to Masada and the Dead Sea since nearly everything is closed in the city.  We were among the hoards today, but it really didn’t present a problem for us.  Perhaps our guide was peeved at the other guides that yelled to their people while standing right next to us at Masada, or our bus driver got peeved by tight parking places and so many buses, but this is where ignorance was bliss and we just went about our merry way as if this is how life is in the desert. 

Our first stop was actually the Ahava factory next to the Dead Sea where they make truly the world’s best lotions from the rich minerals found right next door.  I bought some hand lotion 15 years ago and gave it to some friends as a gift and they still talk about it and I still remember it, that’s how incredible it is.  I bought 12 tubes of it today and they threw in an extra one for free.  Oh, happy day.

JJust a little south from that stop is the historical sight of Masada – a place were 1,300 years ago (or so, as I can’t remember all the details), a group of Jews were escaping obliteration by the Romans, and hid up on the top of a plateau in the middle of the desert.  King Herod once had a mansion there, so it was well stocked with dried foods and water cisterns and this group of Jewish families kept the Romans at bay by pulling up the ladders that are required to access it and pelting them with stones when they tried to come up.  Unfortunately, the Romans were a determined lot, and built forts all around the base of that mesa, full of 10,000 soldiers, who started building a ramped road up to the top.  When they completed the road and it was a sure bet they were going to break through the fortified walls, all the Jews killed one another so they wouldn’t be taken into slavery.  It’s not a place mentioned in the Bible, but it sure is an important sight in Jewish history.  Kaleb was a bit bored with it, but otherwise the rest of us were rather intrigued by the tour.  We all took the gondola to the top where Kory bragged that 40 years ago he ran up that hill in 24 minutes.  The record now is 18, but most take 45 minutes if they walk it.

The Dead Sea was calling our names after we were all dripping in sweat from the high desert.  Actually, the breeze up on top of that plateau was rather refreshing, so it wasn’t as miserable as I was expecting it to be.  But the Dead Sea water, even salty and slimy as it is, was a welcoming experience.  Halvor pointed out the land of the Moabites right across from where we were, where Ruth came from.  It’s just weird to think about these Biblical places as being so close and so real.  That Halvor, he knows every inch of this land and who lived there from what year to what year.  How he keeps all those dates straight in his head is a modern wonder.  Of course, if he were wrong, none of us would know, but it’s still impressive.

The level of the Dead Sea has dropped significantly since I was here last, and unbelievably since Kory was here 40 years ago.  It’s of national concern, since all the water from the Jordan River is being syphoned off for agriculture.  But the minerals are still there so we weren’t disappointed with our dip into the Sea.  Kaleb thought it was just a hoot that he could sit down, as if in a chair, and stay there.  It took a little balancing to lie back and get his feet out of the water.  If he lost his balance, he’d risk getting his face wet, which is quite dangerous since the salt content is so high, eyes sting and noses burn something terrible.  He was careful to wear sunglasses to protect from any splashing.  We all got in and it was so nice!  There was a hot spring mud bath there too so many just rolled around in the mud like pigs.  I covered my arms and legs and face with it and let it dry as long as possible so now my skin is soft as a baby’s butt.  It’s easy to see why so many beauty products are made in this area.

Kaleb was sorely disappointed we stayed just over an hour at the Sea.  “What could be better than this?” he kept asking.  Whatever was ahead of us was lost to him because he’s decided he needs perhaps three days of just floating on the Sea before he’s had enough.  Too funny.  It will be yet another day he will never forget.

Not far from the beach we were at, was the entrance to Qumran, a place recently built to display the cave where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1940s.  They have now excavated the sight of an Essene village right there, also.  John the Baptist was thought to have come from that sect – it was basically a writer’s colony as they just wrote day and night – their own stuff as well as copying scripture.  For whatever reason, probably the threat of invaders, they stuck some of their writings in clay pots and hid them in nearby caves.  A shepherd boy was out looking for his lost goat two thousand years later and he tossed some rocks inside a caves (the hills here are literally covered with caves).  When he heard the rock make a funny clinking sound, he went and checked it out and discovered the ancient scrolls.  Once they were determined to be authentic, the other caves were searched. That’s where they found the one cave with the complete text of Isaiah in it, which silenced all skeptics that say the Bible has changed over the years.  It was word for word the way it is today, so it too, is an important historical find in this Holy Land of Israel.  Hallelujah!

We journeyed back into Jerusalem after our stop at Qumran.  We passed many Bedouin camps that are nothing more than sheets of metal leaning against thin wooden frames, and that’s their home.  They tend the sheep and goats for a meager existence.  Kaleb saw three goats all standing on top of each other, reaching the leaves toward the top of the tree.  Talk about desperate!

