Middle East Update

Hey guys - Eric here, reporting live from the Middle East!  I am nestled very comfortably between four great countries: Israel, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.  I am currently 2000 feet from the eastern side of the Dead Sea.  Wanna guess where I am?  Yep; I'm in Jordan.

Now before I get to that, let me tell you about some of my experiences.

For starters, the 11 hour flight didn't find me sleeping much, and that's a mistake when you're going "hard-core" touring style.  When we left Houston, it was very early morning; when we touched down at Ben Gurion airport in Israel, 13 hours later, it was late morning, and we hit the ground running.  Stowing all our bags in a tour bus, we spent the entire day touring the Holy Land. I was jet-lagged, weary, and thirsty before we cleared the airport, and it didn't help much that our tour guide, "Uncle Kenny", unloaded information at ninety miles per hour, non-stop, for the rest of the day.  I wanted to learn everything I could, so I listened intently, but my brain was clearly screaming at me to rest.  Needless to say, I was very glad when we finally checked in to our hotel on the bank of the Sea of Galilee at the end of that unordinarily-long day.

I slept.

The next morning, I realized that I was awake while everyone back home was getting ready to go to bed.  We are eight hours ahead of everyone in Texas.  That means that I get to experience life before you guys; does that mean I'm living in your future?  Can I tell you what today brings before you get to learn it?  That's awesome.

Ok, so we toured Israel for the following two days, and today we crossed into Jordan to experience the Dead Sea and some other amazing sites.  Oh yeah, the hotel I'm staying in is on the bank of the Dead Sea; I can see it from the hotel.  The difference between Israel and Jordan is night and day.  Imagine driving from mid-nineteenth-century Texas directly into Haiti.  The poverty in Jordan is incredible.  I am staying in a very nice, four-star Holiday Inn, and directly across from the hotel is a Bedouin shepherd family living in a tent, moving daily with its flock of sheep and goats.  The majority of the houses in Jordan are made of concrete or cinder blocks, very poorly constructed, no larger than my room, and without modern commodities (although some houses did have TV satellites and one had a water hose).  They tend to live in clusters on the very sides of the desert-ous mountains.  They know how to take care of themselves and they definitely fend for themselves.  The families are always outside, and the communities are tight.  Jordan is an Arab nation and their current dictator is beloved by everyone, for he gives Jordan money to survive, inasmuch as Jordan can not properly take care of herself.  It is strange, but these people not only accept their lot in life, but that adapt quite nicely, and as they know no other way of life, they know how to enjoy it.  Obviously, they have essential priorities in the right place, and that convicts me.  As we drove through trash-infested streets and watched such suppressed people live their lives unconcerned, the children smiling, laughing, and waving at our tour bus, my stomach turned about face and remained under pressure for the remainder of the day.  I can't believe how much I have.

Anyway, it's on to some more cool sites tomorrow, and I don't know when I'll have internet access next -  maybe not again - so I'll leave you with this thought:

You are more blessed than you realize; be thankful!