Our last day in Jordan

What I didn't know before was the significance of Jordan in Jewish history. There were three kingdoms that the Israelites encountered repeatedly: the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites. Petra was actually the abandoned kingdom of the Edomites ("Edom" means "red," and Petra is the "Red City"), the Ammonite kingdom now is the city of Amman, where we were staying the last two nights, and Moab is now "Madaba," which is the city where Rami now lives.

Today we took a tour of Amman and Madaba. Amman was actually named Philadelphia while under Roman control (the original city of brotherly love), and is very diverse as it has very small, poor houses, all the way to huge, multi-million dollar mansions. All the embassies are in Amman, as Amman is the capital of Jordan.

In Amman, there are still remnants of the Philadelphia amphitheater that seated 6000. It is actually still used today, although the smaller amphitheater next to it that only seats 500 is no longer in use.

Rami explained to us that about 43% of the Jordanian population consists of Palestinian refugees, mostly because Jordan gives refugees the same rights it gives its citizens: the right to vote, work, hold office, etc. In fact, in Jordan, women are given equal rights as men. Also, education is very important to the Jordanians. One third of the population are currently students! What I didn't realize is that Jordanians have little choice about their careers. Like much of Asia, at the ages of 17-18, they study hard for tests that then place them in their career track. Apparently that's why Rami fudged the answer a little when I asked him why he chose to study languages in school; he really did not have a choice in the matter. Another bit of trivia is that 60% of the population is under the age of 30. I asked Rami what happened to all the old people. He replied "nothing. They just keep having children!"

We then moved onto Madaba. Madaba is a much smaller city of 150,000 people. However, it is 80% Christian, a very different demographic than the rest of Muslim Jordan. We visited a tiny little Greek Orthodox church that houses the first map of the Holy Land laid out in mosaic tiles. First, Rami gives us a tutorial on how to read the map and a little Old Testament history of the land. 

Then we were able to look at the real thing:

The same church contains one of the "certified" miracles where a third, blue hand mysteriously appeared in the picture of the Virgin Mary and Child.

As mosaics is what Madaba is known for, we stopped briefly at a Mosaic school. 

As you can see, the women are hard at work doing the intricate work of cutting and gluing tiny little rocks to form elaborate pieces of art. It was here that I finally did a little souvenir shopping, buying little Dead Sea products for some friends as well as Mosaic coasters for my new apartment.

We then went to see Mount Nebo where Moses died. We climbed to the same exact spot where God showed Moses the promised land in Deuteronomy 34. It was quite amazing to see it as exactly described in the Bible. Mount Nebo is located on the plains of Moab (Madaba), overlooking the Jordan River and the City of Jericho just beyond. I stood in that spot and quieted myself, going over the promises that I personally have received from God. It's amazing how we as humans can have such little faith. In America, there is so little belief in God and what actually happened. It is an amazing experience to be in a land where people take Biblical stories to heart and believe it to have happened as it is written on their land. Talk about a renewal of faith!

Mount Nebo concluded our time in Jordan. We said our goodbyes to Rami and drove to the border where we spent 3 1/2 hours getting through customs. I'm actually VERY frustrated with the process. They almost didn't let me through because I didn't have my plane tickets out of Israel on me, and when they finally let me through, THEY STAMPED MY PASSPORT! I don't know if I mentioned this yet, but since my passport doesn't expire for another 5 years and I don't know for sure I won't visit countries such as Syria and Lebanon, all my stamps have been on a passport insert to ensure that I can still enter countries that don't recognize an Israeli stamp. After all that work, and sacrificing having stamps in my actual passport, the custom lady (who looked about 16 years old I might add) stamped RIGHT on my passport, and then tore up my passport insert with all the previous Israeli stamps with no shame. I'm a pretty good traveler as that is the one area in my life that I'm usually really laid-back in, but this is the first instance during my Israel trip that I got certifiably pissed off. BUT, we needed to make it back to Jerusalem without me being thrown in jail for yelling at customs, so I zipped my lips and continued on forward.