We checked into a new hotel tonight and had just enough time to clean off the sweat and grime from the day before we all had dinner together.  After dinner the rest of the group went out to find a sports bar to watch some big soccer match tonight between the two top teams in Europe.  Kory and Kaleb opted for playing chess on an I-pad in our room while I posted my blog and tried to load some photos.  We all have our priorities.  The lobby of the hotel was completely packed all night with many Jewish and Catholic groups doing their own thing – singing hymns and chants and gathering together or coming and going.  It almost felt like a scene out of the Star Wars bar, with all kinds of attire and  headdresses, but not quite.  It was crazy busy though.

As we were driving through this desert region today, Halvor began to tell us how the 23 Psalm really reads in Hebrew.  It’s much easier to understand its significance when we are tootling around in the place it was actually written.  What the English translation calls “green pastures” really means “rare patches of grass” which are anything but green in this land, but they are indeed, rare, so the sheep would certainly appreciate them.   The “valley” of the shadow of death is really a “ravine,” which there are plenty of around here and they could all mean death with the loose surface gravel and with wild animals once roaming this place.  And the image of “still waters” takes on real significance when most of the time when water is present in the desert, it’s raging and causes flooding, since it’s an all or nothing kind of deal.  In fact, Halvor told us that some of the seeds that have been found in the desert will actually sprout in a matter of minutes if put in one’s mouth, and they will nearly come to bloom shortly thereafter because they are so desperate for water and conditioned to having such a short reproduction window.

Kaleb also queried Halvor again today on some of the other phrases he says when he prays in tongues.  Kaleb is now certain that he is speaking Hebrew when he prays.  One of the phrases he says means “to do something” and another means “educated” or “smart person.” He was pretty proud of that one, but I reminded him, he’s not praying to himself when he prays, he’s praying to God.

Halvor has a special ministry here in Jerusalem for those who want to learn Hebrew so they can translate the Bible into their own language.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Kaleb becomes one of his students one day, as he’s very smitten with this whole language thing. 

I think this has been the best family vacation we’ve had to date.  It’s certainly been meaningful, spiritually, but also just incredible on every level imaginable.  And there’s more yet to come!  Hallelujah!

Our group overlooking Jericho.

Angels to the Rescue

We were up earlier than usual this morning in order to have time to eat a bit before Berit drove us an hour to the airport. It was a little sad to be leaving, but Kaleb was getting restless as he’d had no interaction with kids all week. The drive to the airport passed by several salt works places as this part of Spain has a long history in that industry. We also passed by an area that is as famous around here as the Skagit Flats are in the Northwest for bird migration. We saw thousands and thousands of flamingos and other shore birds just hanging out by the marsh's edge, doing what shore birds do. People come from all over Europe to see them, as it’s a spectacular sight.




We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to do a little tax-free shopping, so we took advantage of the wine prices and loaded up our backpacks with the legal limit (3 bottles each). The wine we bought was only about four euros (around five dollars at today’s exchange rate), but in Norway, the cheapest wine possible to buy (and it tastes pretty cheap, too), is around 25 dollars a bottle. Six bottles won’t get us through the next three weeks as we have several dinner parties planned, but it helps.



The flight back to Norway was smooth and uneventful, just like one would hope a trip thirty thousand feet in the air would be. We arrived smack dab on time at three in the afternoon and even then we knew we were pushing it to get home by midnight. I figured the drive home would take longer than the drive to the airport on Monday, but I had no idea just how much longer it could be. There was much road construction, lots of camping vehicles, no place to pass, and even a huge accident that delayed us nearly an hour. I was starting to worry about driving so late, being so tired, and dealing with the last few hours to Aalesund being the most dangerous, but I trusted God for safe travels.



When we stopped to eat a quick dinner at a grocery store cafeteria, I was a bit stressed about how long it was taking Kaleb to finish his dinner, as I was in a hurry to get home. Kory had already driven two hours and was nearly sleeping at the wheel, so the plan was that he would sleep after dinner and I’d drive for about three hours, then he’d take the last two. Well, my three hours turned into five because of all the aforementioned delays. God surely heard the cries of my heart, and then my phone rang.



One of Kory’s relatives heard we were taking that long drive from Oslo to Aalesund in one stretch, and they thought it sounded a bit too dangerous. They just happened to be spending the weekend at their cabin in the mountains about two and a half hours east of Aalesund. They called and invited us to stop over for the night and have a good sleep, before we finished the journey home. Both Kory and I shouted a loud HALLELUJAH in the car, as it was more than a perfect solution to our dilemma. Hotels around these parts are few and far between, and at three hundred dollars a night, not really an option for us anyway. We were elated and so thankful for the invitation. Kaleb put up a little resistance as he was still thinking we’d get home at midnight and that wasn’t too late to go to a friend’s house. He finally understood the gravity of driving late when we were so tired, and he relented. I began to prepare him for life in a cabin, and I told him we might have to use an outhouse, but I was pretty sure they had electricity. I had no idea what was in store.



