June 9, Monday - Sinai Desert

Wow!  Our first full day here was full to say the least.  After an early breakfast we got on the bus for a 2 ½ hour drive into southern Israel and the Sinai desert (Timna Valley).  This was further south than I had gone last time so this was all new territory for me. 

Even in the middle of nowhere - a MacDonald's!

A little guy at a rest stop on the way

Out into the desert

We got there about 10:30 in the morning and started hiking.  As usual, John would not tell us how far we were going or what we would see until we got there.

We soon learned that this area was where many of the Israelites worked smelting copper for the Egyptians.  It was also an area where Moses had tended his sheep once he fled Pharaoh.  And this was an area that the Israelites and Moses crossed through as they were leaving Egypt.  I had always thought of the desert in the bible like the typical Sahara desert – sand dunes with nice soft sand.  Nope, it was hard rocky ground, hot, and barren. 

As we studied the story of Exodus and the reasons why God, who loved his people, would bring them out into such a harsh and desolate place for 40 years, I came to see how God wanted to cleanse them of the Egyptian ways (they had been in Egypt for 400 years) and teach them to trust Him to provide what they needed.  It quickly became obvious to us that without God’s constant support of the Israelites they could not have survived (and it only took us 4 hours to learn this!).  It really helped open my eyes to the fact that I often do not trust God as much as I should and let worry enter in where it is not needed. 

We studied the covenant God made with his people and how the 10 commandments are a loving message of how to be happy rather than a list of do’s and don’ts.  Being out in these locations puts us into the bible stories and it is so easy to get a new perspective.  That is not to say that the impressions I get here are automatically correct, but it is already giving me the tools I need to better see how to bring God into my life and things I can do to get stronger in my faith.

Some serious erosion

I don’t mean to delve too deeply into the theological aspects of the trip, but I’m hoping that knowing a little of the effect it is having on all of us may encourage some more of you to take advantage of this experience sometime yourselves.

Once we finally reached the end of our hike (thankfully the bus was at the other end and we did not need to go back to the start!!!), we stopped for lunch.  Lunch is most likely going to be the same each day.  Pita bread, humus, turkey, cheese, chips, and apples.  I’m still not a humus fan so I skip that.  I may have to break out the peanut butter I brought tomorrow for a change of pace (and so I don’t have to think about bringing it back with me).

The Tabernacle

After lunch we had 2 more stops.  First we visited a scale model of the tabernacle (The wood and tent structure used to house the arc of the covenant during their time in the desert and until a temple could be built).  It was fascinating to see and the woman who talked about it was excellent.  You can read more about it at www.berean-to-berean.com.

Finally we hiked out to one more location in the desert (just in case we forgot what it was like) and finished our discussion of the Exodus.  John says this will lay the foundation for many of the other sites and teachings we will experience over the next 12 days. 

On the way back we passed large 'farms' which were a combination of date palm forests and tented areas.  Under the tents they grow a variety of things - using the tents to help cut down on some of the intense sun, and keep birds, bugs, and other animals away.  The ground around here is very fertile but it is the lack of water which keeps it so barren.  In areas where they can irrigate, they can grow quite a lot.




Tomorrow we head to Bethlehem and more sites along the way, so I’ll get this posted, drink more water, and head to bed soon.  I really have not had a problem with jet lag.  Between all the time out in the sun and the strenuous hiking – sleep has not been a problem!

Speaking of the hiking – today’s hikes were 4.25 miles (13,000+ steps), bringing the trip total to just 6.25 so far.

June 8, Sunday

After an extremely long and boring flight (actually 3 flights) Bryan and I have arrived here in Israel!

 It took a while for us all to make it through customs but then we changed into our hiking clothes there at the airport, boarded our bus, and headed out to our first biblical site.

A Manger: Mangers were used to hold water, not hay

It was the same location I visited just after arriving 2 years ago but as I expected I'm picking up more information this time and it will help cement what I already learned last time.


We visited Tel Gezar and sat at the entrance to what would have been the city at the time of Solomon.  City gates of this style (a main gate leads into a small room and then a second gate leads from that to the city) are called Solomon's gate because he (or his generals) designed this as a way to increase security for the city.  The defenders of the city could attack people trying to break into the city once they entered the first gate and were in the small room area.  There have only been 3 gate styles like this excavated.

It was in this small room area that people with business with the king or other leaders would come to meet with them because very few people were actually let into the city.

This was the only location we visited today, but at least it got us all out into the sun to start getting used to the time change.  It was a real challenge for us not to all fall asleep on the bus as we headed for our hotel.

Two camels along the road

We are staying in Asad for a few nights before moving on to Bethlehem so I expect to see new things tomorrow.  On the way here it refreshed my memory of the hilly barren countryside around here.  We saw more camels around than I remembered from last time.

Not too much else to report on unless you want to know about dinner (chicken, potatoes, and lots of cold and hot mixed vegetables).

Walking total for the trip so far: 2 miles.

Ready to Leave.... Again

This is basically a test post to see if this blog is still active and see if I can still upload information.

