Kotel Tunnels!!!

Sorry I haven't written in a few days (I'm sure everyone is actually a little relieved because I always write so much!), there's just been a lot of studying and not much sight seeing going on! Today, however, we had a scheduled tour first thing this morning at the Kotel Tunnels. I mentioned visitng the Western Wall last Shabbat, and the Kotel Tunnels are right near this site. I'm going to try to explain this the best I can, but I'm not sure if it'll make much sense, so maybe the pictures will help! Basically when the temple at Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, the retaining walls surrounding the temple complex were also torn to pieces and turned in to piles of rubble - except the Western retaining wall. There is a portion that is still visible above ground (the Western Wall I talked about before), but the rest is buried. This happened because the next civilization to come build a new city replacing Jerusalem decided that instead of building on the old city of Jerusalem (which sat right next to the Western Wall), they would build arches on top of the city to create a more stable foundation, and then build their city on top of that. These arches started out from the Wall and then continued outward covering much of the Old City. Because they built several levels of arches that ended up being as high as the Wall itself, it leveled out the city streets with the very TOP of what used to be the Western Wall - making the Wall nonvisible from the streets. I hope that made at least a little sense! The Isralei's here have started an excavation project that winds through all these underground arches, and reveals portions of the actual wall as it existed in the time Christ lived! It's really quite an amazing thing, and has been one of my favorite activities so far! So that was really neat and I learned quite a lot as well!
After that we came back to the center, and I joined my committee in starting one the projects we're heading up. Everyone here is put on a committee so that they can be involved, and the one I was assigned to is the Humanitarian Aid/Community Service committee. At first I was a little skeptical about what I was going to be doing, but now I'm EXTREMELY excited! BYU has relations with a center for disabled children here called the Princess Basma Center for Disabled Children. Kids who have cerebal palsy, hearing and vision impairments, mental handicaps, and all sorts of other disorders are able to come here to have schooling with other more "normal" children, and also have supplemental help. The mothers of these disabled children also come to classes with them, and are taught the best way to cope with the handicaps, and the best ways to help the children progess. The center was founded in 1987 by a woman named Betty Majaj, who herself gave us the tour of the center. She is quite an amazing woman and was named one of the 12 women of peace in a book: Making Their Own Peace: 12 Women of Jerusalem by Ann Madsen, one of the members of our church, it's quite the accomplishment! We're going to be able to assist children in learning, play with them, help with water therapy exercises, and maybe even paint a mural to represent our group on one of the walls. I can tell this is going to be one of the best experiences and I'll keep you updated more as I'm able to spend time there!
Thanks for enduring another long blog post! I'm glad you're all able to share in these experiences with me, I miss you all lots!