Here we are again; The second day in the Sukkah in the Desert we hiked to the rim of the Ramon Crater. We sat for awhile and had a prayer in that awsome place.

In the afternoon we went to a Lama / Alpaca fram. We discovered that Lamas, native to South America are used by the Israeli army to pack things into hard to get at places. Maybe the kids would like to draw an Alpaca

 

 

Later we went to Avadot, an archeological park of an ancient Nabatean city from 300 BCE to 400 CE. It was a major fortress on the Spice Route between Petra (maybe all the way from India) and the port at Gaza. It was ruined and abandoned due to an earthquake in 749 CE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabataeans

 

We spent our last night in the desert watching the sun go down and looking at the stars in the Negev.

 

The sukkah people grow their own fruit in the desert. Above are olives and pomegranates.

"For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land----with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegratates, olive oil and honey" Deut 8:7,8 

 

 

 

Today we drove to En Avadot which is a spring near the ruins and hiked up wadi Zin-like a canyon with a stream in the middle of the desert, something like En Gedi except more surrounded by wilderness and desert. Look closely and you will see Ibex on the cliff.

"I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland" Isa. 43:19

 

 

We continued on to Arad where Rick Wienecke now lives and stopped in at Tel Arad on the way. This was a Caananite city in 3500 BCE!!!!!, then abandoned then resettled in the time of King Solomon in 1000 BCE. Ref Numbers 21:1, Judges 1:16 and several others. It was destroyed at the time of the Babylonian Captivity on 586 BCE. The conquest of Israel by the Babylonians was what a lot of the prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah were warning against. There were some studensts from the USA volunteering there for 3 mo who spent all day fixing the walls of the ancient city with an archeologist.

We are now in a beautiful B&B in Arad run by friends of Rick Wienecke and will visit him tomorrow.