Bryan (a co-worker) and I are set to depart in the morning for our 2 week trip through Israel.  I'm excited to return more as a pilgrim than tourist this time and have been preparing by reading the bible more and climbing what hills I can manage to find in Omaha.

The goal again is to post the day's activity at the end of each day.  Hopefully internet connections will be a little better this time and it will not take as long.

I may also not post as many pictures, so look back at the first trip for additional pictures of sites I've been to before.

Next blog should be from Bethlehem!!!

Wednesday, June 6

I've not had the best internet access the last few days so I still need to go back and fill in Monday and Tuesday but wanted to get some more information up.

We are staying in a nice hotel (nicest place yet) right on the sea.  Unfortunately the only place to get internet is inside the lobby, but I did go out wandering around the grounds some.  The highlight so far is that this has the best shower of the trip so far - both hot water and water pressure.  When you hike several miles a day and sweat so much your face is covered with salt a shower becomes the focus of the end of the day!

I did not get a picture of me fishing here yet, but I will.

We started the day with a hike across some fields in the area of Nazareth.  We hiked up to the top of a low hill which turned out to be a rock quarry.  John explained that while Joseph was described as a carpenter in most cases the original language of the bible was someone who builds things or works with his hands.  There has been very little evidence of the use of wood in building things from his time.  Perhaps short table legs but everything else is stone, rock, and pottery.  So one school of thought is that he was a stone worker who would have known how to cut stone from a quarry.  That means Jesus would have learned the same.  Jesus did use stone in his parables, not wood which may support this idea.  If that is the case then chances are they would have worked in the quarry we were in and may have helped build a palace used by Herod the great's grandson which was next to the quarry.  There are documents which say that when that was built (early AD) that almost all stone cutters in the area were used to help build  it.  Even if not, Jesus would have seen the palace since it was just a few miles from Nazareth.  

From here we traveled out to yet another mountain.  As John quipped 'you have probably learned that when we park at the bottom of a hill, chances are we are going to climb it'.  This was no exception.  He said it would take about an hour but looking up at the steep cliffs and amount of height to climb I would have guessed 3 hours at least - but up we went.  It was windy which was nice except when climbing near the edge of the trail when it almost felt we would be blown off the side.  As far as I could tell we were the only ones climbing up.  However it appeared to be a popular site for school tours as there were probably 200-300 school children we encountered in groups of 30 or so climbing down.  It did not help that the first group we encountered within the first 5 minutes told us in broken English that the way was 'not good'.  I guess the best way to describe it would be an hour and 1/2 of climbing stairs with stops about every 15 minutes so we could breath.  There was a path, not man-made stairs, but they had cut steps of sort into the hill side.  The reason we climbed the hill (small mountain) was that this was a common place for rabbis to come to pray and meet with disciples so it is likely that Jesus spent time on this spot and probably followed a similar trail if not the same.  In fact, this was the location that the bible says he met with his disciples after he rose and it was from here that he told them to go and teach all nations and make disciples of them.

All along this trip it has been so invigorating not only in body and thought but also spiritually as we have gone to all of these places.  And it seems that God also provides times for me to be able to take some time and meditate on what I've seen and read each day.  Today as I was putting together this description a priest walked into the reception area dressed for mass to get a cork screw for the wine.  I asked if he was getting ready to say mass and could I join them.  He of course agreed but let me know it was going to be in German (third mass, third language for the trip).  It was a great experience as we met in just a room with benches around the side and a table for the alter in the middle.  They even had someone playing the guitar so they could sing.  Many of the people spoke English very well and we chatted afterwards.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a very full day again with 5 biblical sites to visit but less hiking - or at least not as strenuous.  I think today we walked 5 miles - most of it up hill.

Sunday, June 3

This was a relatively easy day.  We did not have to be down for breakfast until 7 AM, only walked about 3 miles today and visited 2 bible sites.

The first stop was down near the South West corner of the Temple Mount.  Here we saw the other end of the Western Wall (saw the Northern end during the tunnel hike a few days ago).  It was above this point that the pinnacle of the temple mount was located.  A couple of items made this very interesting.  First here you could see large blocks which had been pushed from the top of the temple mount by the Romans when they destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD.  You could tell they were from the wall because they had that same chiseled pattern on them.  Second, they were sitting on the original road surface that would have been used in Jesus’ time.  It is along this road that merchants would have had stalls set up to sell food as well as animals for sacrifice.

Around the corner is the southern entrance to the Temple Mount called the pilgrims entrance since this is where most visitors to the Temple would enter.  At the bottom of the steps are over 40 ceremonial bathing pools.  Worshipers had to spiritually cleanse themselves before entering the temple area.  They think the idea of baptism evolved from this practice.  The steps to the entrance were intentionally cut unevenly – different heights, different depths, etc – so that you had to concentrate on the walk up and not just casually climb them. 

