Easter (Christianity)

Easter in some languages usually mean "great day" or "great nights" Easter is the day that Christians celebrate Jesus resurrection. His resurrection happened 3 days after the crucifixion. This happened long ago between 26-36 AD. Easter is the end of lent, fasting prayer, & penance. The christians have a huge feast. It's celebrated on the first Sunday, after the full moon. It lasts from March 22nd to April 25th.It usually lasts for 40 days.
As centuries pass; the Easter bunny & Easter egg also became a part of this holiday. In old legends; people say that bunnies bring presents and gifts for little kids either in baskets or hides them so they can find it in the morning. Bunnies and eggs represent fertility as a symbol of new life. (rebirth)This usually happens in the spring because it's the season that plants start to grow and we recognize this as a new beginning with nature & wildlife. People dye the eggs red because it represents Jesus bloody sacrifice. Some dye them green as a symbol of new life after the dead winter. The eggs can also be dyed with pictures of flowers to show that they're bringing nature into their homes. During lent; catholics are forbidden to eat eggs for this reason. In other parts of Netherlands, they set Easter fires & watch it burn down.

The 10 Commandments

The 10 Commandments is also called a "Decalogue".The English name "Decalogue" came from a Greek word "dekalogos" which means "ten terms". God gave Moses The 10 Commandments in a form of 2 stones. Which was given to Moses by God on the Mount of Sinai. Mount Sinai is also known as Horeb. The phrase "10 Commandments" is mostly used to repesent passages in the Bible such as Exodus and Deuteronomy. They are recognized as a foundation in Judaism. The image above repesents the Ten Commandments in the Hebrew language. The Torah has hundreds of commandments in it inclueding the ones in the image above and/or the ones that are listed at the bottom of this page.
The Ten Commandments Are.....

1.)I am the Lord your God

2.)You shall have no other gods before me;You shall not make for yourself an idol

3.)You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God

4.)Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy

5.)Honor your father and mother

6.)You shall not murder

7.)You shall not commit adultery

8.)You shall not steal

9.)You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

10.)You shall not covet your neighbor's wife;You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor

The Story of Muhammad

Muhammed was the founder of Islam. He was born in 570 and was orphaned at a young age. His uncle Abu Talib raised him. His father died 6 months before he was born. His uncle was a merchant so Muhammed was a merchant also. Muhammed was also a shepard. At the age of 25 he married Khadiija and she was 40 at the time they wed. They had 6 kids and Khadiija died at 65 years. After she died Muhammed was lonely so he married a widowed woman at the age of 55. Then he married Aisha, one of Muhammeds best friends daughter. Aisha was six or seven at the time of the marriage. Muhammed continued to marry women. He mostly married widowed woman and he married them for protection. Allah(God) prohibited him to be married to more than 9 women at a time. Muhammed had a total of 13 wives in his lifetime. At the age of 4o, Muhammed went to a cave to meditate. Allah gave him his first message in that cave. After that Muhammed had few followers and was treated harshly. Muhammed and his followers moved to Medina. This became know as the Hiijra and is the beginning of the Islamic calender. In 622 Muhammed and his 10,000 followers conqured Mecca. While there, Muhammed fell ill and died. By the death of Muhammed the Arabian Peninsula has converted to Islam.

Our Trip-In Map Form

This is our trip using Google Maps. The link is below.



Google Map Link!!!!!:)

Red Sea

We went to the Red Sea in hopes of discovering some awesome fossils. Unfourtunately we didn't find anything but water because it is 1,400 miles long and 221 miles wide. As soon as we got there we went to see the Red Sea. Abraham told us that the Red Sea was formed by the movement of two plates. Then he said that in 1869, the Red Sea becomes a commercial shipping route. We walked along the shore and Abraham continued to talk. Most of what he said we really didn't care because we were tired of this long trip. I did catch one more thing he said. He said that the "Red Sea" name came from the Greek word Erythra Thalassa. We were so tired that we left after that and went to dinner and then to the hotel. The next day we left and went home. We were so glad.

Goodbye, Peace, Love and Hope
Ciera, Allison and Phuong.

Dead Sea

The Dead Sea sounded scary at first. We thought it meant there were a lot of accidents there involving death. The reason why it was called the Dead Sea is because there aren't many living organisms in the water. It is connected to the Indian ocean which makes it too salty to grow anything or live in. We all jumped in, not afraid because we heard there weren't any fishes in there even though it's 422 meters below sea level. To our surprise, we floated!!! The water was really dense with all the salt that nothing could live there. I had this crazy idea to "walk on the water" like Jesus. Well...I fail... :( Lol. I decided not to stay in the water for too long because it might do damage to my skin. We saw people rubbing the sea's mud on themselves; which we thought was really...weird and dirty. Abraham says they do that because they believe it had special healing or cosmetic use. I would expect to see some farms around so we went looking for a place to visit & chat with people. We had to ride the caravan for a couple miles to finally reach a restaurant; where we had a drink and sandwiches. Ciera asked them why they don't take advantage of the sea and grow crops to make money. They told us the water would kill all the crop and ruin the soil because there was way too much salt in it.

TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES RIVER

We were in Iran again to see the Tigris and Euphrates River. I was pretty excited. We had just got off the plane and were heading to the hotel. This hotel was the best we went to. I was right next to the rivers and they were pretty. We checked in to the hotel and by the time we were unpacked it was 11:00 am. Since it was a little early, we decided to leave the hotel and start our tour. We usually wait a day but it was early. Abraham was resistant but gave in after a while. We left and headed out. When we got to the rivers lots of people were there feeding the fish or fishing. It was very hot and arid, which is its normal climate. Abraham started talking about the Tigris river first. He said that it is 1,157 miles long. He said that if we were to live there you should be prepared for flooding because there are many catastrophic flooding. We definitely do not want to live here anymore. It was hot and there was flooding, even with all the snow the U.S. is so much better. After that we moved on with the Euphrates River. I liked that one better. Abraham told us that it is 1,725 miles long. After he said that, I was amazed and would rather live near here but then Abraham told us that there still is flooding from the melting of the snow. He also said that the current is less than one mile per hour. Then we were tired because it was about 6:00pm and we were hungry so we went to eat and then we went to the hotel and went to sleep. The next day we planned to go to the Red Sea.

Peace, Love and Hope.

Allison, Phuong and Ciera