Before setting off we had time to visit the Al-Fara'a Compound. Built by the British in 1932 as a military camp and prison, it achieved notoriety between 1982 and 1995 as a Israeli detention and interrogation camp. Today it is a thriving youth centre.
It was a long climb out of Ain Fara'a and we did not reach the plateau until lunchtime. This part of our trek follows the 'work in progress' 250 mile long Abraham Path from Urfa in eastern Turkey to Beersheba in the Negev desert of southern Israel.
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| Looking back at Fara'a - a long climb |
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A shady spot for a rest, picnic lunch and Asr (noon) prayers
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The route now followed quiet roads and by mid afternoon we arrived on the edge of Nablus at Jacob's Well, where Jesus met the Samaritan woman.
Now he had to go through Samaria.
So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
John 4. 4-10,
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| The church in the grounds of Bir Ya'qub monastery at Jacob's Well |
Our guides in Nablus where two 'liberated' Muslim media students who proved to be far more interesting than the crumbling Ottoman architecture and remnants of the British Mandate.
