His HealYourChurchWebsite and blogs4God websites have won accolades; his articles in Christian Computing, On Mission and other magazines have almost instantly improved readershp; and he even worked with the world-famous Vincent Flanders on “Son of Web Pages That Suck” sequel.

Dean and Chuck have collaborated in the past on their church website, Chuck’s website for small farmers and others.

Dean’s been single-handedly fixing every computer in sight here in Jordan, which is a sizable task. I think the machines fear him. He shows up and things start behaving. I’m sure glad he came along on this trip!

We ate a quick breakfast and then boarded the bus for the short ride to Aqaba.

A little over an hour later we rolled into the Royal Diving center at the northern tip of the Red sea. Within another forty minutes, Mike Hare, Tom Neven and I were suited up and ready to go scuba diving. A frenchman named Laurent rounded out our group, and after a long walk off a short pier, the fun began.

(note to my kids – I found Nemo.)

Once underwater we started swimming away from the beach, and almost immediately saw a three-foot puffer fish. I didn’t know they made them that big. Very cool. Then we saw some moray eels, tons of colorful coral, and a whole school of moorish Idols. It was a short, basic dive, but felt wonderful to get back in the water, since it’s been over a year since I last dove. And hey, this is the RED SEA!

After a nice lunch of burgers and fries (our first on this trip, and a welcome change from the ever-present hummus), we boarded the bus again for the short trip into downtown aqaba. Our hotel: The Movenpick Resort.

It was such a contrast from the Bait Ali camp we stayed in the night before that we hardly knew what to do. The hotel is nothing short of opulent, and the service is impeccable. The prices are high, but I guess that’s to be expected. Internet access is $9 an hour. Ouch.

We did find an internet cafe down the street which advertised ADSL access at only 2 JD an hour. But after trying it, the place proved to be smoky, dirty, and worst of all – very old, slow computers. I think the one I was using had had turkish coffee spilt into the keyboard a couple of times, it was pretty sticky. At one point, a speaker mounted on the wall above my head came crashing down and tried to kill me. I stayed an hour, but wished that I hadn’t.

We did get some time in the afternoon to go shopping. Aqaba is the place for it, too. There are blocks and blocks of shops arranged by type – a whole block of rug stores, another of butcher shops, etc. Once you get away from the hotels a bit the prices are quite reasonable, to the point where it almost wasn’t worth bargaining. The goods are unique, and we found fun gifts for everyone on our list. I think the one shop I’d like to go back to was the spice shop where we all picked up an array of wonderful things like oregano, roasted sesame seeds, bedouin sage tea, etc. The man running the shop is a hoot, and quite a hustler.

It is also common to see stands set up to sell obviously pirated cds and dvds. We were looking for some blank cds to burninate some of our pictures to, and tried to buy some from one of the pirates. He dug through his box and started pulling out old, scratched ones, and we told him to forget it and walked away. A short time later we found what we wanted at a local camera shop. Incidentally, the cameras and film here seem to be well priced, even the digital ones. I can’t imagine why anyone would bother with film anymore. Digital film is easy to find and not too expensive here, should you ever need to buy any.

When we finished shopping, we went out to a restaurant for dinner and had some great kabobs and such. The place, like all places here, was a bit smoky, however. While we were waiting for our food we stepped next door to a small coffee shop and bought strong Arabic coffee for about $9 a kilo. Lets see how tough it is to get that back through customs!

After dinner we returned to the hotel, enjoyed some movenpick ice cream (which has to be experienced at least once.) and then retired to our rooms for the night.

This five-star resort hotel offers deluxe accommodations and superior facilities including a health club, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, jacuzzis, indoor salt pool and outdoor mud pools, a water slide, a private beach and spa services.

We arrived and were greeted by our guides, driving two almost identically decrepit toyota landcruisers not unlike the one my dad had when I was a kid. Except these had tires as bald as our tour guide, Kamel, the engines seemed to be held together with plastic shopping bags, and the truck beds were decorated with plenty of rusty metal. I kept thinking what great farm trucks they would make.

Our guides were bedouin, one a sixty-plus-year-old grandfather who would go out and gather scrub grass at every stop in the desert. When asked about it, he simply replied, “hungry camel!” with a toothless smile.

Our other driver was about fifteen, wore a 1980′s era desert camouflage uniform and smoked. At one point he let me drive his truck for a bit, and when we stopped he said, “You better driver than me!” no kidding, I thought. I’m twice your age.

