The Special Find

The next day was one of the best days of the trip and a real good surprise. We participated in an archaeological dig in a system of caves. The thought is that the people of the caves left in a hurry and buried all of their stuff in the caves 2000 years ago so that the stuff could not be plundered by their invaders.

I thought this would be a bust but it was great. I imagined some sun beating down on us in the middle of a dirt field thing with us finding nothing but toil and sweat experience. I was wrong. We were given a pick and a trowel to chop up the dirt and sift through it. Everyone found something...which is cool to think of because it would have been the first time these things were touched in two millennia. Tiff started by finding a big animal tooth. Pottery was found and a big wine jug handle. But the big find of the day was a metal toga pin. Found by...me. The archaeological highlight of my life. I dug up this thing that was bent and metallic and green. I thought it was junk but the guide saw it and got real excited. He called it a "special find." I'm glad I could assist the cause of historical interpretation. We could have kept digging for hours but we only dug for like 30 minutes. I loved watching Tiffany here. She was so excited and in her element and wanted to take pictures of our finds. She seemed proud when I found the pin. It was an adventure we will remember forever. After the dig we saw an amazing winepress at the site. The rest of the group continued to climb through the cave system which i was warned I would get stuck in. I saw pictures...I would have. We ended the day with a briefing about what happens to the stuff we found. We were given some shards of pottery as a souvenir and we went on our way. Following this we drove to the Elah Valley the site of David's battle with Goliath. You can see the dried up brook that David would have pulled the smooth stones from to take Goliath out. This valley was between the two hills that the Philistines and Israelites would have descended down to fight the battle. The striking thing of this site was that the battleground would be pretty small. Which means that Goliath would have stuck out like a sore thumb here.

Wechsler gave a devotional about what made David a man after God's heart from 1 Samuel 16-17:
1. He hated the things God hated
2. He relied on God
3. Everything he did was motivated by God's glory 17:46

We ended the day at Sabbath at the Western Wall. On Sabbath the city absolutely shuts down. The grocery store closed for like 36 hours. The nice thing was that the hotel served a deluxe meal on the Sabbath with beef carving stations.