Petra!

Ha wow I can’t believe I didn’t flip out not writing down all of these crazy adventures. So day two of Amman we hit Petra. But before Petra we went out for a bite to eat and on our way to find some food we ran into this elderly man, Mustafa. Mustafa was a poor man that had not seen his family in 11 years. His two sons live in Palestine and they will not let him in through the border. His story just killed me and not until our time in Jerusalem will I completely understand his pain. But as he asked us for money for food we asked him to join us for lunch. He did and we got to love on him more and just talk with him, slip an extra falafel in his jacket as well as a track. It was a hard but moving start to our day and it totally just set this trend for our day of divine appointments with those that were in need. After our time with Mustafa it was Petra. I honestly had not heard much of Petra but the good ol fact that Indiana Jones was filmed there. So we got in the car with our driver (the owner who had his birthday the prior day). I knew sort of what it looked like but nothing beyond that. When we got there it blew my mind. I couldn’t stop taking pictures. I just took and took and took. I’m sure once I look through all of my images I will be overwhelmed with pictures of rocks but the history of this place, the age of the carvings and the patience it took - woah. We just walarked through the cannals and walls that towered over us and Robert and I were talking about wanting to hook up with this guy he met last year. He was telling me that he worked at this tea shop just a few 100 yards ahead and as soon as he said that he looked up and there he was atop a camel. He needed to do some more work and than was wanting us to sit and have tea with him. So we went down to see more of Petra and we all shoved our bags full of toys and clothes to bless the little kids and shop owners as we walked through. We decided instead of them selling us stuff we would give them toys and clothes. On our last leg we went up to the top of this rock/carving and on the way up we stopped to talk to a woman who sat in her booth. We just talked with her and made friends and as our friendship became more comfortable we asked what this book said. We told her it’s in Arabic so we can’t understand it, she grabbed it…. Read a few pages and told us it is the story of Jesus. We said well we couldn’t read it because it’s in Arabic would you like it? She kept it! It was pretty cool and she also gave us all a free magnet from her stand. I know it doesn’t seem like much but it was so cool to see God work in her so fast. She was pretty ridged at first and after talking with her, blessing her with clothes, giving her a track, and just loving on her. She blessed us with what she had. On our way up we also started to make friends with a little girl. We gave her a purse and Robert took out some bubbles and coloring crayons and colored with her. She was so adorable ☺ While this was all going on Viktor was hanging out with this boy that had a donkey. It was pretty cool to see their connection and how much fun they were having together. The boy really wanted Viktor to ride his donkey on the way down… but Viktor was honestly petrified to do it. But with some coxing he finally jumped on. And again with just seeing how with love and friendship this boy was so blessed. And the way he could bless Viktor back was to use what he had. I was just honestly loving the interaction with the locals we had and I didn’t want it to stop and well it didn’t. We than met up with Roberts friend for some tea. We sat in a tea shop in Petra and just hung out. I also didn’t know people still live down there. He really wanted us to go hang out in his cave but we were on a time limit and we couldn’t --- bummer. But non the less it was fun to talk with him and just love on him. We hung out for a short bit and than he needed to go because their were tourist waiting for him at the top and as we left we went to pay for the tea and the shop owner said don’t worry he is my cousin, no need to pay. We were being blessed all over the place. Than once we walked down the road a bit there he was again and had us jump on his camels on the ride up for free. Yeah no big deal I rode a camel through the towering rocks of Petra. Ha. But honestly the day was all about loving on the locals and sharing our hearts the way Jesus would.

On the way home we were all super crazy tired and the way back to Amman is pretty barren. I could handle it I had to pee. So yup I had our driver stop on the side of the road. Than at our next stop the boys sat in the car praying for Bountry Bars while Renee was inside buying two bags of them. Okay yeah it sounds dumb and maybe a little childish to pray for candy bards but it just rocks me when the Lord is faithful in the small things, in the silly things and in the things you think don’t matter. From candy bars to providing a starving man lunch - the Lord’s hand is in it. The sunset behind us and our day in Petra was complete, once our ride was over we were back in action. We got back, changed our Jordanian money into shekels for Israel, went out to the juice stand I had become to love and than called it quits for the night. This was our last night in the hostel and than it was going to be off to Jerusalem.