Undaunted by the cracked windshields and bent fenders of our rides, we piled into the two vehicles and headed out into the desert. It wasn’t long before we started to feel a pervading sense of the vastness of this place. The mountains were so incredibly stark, jutting skyward at right angles to the sand, and every once in awhile we’d see tiny black specks at the foot of one of these massive monoliths. They looked for all the world like bugs, but turned out to be goats!

This being springtime, there were actually some plants growing, but it is easy to imagine how completely devoid of plant life this place is the rest of the year. I know they are supposed to be plant eaters, but I wouldn’t turn my back on a sheep or goat in Wadi Rum.

We stopped for a time at the tent of a bedouin family. They were evidently expecting us, the tent was open and there were mats laid out on the sand for us inside. We entered and were served hot tea, and i pulled out a book of pictures of my home and family that i carry for such occasions, and began showing the pictures to the bedouin men. They looked carefully and at length at every picture in the album, discussing each one vigorously amongst themselves. When i pointed out that i have five children, they all smiled and declared, “you bedouin!”

i asked if it would be okay if i went and looked at their animals. They happily agreed, but ushered me quickly by the right side of the tent, which is where the women were. Behind the tent were some small pens, and about twenty goats who were roaming free, but seemed content to stay as close as possible to the water tank. i don’t blame them. They had two children running around, one boy who looked about six and a girl who looked about five. As it turns out they were nine and seven, respectively. Come to think of it, the bedouin all seem kind of short in stature. The girl spoke enough english to tell me the names of the animals that they owned – a turkey, chickens, camels, goats and sheep. There was a very cute baby camel who made the saddest little cry because he was locked in a small pen.

i plan to write a more in-depth article about the bedouin and their farming practices for a magazine later this year.

After about a half hour at the bedouin camp, we headed out into the open desert. The vastness of this landscape takes your breath away. it certainly looks like somewhere that God made just to store extra space until he needed it elsewhere. But even here, the six-hundred-foot cliffs spoke His name, and the natural designs in the cliff face looked almost like God had been taking notes on them. We stopped at a few of the more interesting landmarks – a canyon filled with ancient graffiti from the various peoples who passed through the area, a couple of natural bridges, which made for some fun pictures and strenuous climbing. Last, we stopped to wait for the sunset, and just took some time to walk out into the desert and contemplate the silence. It was nearly deafening.

More about that later. For now, go check out the gallery and see the pics for yourself!

The main resort building is connected to the beach by a bridge, which also contains a lap pool. The view from our rooms’ balconies is stunning. It is a shocking contrast since yesterday afternoon we were sipping tea in the tent of a bedhouin family in the middle of wadi rum – with camels, chickens, goats, etc, picking about the tent. More about that later.

Hooray for internet access! Pictures to follow!

On the way there, our tour guide Kamel pulled me aside and said, “I’m glad you decided
to come along. I didn’t want to be the only guy here tonight.” I didn’t really understand
why he said that until later.

When we got to the baths, we entered a smoky parlor lined with couches, and were
greeted by a skinny guy with a big grin. He welcomed us and ushered our group into a
changing room, with booths for men and women. We quickly changed into our bathing
suits and then skinny guy directed us into a large, tiled room with a raised marble bench
in the middle, about five feet by ten feet long. In the corners of this room were two
smaller rooms with small sinks built into the floor near the entrance. Kamel and I were
seated in one of these rooms, and SG turned a knob releasing a blast of steam that quickly
filled the room so that it was difficult to see one’s own hands. Kamel was telling me
about something while I was remembering my childhood – my Dad was a fireman, and I
used to always be the test dummy in the training house. They would fill it with thick
smoke and then the firemen would try to come and find me. As Kamel continued talking,
I had to fight the urge to stop, drop and roll.

Once the girls arrived, they were shown to the small room in the corner opposite ours. By
then the steam was so thick that it lent itself to some mischievous pranks – Kamel and I
snuck over to the girl’s room and tossed buckets of cold water in the door, then ran for
our lives. The Teen Girl Squad soon got their revenge, however, by showering us in
much the same way.

The steam was getting so thick that I really was having trouble breathing. So Kamel and I
went out and reclined on the large marble bench in the main room. SG was coming and
going through the main door, so I hung my head in that direction and tried to catch a
breath of fresh air when I could. When he came in and asked who was ready for the next
step of the treatment, I happily volunteered so I could go somewhere with air.

