I am wrapping up a Bible study at my church on the Book of Esther. We are using Beth Moore’s newly introduced study and it is fabulous! Our last class is next week and I decided to prepare something special for my class. I was born in Kuwait and grew up in Ahwaz, Iran, a short day trip away from Susa where Queen Esther lived in the Palace with King Xerxes. I have prepared a little miniature album with our family photos of Susa and Persepolis. Persepolis was actually much farther North of where we lived, but it was the Summer Palace for Xerxes and his father Darius who preceded him as King.

This is a photo of me with my eldest sister Cheryl at the museum in Susa. It was one of our many trips to this area. Daniel (yes, of the Lion’s den) is actually buried in Susa, there is a Muslim mosque over his tomb. Susa, is also pronounced “Shoosh” and means “beautiful”. Shustar, is another great historical site at a nearby river. It means “more beautiful”. There is an amazing bridge there built by Roman prisoners of war in the third century AD. And another of our frequented day trips was to Choga Zambil, the site of the biggest ziggurat ever found, dating to 1250 BC. If there is interest in the other locations then someday I’ll do a second Mini Album and share it on my blog.

Here is a PDF of the two sided, single sheet layout with pictures of Susa and Persepolis. And, in case the folding instructions on page two don’t make any sense here is a link to the video where I learned to make the mini-album. Cut around the tabs on both sides of the paper before folding it! At 300 dpi, the PDF file is about 20 meg, so click the below image for a draft quality smaller JPG, in case you don’t want to wait five minutes for it to download. Just click on the thumbnail to go to the larger image, right click on the larger image, save it to your hard drive, open it in your photo editing software and print it with landscape and borderless settings. (Note: I revised the PDF so that the back-side is only 150 dpi and at the same time switched out a Persepolis picture. It cut the file size in half. Printing from the PDF will give you MUCH better printed results than by clicking on this preview image.)

If you enjoy my little album please do leave me a comment! I’ll pass it along to my family, as we all have fond memories of our 8 years in Iran. It is a shame that the Iranian government is not very open to tourists from America. There is so much rich history over there. When I did research to make this little album there was very little information on the internet about Susa. I found most of my information in books and newspaper clippings that my parents saved. I told my dad yesterday that I’d love to go back over there as an adult with my camera and he told me about the poor woman who was sentenced as a “spy” just last week!

This Mini-Album was designed by Holly Nester using licensed graphics from the following:

• Christina Renee Designs
• Tracy Ann’s Graphics
• Ruth Davis

No-one may publish this mini-album without express written permission from Holly Nester. Photo Credits to Don Todd and Copyrights to his family. The mini album and photographs may not be used commercially, sold in any manner, or be made available as a download by anyone but Holly Nester.

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