The Mount of Olives

Wednesday, August 30
Ben and I walked the fourty-five mintute hike up - more up than we at first expected - to the top of the mount of olives. The place was entirely amazing, as well as entirely not what we expected. The side of the Mount of Olives facing Jerusalem is covered with graves. Thousands of white graves fill the mountain side, which is quite a surprising sight when you're expecting a garden or field or trees or something like seclusion. From the top, however, the view was absolutely breathtaking. We could see all of Jerusalem, both the old city and the new. We ended up chillin in the church of ascension, the traditional place where Jesus ascended into heaven, reading all the passages in the Bible where the mount of olives is mentioned. I cannot begin to express the awe and beauty of realizing that the very place we were reading about in the Word of God was place we were sitting. The long, hot hike was well worth the trip.



Pictures:
"The Dung Gate" - the gate's actual name :) it leads into the hinnom valley where all the waste used to be dumped. interestingly enough, the city gates are almost all named after what the roads leading out of them go toward. so the damascus gate points to damscus and the jaffa gate, jaffa.


That's right. we can walk to the western wall anytime we'ld like. it's about a ten minute walk.



The tomb of the prophets haggai and maleachi - or so they claim.
this was a small jut off the road on the way up to the top so we stopped by. the tomb was a cave fifteen feet into the ground with absolutely no lighting and was introduced to us by a rather shady character. we decided to check it out, leaving shortly after we discovered how extensive and dark the caves were. we're going back later with a group and flashlights.



An interesting sign just outside the tomb. we're not really sure what it meant but i think it's something along the line of no guns, no smoking, no girls, and no flowers. i could be wrong.




There is a building dedicated solely to the Lord's prayer - which is where the next picture is from as well. All around they have the Lord's prayer in dozens of different languages. this one is Fijian... for my mom.



and they had a cool stone slab like the chronicles of narnia so....



This is the kidron valley. wow. the thing basically just drops off two hundred yards away from Jerusalem into a deep ravine until it climbs, litterally climbs, up the mount of olives. you have to see it to understand, but i figured i give the photo a shot anyways.




The church at the garden of Gethsemane. This sign was right outside the door. They seem pretty american to me... :)




Benjamin, my faithful companion.



Myself, dinking with camera settings. The garden of gethsemane is off to the right.

The word amazing is an acurate discription of the trip.

ps- you should be able to leave comments to me now if you'ld like. they won't be public, meaning they'll only come to me. and if you'ld like to download skype so we can chat that way i'ld love to hear from you. my id name is hiservant.