Valentine's Day, God's Way

When? Febuary 14, 2007
The place? Shiloh
Who? IBEX Spring 07
A Valentine's Day I will not soon forget!

This past Wednesday we boarded our bus at 7:00am (I KNOW!!!) and headed for the Mt. of Olives, just one stop on our day of seeing routes which approach Jerusalem.

The Mount was breath-taking as always, and full of history. We walked the streets Jesus would have taken when he came from Bethany to Jerusalem for Passover, the very streets where Jesus mounted a donkey and triumphantly rode into the city while poeple chanted Hosanna. We stood on a lookout and read about David fleeing from his rebellious son Absalom barefoot and weeping over the Mount of Olives. We went to the spot were Jesus wept over a city who did not recognize thier savior had come, a city who today continues to look in vain for the one who will save them. And finally we spoke about how the final approach to Jerusalem will be when the Lord returns and spilts the Mount in two from East to West.

Bethlehem was our next stop, which is only about 25 minuets outside of Jerusalem but takes longer to get into due to it being under Palestinian control. A huge stone wall surrounds the city and all traffic must stop at a check point before entering or exiting. The wall had graffi all over it with sayings like, "Mr. President tear down this wall," and "To exist is to resist". This was the coolest thing about Bethlehem.

I dont really know what to say about Bethlehem, except its the last place on earth I would ever want to have a child, and perhaps thats the way it was when Jesus was born. Its dirty, busy, polluted, cramped, and smells bad. I never want to go back......ever! I just want to keep the nice picture of sleepy little Bethlehem I have tucked away in my mind and not think about what it is today.

Next we went to Solomon's Pools.......they were pretty cool, but I dont have alot to say about them, except that as we were leaving these nasty little Arab children were screaming at us.

Now to my favorite part of the day......Shiloh! Can anyone tell me what happened at Shiloh? Shiloh is where Hannah offers her prayer to the Lord and where she later gives birth to Samuel, but it gets better. Shiloh is also where the Tabernacle stood for 300 years, but wait theres more. Shiloh, most importantly is where the most romantic Valentines Day story happened, which was approaite since we were there on Valentines day.

Shiloh is where the Benjaminites "pick up" their extra wives, since they were not allowed to get wives from Mizpah. So knowing that there was an anual festival in Shiloh were the girls all came out and danced they were instructed to hide in the vineyards and watch, and then rush the women each man taking a wife for himself and carrying her back to Benjamin.

So in the spirit of being at the actual site where this happened, and because it was Valentines Day, and it a truly romantic story, we re-enacted it. All the girls joined hands in a big circle and pranced around (after being told by Todd that our techno rave dance stlye was not bibical) and waited for the boys to come charging. I have to say it was a little scary when a pack of guys are running at you screaming. Only a few, studly men carried some of the girls away, but it was still good for a few laughs.

And the lesson from all this........who needs Master's when you have Shiloh!!