Day 3 in the afternoon near the Dead Sea

After Masada we headed to Jordan river and the traditional site of Jesus Baptism. The river is very low as there have been few rains this year so instead of getting all the way in the river a number of our folks got in the river with me up to our knees and reaffirmed our baptisms. Below is a picture of us as a group, as well as a picture of the site with a church located on the Jordan side of the river and the time of renewal for Kenny Schramko, one of our members who almost died 6 months ago from a brain aneurism and has made a mirculous recovery. As part of our time here we read the scripture together of Jesus baptism and recounted the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus like a dove in this place.

Our lunch was spent in Jericho, the oldest city in the world. There we could see an old sycamore tree planted to remember Zacheus who was invited to come down from his tree by Jesus so they could eat together.

After lunch we spent time at the ruins in Qumram where John the Baptist may have spent time as part of the Essenes. The monastic community spent time away from people to be closer to God. They would enter the Miqvah, a ritualistic bath, several times a day to make themselves ritually clean before God. This community also was the place where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in 1947. A young boy tossed a rock into a cave and heard a crack. He found several scrolls and actually took themm to a cobbler to make shoes out of them as scrolls were scribed on leather in the first century. Luckily, the cobbler recognized some of the writings and instead made the young man some shoes from other leather! They found every book of the bible in this collection of scrolls except for Esther as that book does not menntion God. Below you can see a Miqvah and some of the rooms at Qumram, while a picture of some of the caves is on the cover of the blog. 

Our final stop of the day was at the Dead Sea where we were able to float a bit. The Dead Sea has shrunk quite a bit the last 10 years and several nations are workiniing together to save it. The mud from the sea can be spead on your skin, allowed too dry and then washed off too add 10 years to your life, well, not really! We tried it anyway :) You do have to be careful not to get your head in the water but floating is not a problem as you can see.