Friday 13 April

The journey begins. Travelling from four states in Australia, 25 of us finally met up in Jordan to begin our tour of the bible lands. More will join us on the Israel part of the tour. We met our brilliant guide Maha at the airport and soon discovered that she had changed our programme for the day to better suit us which she later called having a "Jacob frame of mind" as Jacob had a way of changing things to suit his situation!

Our main destination for today was the Decapolis city of Jerash (formerly known as Gerasa) about a half hour drive from Amman. Jerash is the most complete and best preserved Graeco/Roman city in the Middle East. Hadrian's Arch dominates the city entrance and streets lined with columns, large plazas, shops, temples and church ruins, amphitheatres for entertainment and a hippodrome for chariot and horse races are all visible reminders of what was once a bustling city which our Lord Jesus and his disciples probably visited.

On the way back to Amman we stopped to overlook the amazing valley of the Jabbok river and Phil read to us from Genesis 32, v 22 - 28. This relates to the storey of Jacob preparing to meet his brother Esau across the Jabbok river and his wrestling with the "man" through the night after which his name was changed to Israel.