Walking into their “cabin” was like walking into a Norwegian travel brochure with all the classic knotty pine walls, floors, ceilings, decorations and feeling (see photo of just the kitchen). It was like heaven. Really, it was another blessing beyond our ability to accept it. The place sleeps 15. We asked them how they even knew we were on this trip, and they said their son, Bjorn (our old neighbor, Kory’s second cousin, and step-father to Tobias), told them. We stopped by his place last Sunday to check on the condition of the volcano in Iceland (he’s a pilot and has access to all kinds of websites) and he showed us on Google earth the cheapest place to park our car near the airport in Oslo. In talking to his mom yesterday he told her our travel plans and she decided it wasn’t too smart to make such a long drive after such a long flight. Lucky for us, she knew better. And this is why I love Norway so much – it’s not just the beautiful scenery and high standard of living – it’s the whole “it takes a village” mentality where everyone watches out for everyone else. People REALLY care about other people.



Once we arrived at the cabin, an entire “kveld’s mat” (night food) meal was waiting for us, along with a bottle of very good red wine. We slept well.

Play Day

We had an easy day in class today – we got to watch a movie! I guess everyone that comes to live in Norway MUST see one of Norway’s most famous productions at some point in their life. Henrik Ibsen is as well known of a playwright in Norway as Shakespeare is in England. Ibsen wrote a play in 1879 that was the most “obscene” and controversial of any play known to man, up to that time in history, anyway. It was a play called “A Doll House,” and it is considered the first real feminist production, ever. It was such a clever plot, but quite scandalous in those days. The basic story line is that a woman named Nora is married to a well-to-do man who treats her like a play thing – not acknowledging at all that she has a brain in her head. When he gets sick and can’t work and their social standing is threatened, Nora secretly takes out a loan to pay the bills to help out her husband. Nora’s husband was totally against borrowing money, and it was illegal in those days for a woman to take out a loan, so she had her father do it, or so she told the guy who loaned her the money. The problem was, her father was on his death bed and couldn’t sign the loan papers so she forged his signature. She then told her husband she had inherited that money from her father who had died. Nora secretly took side jobs to earn enough money to pay the loan back and her husband was none the wiser. Her husband got well and eventually found out about the loan and the forgery and was so incensed that his wife would bring such shame to the family by doing something so illegal (obviously missing the point that his wife did what she needed to do only for HIM and that she was capable enough to earn the money to pay it back), that he slapped her, told her she was unfit to raise their children and threatened to throw her out. When he received the forged loan papers back from the man who had loaned the money, he thought his troubles were over because no one else would find out about it and his name would be spared the shame of potentially having a felon for a wife. But in the process, he completely lost his wife’s respect. She had never seen just how selfish he could be and she was very hurt he never acknowledged what she had done for him, so she up and left him. (In 1879 in Germany the actors wouldn’t even play the parts unless the ending was rewritten because it was NEVER an option for a woman to leave a man.) Before Nora left, her husband tried to convince her to stay by saying, “First and foremost you are a housewife and mother,” to which she responded, “First and foremost, I am a person!” I couldn’t help but shout AMEN at that point as he was such a jerk. I guess it’s no surprise now, after seeing that film (play), that Norway is considered the most feminist country in the world. They had men thinking about women’s equality long before it was politically correct to do so. Woo hoo.

Kory did his share for equality today and made soup for dinner. I’m thankful he told me his plans first so I could tell him that no, you can’t just dump yesterday’s leftover salad into some chicken broth and call it vegetable soup. He still doesn’t understand why not, but then, he’s a guy who once sautéed cucumbers and added them to scrambled eggs for breakfast. At least he tries, and for the most part, gets it right, but every once in a while I have to wonder what in the world he is thinking.

Kaleb’s fourth grade class was invited to school late this afternoon to sing for the incoming first graders. All the new students showed up with their parents for an orientation. The school band was playing outside and the 4th graders were singing inside. It’s so cute to hear Kaleb singing in Norwegian. And I must say, there has to be more twins born in this area of Norway than any other place on earth. There are three sets of identical twin boys entering first grade, out of a class of 78. Kaleb’s 4th grade class has 90 students and there are three sets of identical twins and two sets of paternal twins just in that grade alone. I see twins everyday around here. I checked the national statistics for America and it seems the average is 30 sets of twins for every 1000 births. I’m sure this area of Norway is ten times that average. It must be something in the water. Good thing, as Kaleb says, I’m “out of eggs.” Scary stuff.

We had our Connect group with Agape church tonight (as we often do but I fail to mention it). Tonight was special because we met at our neighbor’s newly re-modeled and decorated house. It was like stepping into the pages of a magazine. That woman is quite the interior designer/decorator so I felt elegant just walking home from her house. I can’t believe the artistic abilities some people have. We all have our gifting. I just wish mine involved something other than sitting on my butt all day staring at a computer screen. If the words aren’t coming out of my mouth, they are flying off my fingertips. Maybe my wish should be that I just didn’t have so many words…. (Kory would wish that, too, I think.)