Happy 6th Anniversary

Today we celebrate our 6 year wedding anniversary! I am thankful everyday for the man that God chose to be my husband, father of our boys, and my best friend. We enjoyed remembering our special day at Shenandoah National Park. We tried to watch the video of our ceremony, but remembered it was with our household effects that will be arriving this week.

And now six years later, we never would have thought we would be in the Middle East, and we wouldn't change a thing about where we are. We know God has a perfect plan for us, and pray that we  continue to be faithful and live lives to glorify Him.

Nathan and I celebrated yesterday with an outing to Jesus's Baptism site and the old town of Madaba. Our church holds baptisms at the Jordan River twice a year, and Nathan and I wanted to go to witness  this wonderful event. 

The landscape along the way is very diverse and beautiful. There was mountainous, green, and desert scenery on the way down to the lush Jordan Valley. And then we hit sea level.

Approaching the Baptism site

It was quite amazing to walk on the same grounds as where Jesus was believed to be baptized by John the Baptist. In the mid 1990's archeological excavations revealed an ancient church marking the baptism site, which matched the baptism site that was marked on a Madaba map dating back to 540-570 AD. Since then, over 20 churches and ruins were discovered dating back to the Roman and Byzantine periods. Located in the area is also Tell Mar Elias, where Elijah ascended into Heaven.

The baptisms took place at a private spot down the river in front of the Russian Orthodox church. We had a great worship service, singing songs, hearing the testimonies of the people being baptized, and being able to witness their proclamation of faith in Jesus.

About half of the people being baptized were from Nepal and did not speak English, so one of the ladies from our congregation translated. They ladies sang I decided to follow Jesus in their native language.

It was a really amazing experience to witness, and truly brought light to the gift of grace and eternal life I have because of what Jesus did for me.

Next stop was the old city of Madaba, which is about 20 miles south of Amman. To get there, we drove through lots of Bedouin villages and mostly desert as we ascended the mountains again.

These are views from close by Mt. Nebo. We literally drove right past Mt. Nebo and in retrospect I wish we would have stopped, but we really wanted to have as much time in Madaba to explore.

In Madaba, we visited St. George's Church, the Greek Orthodox church containing remnants of an old Byzantine church. Most famously is a mosaic map from 560 A.D. that shows the major biblical sites written in Greek, of the Middle East from Egypt to Palestine. A lot of the mosaic are missing, but what is there is fascinating.

Inside the church.

There were lots of moderns looking mosaics on the wall. This one kind of looked like Jesus was putting up the peace sign :).

And here is the famous mosaic map on the floor, at least a large portion of it.

This is Jerusalem, written in red.

Jericho, surrounding the palm trees.

And Jesus's baptism site, where the fish is swimming  upstream.

It was a great way to spend our anniversary. When we got home, we hit the park with the boys and then rode scooters until after dark. Six years has been sweet, and I am looking forward to many, many more! I love you Nathan.