Touching the Jordan River

A number great day in class although I'm beginning to get a little tired and I think the students are too! I finished Isaiah today and tomorrow is Micah. For lunch, which we normally have here at the school, we had lamb stew over rice with a drink of Pepsi. The drink is always the same, the rice is always the same but the meat and vegetables can vary. It's always good.
After lunch I took Steven down to the Baptismal Site on the Jordan River. This is the site that early Christian churches commemorate as the place where John baptized Jesus. (Nearby is a hill which commemorates the translation of Elijah to heaven in a chariot of fire.) Today of course the river is perhaps only 5 % of what it used to be when all the water from Mt. Hermon came through the Sea of Galilee and down to here. In additional there used to be major rivers like the Yarmuk and Jabbok and the springs of Jericho whose waters flowed down to here. Now all this water is used for drinking and irrigation. So the "mighty Jordan" is no longer what it once was where Joshua had to cross it during flood stage. Nevertheless to reach down and touch the river, to see some "thickets" along the river like are spoken of in the Scriptures is still a memorable experience. I know you're thinking that the river doesn't look to clear, neither did Naaman the Syrian but he still choose to dip himself in it (2 Kings 5) to be cleansed. I would have gone in except for a few reasons: I don't have leprosy, I've already been baptized, the Jordanian guard was watching, the trees on the other side belong to Israel and so I didn't want to be shot! Other than that I would have gone in.
The approximately 20 miles back up to Amman is almost 16 miles climbing up to sea level (the Dead Sea is over 1300 feet below sea level) and then up to 2,500 feet above sea level until you reach the Medeba Plateau and the road to the ancient Roman Decapolis City of Amman.
I mentioned on Sunday's post I would get a picture of me preaching and Hany translating so here it is!