I was then led into a smaller room, also tiled from top to bottom. Another smiley skinny
guy showed up and motioned for me to sit with my back to the wall. He then picked up a
sort of sandpaper-loofa glove and started scrubbing my arms and legs with a soapy
vengeance. Every few strokes he would stop and show me the glove – pointing at it and
saying “look! Dead skin!” I grimaced. “It is now.” Whatever suntan I had worked to
aquire in the days previous was now being meticulously scraped off by loofa man. It
reminded me of going through decontamination training in the army.

Next, he had me turn over and lay face down on the floor of the room. I started
wondering about the people who had been there before me. Great, I thought. Watch me
end up with athlete’s face. Loofa man continued to scrape and scrub, gleefully showing
me every minute or so the great amounts of skin he was relieving me of. “That’s wonderful,” I
answered wryly, “Will you put it in a bag so I can take it home as a souvenir?” Loofa
man had no idea what I was saying, so he just grinned and said, “Good, good!”

When that was over, I was rinsed off and shown into the next room, where a burly Arab
man stood bare-chested waiting for me. He directed me to lie face-down on a high
marble table, whereupon he began giving me my massage. At this point, I was getting a
little wierded out at having all these men’s hands on me. So I tried to strike up some
manly conversation with my masseur. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Muhammad.” The man grunted as he kneaded my shoulders like dough.

“Oh, that’s great, I’m Chuck. So do you have any kids?”

“Muhammad.”

“Okay…uh..well then, How ’bout them Packers? Got a heck of an offense this year.”

At this point Muhammad began quietly singing some sort of Turkish drinking song to
himself and ignoring me, except for his ham-sized fists which were busy pounding on my
spine, which I suppose was meant to be relaxing. I was feeling more like it was a medical
procedure of some kind, though. But at least the song was sorta manly.

So I continued to talk at Muhammad about whatever manly things came to mind, like
Home Depot, Beer, and my chainsaw collection. He worked me over like a professional
wrestler in the meantime, and then when he was finished, he doused me several times
with water from a bowl, and then held up a towel and directed me to remove my shorts.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Muhammad grunted and pointed to my shorts, holding the towel out for me. Oh well,
when in Rome…

I quickly traded my trunks for the towel, hoping that the TGS wouldn’t suddenly
round the corner. Then Muhammad then opened a door and pushed me through it.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the bright light, at which point I realized that I
was back in the smoky waiting area! Several men sat around on the couches, smoking
and looking at me. Standing there wearing nothing but a towel, my mind kept reminding
me that I was essentially NAKED, until Skinny Guy showed up again with a glass of
hot tea, and motioned for me to sit down and drink. I did, feeling kind of like a naked
white guy in a room full of smoking Arabs.

I could hear one of the girls going through the process right behind me. I wondered if
Muhammad would treat her the same. Soon, I heard a female voice say, “NO, I’M NOT
TAKING IT OFF!” I smiled and forgot my own awkwardness for a moment.

Ten minutes later I’d had my fill of tea, and the girls were coming out the door one by
one, looking flustered. And that made it all worthwhile. I got up, retired to the dressing
room, paid Skinny Guy my $20, and then we went back to our hotel.

I called my wife that night, and caught her at church on her cellphone.

“What are you doing right now?” I asked.

“Ooohhh.. I’m getting a back massage from Amanda Brandt.”

“Hey, I got a massage today too.”

“What!” She shouted. “By whom?”

“Some guy named Mohammed.”

Connie’s laughter made my night.

Guys, if you ever visit Petra, I’d recommend the Turkish Baths as a great place to send
your wife while you surf the internet next door at the Aretas internet cafe. If you’ve never
had a massage before, you might come away from it feeling like you’ve just been to the
Chiropractor, but your wife will come out feeling positively pampered.

Today when we woke up, it was raining! Giles, the trip leader, says that this is the first time he’s seen it rain in four trips. It was really coming down there for awile, too.

This made our first stop a bit uncomfortable – the Castle at Mukawir where Herod Antipas had John the Baptist beheaded after Salome’s dance. The walk up to the hilltop ruins wasn’t too bad, but the view wasn’t worth it because of the rain. What was really amazing was to see how completely the Romans destroyed the castle when they took it over in the 1st century BC. Everything but the foundation was not only torn down, but they actually took the time to toss everything off the side of the mountain. There’s a huge pile of rubble at the bottom. Of course, you know I had fun exploring all the caves in the mountain on the way up. Most of them were simple rooms carved out of the rock, and had evidence of recent occupation, either by goats or by their masters – we even saw some caves that were still clearly being lived in. Amazing to see people living like that. I had to stop and wonder if this was the same planet for them as it was for us – with me going into withdrawals for lack of a DSL connection. Kinda puts things in perspective a bit.

