Eid Day 6: Back to Where it All Began

Israel is not a good place for me, or rather, not a good place for my bank account! I kept making spontaneous decisions!! I decided to stay a couple extra days in Israel because the girl I was going to couch surf with lost her job and moved out of her apartment, and I never heard back, so..... Anywho, there happened to be a day tour to Bethlehem on Wednesday, so I changed my flight plans and stayed in Jerusalem one day and then will spend my last in Tel Aviv.

Our tour guide was a Palestinian Christian and one of the sweetest guys I've ever met! He spoke to me almost exclusively in Arabic, which was fun, but I only really understood him about 40% of the time.  That's ok...I at least knew the topic since he was explaining Luke 2 to us. The owner of the shop we went in gave me a better price and some free Palestine gifts, too, because I spoke Arabic with him.  Our conversation did actually make sense to me the whole time lol.

Our tour guide in the caves

The first place we went in Bethlehem was the fields where the shepherds lived and worked.  The coolest part about this place was that for the most part nothing has changed.  There are still caves, still olive trees, and still rocks and hills as there were in Bible times. We went into one of the caves and saw just how a. small the places were where the shepherds lived and b. how protected they and their flocks were from danger.

We headed to the Church of the Nativity next where a group of Koreans and Spaniards were singing O Holy Night and Silent Night. I joined in, realizing how much I'm going to miss singing Christmas hymns in church this year.  Even though it was 80* outside and October, it was nice to get to sing with fellow Christians. :)

Nativity scene in the church in the Field of the Shepherds

We headed up to where the shepherds saw the star and where the manger was.  Both are now in churches, just like Golgotha, but what surprised me is that the manger was in a cave! All this time I thought the stable was a barn, but the stable would have been in a large cave back then.  I also learned that the Persians spared the church where the star was seen when they came conquering because they saw pictures on the wall of the Magi carrying their gifts and thought they were Persians.

On the way out of Bethlehem, we stopped to see the wall of political graffiti on the borders of Palestine.  Some of the stories told on those panels were devastating, yet the art was so beautiful.  I obviously didn't experience any of the violence or occupation or fighting or whatever you choose to call it for myself, but I got to see people's feelings displayed in their paintings on the wall.  Just 100 yards of art told two generations worth of stories.