Christmas in July!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Not really but for the Jeru Crew we got to celebrate Christmas in July this year! Now it may not have been a winter wonderland but it was definitely full of good tidings of great joy!

Bethlehem and Jerusalem

For our weekly field trip we went to Bethlehem. It went perfectly with the beginning of our New Testament class when we talked about the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke.

We first went to Herodiom, which is a palace fortress Herod built for himself. It was built on a huge hill and had a wonderful view of both Jerusalem and Bethlehem and we talked about the story of Herod and the wise men. Herod built so many huge buildings, addition to the Temple.

I have such wonderful roommates!

Behind me is an ancient bathhouse.

Inside the building were places for the guards to sleep and even a synagogue that was probably used after the first Jewish Revolt when they took over all kinds of places, like the Herodium, and added more cisterns and a synagogue.

We went to the Church of Nativity which is the oldest continually used church that was built in 325 by Saint Helena. It is the traditional site where the baby Jesus was born.

Inside one of the three different religion's church at the Church of Nativity (this one is the Greek Orthodox)

The cave found by Saint Helena was split in half, part has the cave showing for one church and the other has the famous 7 star to mark the spot. We sung Christmas songs and read in the scriptures more of the Christmas story.

Devery and Melinda sitting on the steps after singing.

Melinda and I

Inside is the 1st century cave "stable" used for storage or animals.

AJ and I!

Next we went into the Roman Catholic section of the Church of Nativity which had the seven point star marking the spot of Jesus' birth, as well as where his manger stood. These specific spots obviously are not exact or even 100% accurate but it is more meant for pilgrims to come and commemorate this glorious event of Christ's birth.

With Sarah

 We then went to my sites I wrote about. We went to the Greek Orthodox Church which is completely filled with paintings of Jesus' ministry and mission. It is fairly new, really new for churches here in Jerusalem, 1972, and it was cool to see the excavations and the old cave found built in the 4th century that has been a church since. What was cool was we were the first group in a long time to go to this church and so I was lucky to write about it and get to see it!

Egregia talked about a garden with stone walls leading to a church which is very similar to this.

Next we went to the Roman Catholic Church which also has excavations and it has 3 paintings of the shepherd's annunciation. It is built to look like a nomadic shepherd tent that they used in the 1st century and was built in 1953.

The dome has hundreds of circular windows that brings in the only light for the building to represent the heavens connecting to the earth and the angels visiting the shepherds.

Fountain outside the Church.

Mary, Devery, and I with an empty hill similar to where shepherd's would keep their sheep. It's so boring and brown while we're here in the summer but in the spring and during the time of Christ's birth, it would be green with wildflowers everywhere.

Melinda and I

 We ended our field trip at a spot many LDS pilgrims come to commemorate Luke 2 where angels visited the shepherds because it is kept like it would be and we can better get a feel of what it would have been like those 2,000 years before.

Brother Huntsman giving the devotional.

With Hailey, Lane, Rachelle, Melissa, and Natalie (with Josh in the back)

I have the greatest friends!

Rachel and I with Bethlehem behind us

I love these people so much!

I had a great time on this field trip and it was fun to have a Christmas in July. Christmas isn't supposed to be celebrated on one specific day of the year. To show our gift to Christ, we can celebrate it every day by loving and serving others, and remembering Him like we did this week in our field trip to Bethlehem. I'm really going to miss this place.