At the Dead Sea

Aqaba to Dead Sea, Israel

Happy Sabbath – and Happy 4^th of July! By the time it gets this dark in the USA, the fireworks will be lighting the hearts of all who treasure our American freedoms. What a great privilege it is to live under a constitution that has made our country unique for over 232 years.

Tonight we are in the Tulip Inn, 150’ above the Dead Sea. We watched the sun linger on the high, desert bluffs above us, and on the mountains of Jordan that we visited a week ago. Then we joined all the families in the dinning room, many of whom were welcoming the Sabbath with special ceremonies.

As we ate a few more slices of fresh watermelon, Vonnie commented that at least we had watermelon on the 4^th of July!

Our trip was blessed of God. Between sewing Vonnie’s hat back together, or trying (and failing) to repair the telescoping handle on my suitcase, we didn’t leave Aqaba until noon.

All the room cleaners in Jordan are male, and you’ll notice the young Egyptian who surprised us with towels folded up into swans and a heart after we came back from breakfast.

Our taxi driver took us to the border where we paid our exit tax, and then walked ourselves and our luggage across what felt like “no-man’s-land” to the Israeli border checks.

I should mention that our driver, upon discovering we were Americans, gave it his best shot at influencing our vote in the upcoming USA elections. His was a parting political comment echoing many in Jordan, saying the common people of all countries, including Israel, Palestine, Egypt and America could be friends, sit down and drink tea together. It’s just the kings of those countries that want to make war. (So very interesting to see how our nation’s leaders influence even the common people.)

When our passports were about to be stamped with an Israeli visa (free in Israel), I remembered to ask for a visa on a separate piece of paper. This way the doors remain open for us to visit Islamic nations in the future (?) whereas the Israeli visa in the passport guarantees hassles or rejection. Pastor David Cox, teaching in Amman from Union headquarters in Beirut, made it clear how hard it had been for him to do his work in Muslim countries with Israeli visas in his passport from years before.

When we finished processing at Israeli Customs, a new taxi driver took us first to a bank ATM for Israeli shekels, and then to the bus station. He told us he was afraid we wouldn’t be able to go to the Dead Sea by bus because it was the Preparation for the Sabbath and buses don’t run in the afternoon. It was almost 2:00 pm. By God’s grace we were on time! Barely! But we were able to jump on the last bus nevertheless. The bus was full, and most were headed to Jerusalem, but we got off by the hotels at the Dead Sea after a couple of hours going through the desert.

I must let Vonnie describe the driver who offered to take us to our hotel, only to be verbally confronted by the Israelis who recognized he was gouging us good. His response to them was classic!

Vonnie now:

Ole has turned this over to me to tell you a story that still has us chuckling. We had been riding the bus for several hours through the barren desert of the Negev when we came to the Dead Sea. Quite a little resort town has sprung up here by the water with Palm trees decorating the rows of hotels. We jumped off the bus, Ole pulled our luggage out of its belly, and it roared off.

Before we could blink, a taxi van drove up and its driver asked where we were going. “How much would it cost for you to drive us to the Tulip Inn?” Ole asked. “Thirty shekels,” the driver answered and started scooping up our luggage and throwing it into his taxi.

A beautiful young lady who was waiting at the bus stop stepped forward and asked, “Did he say ‘thirty shekels’?!” “I think so,” I answered. “How much should it be?” “Well, it’s only five minutes from here. I would think only five shekels!” she said loudly. And then all the people at the bus stop chimed in agreeing with her, expressing disgust that the taxi driver would cheat us so brazenly.

In between loads of luggage, the driver would hiss at them to be quiet and mind their own business, but they kept remonstrating with him to be fair with us. Suddenly the driver finished loading luggage and darted at the young girl saying, “Shut your mouth!” and then, with both hands motioning like jabbering mouths, he wove through the crowd, fingers in their faces, chanting, “Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip………..” until he had driven the young girl back to a seat on a bench and forced the others into silence. He pushed us into the taxi, leaped into the driver’s seat still yipping, and zoomed off. I noticed the people at the bus station were kind of grinning, so I guessed they weren’t too traumatized.

Finally, he was able to compose himself, catch his breath and explain, “Jewish people! Always have to talk, talk, talk, about how you should drive for free! Five shekels!!!! Let them do it for five shekels!! If you want to buy something from a Jewish person, the price will be high, but they want to buy from you for nothing!! They bring fifty people on a tour bus and want you to carry all their bags for free!!!!! For free!!!!! I say I will drive you. I will carry your bags, but if you don’t want to pay, carry them yourselves!!!!! “ And on and on he went, still fuming when he got to our hotel (truly only three minutes away.)

He grabbed our bags and had them all in the lobby before we could breathe twice. Suddenly, he was sweet as pie. If we should need a taxi to take us to Bethlehem, to Jerusalem, to Masada, etc., etc., …. here was his card. I asked him where he was from, and he said, “I am Bedouin. This is my land, my home.” He took our thirty shekels and drove off, and that was our introduction to Israel.

******

Well, Vonnie had to wake me up to finish this J. But it reminds me how impossible it would be to do this kind of log if we waited until the end of our three months. It’s hard enough day by day to put down a few vignettes!

Again, Shabbat Shalom, and Happy Independence Day.

PS Internet problems at the Tulip Inn must wait until Shabbat is over to be repaired. If you see this before Sunday, it is because we found an internet café or some such. I’ll also take this opportunity to mention the night photo, again from our balcony. It was the clearest we have witnessed the Dead Sea area, and one can easily see the Jordanian lights on the far shore. If you enlarge the photo, you can also see the dim lights up in the Jordanian mountains. We don’t know which city this might be, but we may well have been there a few days ago. Perhaps it is Madaba, near Mt. Nebo, and we were there.

Vonnie and I had a wonderful worship service this morning in our room after breakfast. Isaiah 58 was our source text. In the paraphrase we used this morning, Peterson wrote in one spot, “Quit blaming the victims”. Now there’s a challenging command, especially in the context of the everlasting Arab/Israeli conflict, but also in our day to day lives.