3rd Week of Digging/4th of July party

Monday June 29
So after our glorious weekend in Jerusalem we arrived back at Neve Shalom to meet 22 new students joining the dig from Lancaster Bible School in Pennsylvania. They are only here 2 weeks and have already spent a week touring. They are divided up among the already established squares and given a very brief introduction to what we are doing..i feel a little bad for them. Its funny because Sunday night they are all up late and all of us who had been here were in bed by 9:00 at the latest....we know how early 4:15 comes. Needless to say, the next night they were all in bed early. We got three new guys and one new girl in the lower sandodge and they are all great workers. Today we moved a lot of dirt off of the revetment wall that is coming up nicely...at least 5 meters across so far. In other squares whole vessels are coming up and we have to haul those down the Tel every day to keep looters from coming at night. Adam's square didn't get any new people from Lancaster. Today is also Steve Ortiz's birthday and we celebrate with cake and ice cream after dinner. For lecture a famous guy, Anson Rainey, came and spoke to us on the Armana letters, specifically the ones that pertain to Gezer...a real treat.
A treat for the day is that Adam and I got to ride in a car to the Tel and back today since there are too many people to fit on our bus now!!! AIR CONDITION!! and a nice conversation with Steve and another supervisor Byron!!!

Tuesday June 30
Our Lancaster people are proving to be work horses. Today we have a great conversation with Joey on the validity of the bible, church membership and "sacraments" of different donimanations. He has lots of questions and we are glad for it!!! The dig day is same ole, same ole. I sent some mail out to Jerri and Halle and right after 1st breakfast we take group shots .....as a whole and then from all the different colleges. We have a well known archeaologist come and speak from Bet Shemesh.

Wednesday July 1
Today we open up TWO NEW SQUARES. We have uncovered at least 10 meters of the revetment wall and so we are going to do a probe down in front of it to look for the outer wall. Our professors tell us that we are finding some of the same type of structures that were found in the City of David...the milo! We are also told that some other things we are finding in the upper fields will be in text books for years!!!!!! We can't wait to come home and tell you all the details. I know that we have been working for almost 3 weeks now but my back and left ankle are starting to hurt....the Tel is aging me. My square talked about how the presidency ages you, the military ages you and we decide that the Tel ages you just as much.
Adam finds Roman glass in his square today....thats all we can say for now!! We have pictures!
Today we don't have pottery washing but we do go on our grocery run. This week we buy another water cooler, another pepsi and some popsicles!!!!! We get home and finally find some English on the box that says " Diet Lemon and Lime Popsicles"....oh well, its cold and good!!!

Thursday July 2
LAST DAY OF WORK WEEK. They are giving us a 4 day week in honor of July 4th!!!! and we get to go to the Galilee for 3 WHOLE DAYS.
So at the dig today we dug straight down into our probe.....straight thru layers and layers of rocks...back breaking work.
During the Tel Tour we are shown some really neat installations..some in Adam's square.
After we get home we are free until our party so Adam gets some much needed sleep and works on his essays for his final exam. I go to the pool and wash all of my laundry!!!!
The 4th of July part is beautiful. Its held out on the lawn overlooking the hills towards Tel Aviv and they make us Israeli BBQ......beef patties inside of pita bread. We also have french fries, coke and bbq sauce.....all of which we haven't had. For dessert we have several different kinds of baklava and gelato.....3 different flavors. We were stuffed!!!
Then came the fun part...the Gezer's Got Talent Show!!!!! The first act was three of our friends, Katy, Kelley and Boon who did a "Get Fit Gezer" and did a workout routine using all of the equipment and new phrases we have learned...it was absolutely hysterical. I filmed it for Kelley so we will share that with you when it gets uploaded. After that Radu, a professor from Romania quoted all of 2nd Timothy. Then we had some songs and some guitar playing. Afterwards they gave us free reign of the stereo system and we hooked it up to an ipod. We all got out there and danced and sang...along with our professors. Adam really showed off his great dance moves and surprised all of his professors!! He did the worm, the robot, the carlton, and really anything else you can think of.....I think Dr. Ortiz was shocked...but he kept everyone laughing.....any of you who know Adam probably aren't surprised at all. Then they put on country music and I did some line dancing. Overall it was a great night and we were all excited about our upcoming weekend.

Pictures will have to come later...with the additional 22 people sharing internet here we hardly get enough signal to do anything online. Once again I will let you know when they are posted.