You say Jerash and I say Gerasa!

Day 13- Friday March 12 “The Decapolis”

CINDY
Jerash, Umm Qeis, Transfer to Israel at Shiekh Hussein Bridge. Overnight in Jerusalem

I woke up today feeling much better. A lil’ woozy and very weary but not much pain. I would a really bad headache here and there but it was nothing compared to all the pain I was in yesterday. I claimed my healing, prayed over myself, popped some aspirin and by the end of the day no more headache ☺

We went to Jerash today. It is Friday and there were Muslim families EVERY WHERE!! The women wait outside for their men to leave the mosque, then they gather their families, go to a park, sit under the shade of a tree, and have a big picnic complete with a BBQ. It’s sort of like our Sunday afternoons. The best part: there were kids every where.. running up and down the old roman theatre steps, climbing up hills, running through the fields, parents taking pics of their kids, and well just kids being kids. There is just something so refreshing to see kids when all I do for months is see grown ups. Lol.
Jerash (Gerasa in the Bible) This is the place our Lord healed the demoniac. Mark 5. Dr. Wilson led the devotional on this place. We sat there in the blazing sun on the theatre seats as he read from Mark 5 and retold the account of how Jesus set this man free from Legion. Dr. Wilson pointed out something I had never seen before.

15They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the "legion"; and they became frightened.
16Those who had seen it described to them how it had happened to the demon-possessed man, and all about the swine.
17And they began to implore Him to leave their region.

After Jesus sets this man free, the people did not want Jesus there?! Wait. What?! I mean this guy was a threat to society.. a shame to his family and to himself. This man was bound and now he was free.. and where he was crazy he now was sitting there completely clothed and in his right mind. He was back to normal again. Weren’t they happy to see this? It’s like you are in debt and someone comes to your house and gives you all the money and then some and completely pays it all and you turn to him and say “Get out of my house! I don’t want to see you!” I don’t understand. Why would these ppl be frightened? Why would they implore Him to leave their region? Could they not see who He was? Could they not see what He had just done… out of love?? Thoughts to ponder.

Funny moment: As we were leaving in our massive tour bus there were young guys hanging out along the sides of the street. They were waving to us so we all got us and waved back.. more b/c we were curious to see all the kids jumping through all this water spouting out of what looked like a giant water pipe. As we waved one of the guys pointed to me and kept pointing.. and my jaw dropped and I laughed and so “OMW He’s pointing!! And everyone laughed” I turned to Dr. Pannell and he said, “Nah, he’s not pointing he was saying ‘1 camel! 1 camel!’” hahahahaha!

Then we made it on our way “home” (back to Israel). We had a few problems at the border. The Jordanians didn’t want to let us cross back to Israel… and when we finally got to Israel the Israelites intensely searched all our bags since we had Jordanian stamps on our passports. Meh. But it was expected. Not a big deal. Made me feel safer. I was just happy to be back in Israel.

We were exhausted to say the least but Jackie and I were up for just one more last adventure. We stayed in Jerusalem that night and it was Shabbat so Scott and Sharon Putney wanted to go to the wailing wall. We decided to go.. We had never been around the Old City by ourselves. With a map in my hand and a few sites remembered from our tours we made it to the wailing wall in no time. We were professionals by this point. Lol. Went through the security check and found the place almost empty ☹ I think Scott was the saddest b/c he had heard the Jews have activities all night.. but by this time of night they were all in their meeting places singing and dancing and not outside. We could hear them in the distance… all the celebrations going on. So we stayed for a bit and then headed back. We decided to go a different way and we purposely got lost in the Jewish Quarters.. oooh adventure! Lol. I loved it. I think we would have kept just walking around if we weren’t completely exhausted and had to pack to leave in a few hours.



We got back. Jackie and I repacked our bags (I miss having Jackie as my roommate ☹) As I was throwing stuff out of a my suitcase a silver shiny thing caught my eye… it was stuck hanging from a black plastic bag. Gasp! It was my ring!!!! Yaaaaaay! I wanted to scream!! Yes! Woohoo! A great ending to a great trip. What was lost was now found!