Then we drove to Kerak, and enjoyed a nice lunch next to the castle. I have to say that the worst thing about Kerak is that I couldn’t spend a whole day there. The crusader-built castle there is mostly intact, and you could spend at least an hour exploring its tunnels, or a half-day if you insist on slithering into every nook and cranny just to see where it leads, like i do. Just wait until you see the pictures.

From Kerak, we drove south to Petra, which took about two and a half hours. It’s easy to tell that our group is getting more comfortable with each other, because there were several heated arguments over politics and religion going on at one time while we were in the bus. We all ended up friends, though, and when we arrived at the hotel, enjoyed a nice dinner in its restaurant and then hit the sack for an early day tomorrow in Petra.

We spent the day in and around Madaba, going to Mount Nebo and the church where they discovered a quite complete map of the holy land inlaid into the floor that dates back more than 1500 years. We had a wonderful lunch, and even got a bit of shopping in. In all, it was an easy day, which was good, since I got almost no sleep last night.

Before supper tonight we walked down to the base of the falls and enjoyed a VERY hot shower. I mean, this water is burn-your-bisquits hot. Friday in Jordan is like Saturday in the states, so there were lots of families with children there enjoying the waters as well. It was wierdest to see the women – still dressed head-to-toe in burquas and head scarves, frolicking in the water. One girl dressed thus fell down while crossing the stream, which is running quite well, and almost had to be rescued. I imagine all that material gets quite heavy when wet.

Later, we jumped into the hotel’s swimming pool and revived our senses. Jordan seems to be a land of extreme temperatures – especially where water is concerned. The pool was freezing!

Later we tried out the jaccuzzi, and then changed and went down to supper. There was a live band playing arabic music WAY too loud, but other than that it was an enjoyable meal. I especially enjoyed the dessert – some kind of cinnamon bread pudding with coconut. Excellent, and I usually hate coconut.

Now, like Israel wrestling with God all night long (we saw the place where that happened), I’m wrestling with the 1997-era computer with dial-up modem, trying to get it to bless me. Let’s hope I win.

The hotel picture is not mine – we can’t get our pics downloaded tonight. But I found this one on the computer I’m using, so it should give you an idea.

Goodnight, and hopefully we’ll find a great internet cafe somewhere near Petra tomorrow. Pray for FAT PIPES, and thank God for DSL!!

We spent the day in and around Madaba, going to Mount Nebo and the church where they discovered a quite complete map of the holy land inlaid into the floor that dates back more than 1500 years. We had a wonderful lunch, and even got a bit of shopping in. In all, it was an easy day, which was good, since I got almost no sleep last night.

Before supper tonight we walked down to the base of the falls and enjoyed a VERY hot shower. I mean, this water is burn-your-bisquits hot. Friday in Jordan is like Saturday in the states, so there were lots of families with children there enjoying the waters as well. It was wierdest to see the women – still dressed head-to-toe in burquas and head scarves, frolicking in the water. One girl dressed thus fell down while crossing the stream, which is running quite well, and almost had to be rescued. I imagine all that material gets quite heavy when wet.

Later, we jumped into the hotel’s swimming pool and revived our senses. Jordan seems to be a land of extreme temperatures – especially where water is concerned. The pool was freezing!

Later we tried out the jaccuzzi, and then changed and went down to supper. There was a live band playing arabic music WAY too loud, but other than that it was an enjoyable meal. I especially enjoyed the dessert – some kind of cinnamon bread pudding with coconut. Excellent, and I usually hate coconut.

Now, like Israel wrestling with God all night long (we saw the place where that happened), I’m wrestling with the 1997-era computer with dial-up modem, trying to get it to bless me. Let’s hope I win.

The hotel picture is not mine – we can’t get our pics downloaded tonight. But I found this one on the computer I’m using, so it should give you an idea.

Goodnight, and hopefully we’ll find a great internet cafe somewhere near Petra tomorrow. Pray for FAT PIPES!

It’s only a three-star, however, so we’re blogging from an old computer over a dial up line. So don’t expect much until tomorrow night! We’ll try to get on tonight later and put up some info about our fun today at mount Nebo, Medaba, etc.

Bottom line, we had a good day, and we both found some great presents for the wives!

More later…