Pat's Blog: Saturday January 29th

The first thing we did today was to head over into the West Bank to go to Bethlehem. We toured the church of the nativity there. It is the oldest church in the world because it was spared by Persians when they overran the Holy Lands because there was a painting of the three wise men who appeared to be Persian.

We left there and went down into the southern part of Israel to the site where the dead sea scrolls were found. It is a very arid area. We saw the Mountain where Jesus spent 40 days being tempted by the devil. Jericho where we had lunch, then headed back home.

Along the way we saw some modern day Bedouin's. Instead of tents, they now have flimsy metal buildings they set up. They are no longer nomads, and apparently their children are giving up the life style, so the Bedouin after 5000 years or so are probably going to disappear with this generation.

If you double click the pictures they will be displayed full screen