It is believed that after Jesus ascended into Heaven (from the Mt of Olives), his disciples returned to the temple area to praise God.  The bible says that ‘they were together in the house’ but as I’ve been learning here almost all words from the time had multiple meanings and they often referred to the temple as ‘the house’.  It makes sense because it says that after the Holy Spirit descended on them they went out in front of the people there in Jerusalem from all over and began speaking and all heard them in their own language.  The main place that pilgrims from all over would have assembled in an area big enough to hold them (their streets are the size of small alleys) would be on the pilgrim gate steps.

After this we were free to go explore Jerusalem however we wanted.  A group of us decided to head over to the Israeli Museum where they have a 1:50 scale model of the city of Jerusalem as it would have been in 66 AD just before it was destroyed by Romans.  It also houses a sample of the dead sea scrolls.

Pictures and more to follow…

Saturday, June 2

It is early morning on Sunday.  Yesterday was the first day I did not have a chance to summarize the day at the end of the day since John took us all out for ice cream at his favorite spot so this summary may be words only until I can get pictures uploaded.

We started discussing and tracing Jesus’ last days yesterday.  We started the morning at the top of the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem.  

Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives

This is where Jesus stopped and told his disciples to go down into the city and bring back the donkey for him to ride into the city on.  That is what we now celebrate as Palm Sunday.  Evidently the Jews believed that the Messiah would arrive on the feast of Passover and there had already been people who claimed to be the Messiah show up on that day.  That is why Pilate was in town at that time.  Normally he would have been at one of his more luxurious homes.

Probably not the same Donkey

Not even close

From there we began our walk down the hillside.  We had a great discussion about the Last Supper and then came to the garden of Gethsemane.   

It may not have been the place where Jesus prayed that night but would at least be very close.  It is one of the few placed in Israel where there are old trees.  In 70 AD the Romans came through, destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and cut down every tree as they totally destroyed the area.  It is thought that these trees were not cut down because Titus made his camp here. 

As with most significant biblical sites there is a church at this location.  I went inside briefly and found it was just at the end of the consecration and stayed to pray the Lords Prayer.  Again most of the people said it in a different language but this one is easy to follow along with.  Jenny will understand how glad I was to have stepped in at that point.

 

Entrance to cave

Not a block from here there is an old olive press inside a cave.  Many scholars believe that this is actually where Jesus spent the night with his disciples and that he prayed just a short distance from that entrance. 

We continued down the hill, across the valley, and up to the gates of Jerusalem.   The bible says the Messiah will enter Jerusalem through the Golden Gate (the East Gate).  As an example of the deep animosity which has existed in this region for ages, the Muslims, when they had control of the city hundreds of years ago, walled up this gate and then used the area in front of it as a Muslim burial ground, knowing the Jews would not be able to enter the area for religious reasons then.  There are not such overt tensions now but there still is not a sense of cooperation either. 

 That afternoon we passed the location believed to be where Mary was born and raised.







Not far from there is a church to St Anne, her mother.  The unique thing about this church is that it has perfect acoustics!  As we were coming into the church there was an oriental group up near the alter singing Holy Holy Holy in their language.  The sound filled the church and was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.  We also stood at that spot and sung amazing grace.  Even we sounded good in there.  I lit a candle for Mom there.

The steps are where people sing

St Anne and Mary

Just outside are the pools of Bethesda.  This is where Jesus met up with a man who had not been able to walk for 38 years and when He commanded him to stand up and walk, he did. 

We had the rest of the afternoon to do what we wanted.  I choose to find the Via Dolorosa (way of the cross) and follow that along to the church of the Holy Sepulchre.    It is considered by many to be the path Jesus took after being condemned to death out to the crucifixion site and also his burial site.  I had expected it to first of all be much better marked but also to have a more devotional feel to it.  Instead it is lined with shops making it difficult to walk along here without being pursued by people trying to sell you things.  The stations themselves are obscure and there were a few I never located.    In a way it gave me a sense of how along Jesus might have felt as those around him were caught up in the Passover preparation and did not notice yet another prisoner on his way to death. 

Altar of the Crucifixion

The church itself suffers from the same problems as the church of the Nativity in that it is under the control of 3 churches (Greek Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic) and they cannot seem to agree on how renovations should be carried out.  The result is the feel that the church is chaotically laid out and unfocused.  That said, it was still very moving to kneel at the locations thought to be where Jesus died, was prepared for the tomb, and was buried and rose.  I did not go into the actual burial location due to the long lines waiting to get there.  Instead I wanted to participate in a procession through the church lead by the Catholic priest ending with mass in a side chapel.  This time I think the language was Italian – still not much help for me.  As I followed along with the crowd through the church I read the passion of Christ from Mark, Mathew, and Luke (long procession).  

Place they prepared Jesus for burial

Tomb entrance

As always, the order of the mass was familiar even if the words were not and I found great peace in participating in this very holy location.

A couple of other side pieces of information…  The Romans used to play a ‘game’ called the kings game where they would take a new army recruit (these were not volunteer army members) dress him up like a king and then play a dice game where they would gamble away his lands, palace, clothes, etc. eventually ending in killing him.  Eventually they were forbidden from using fellow soldiers and instead used condemned prisoners.  It is likely this is what was described when they dressed Jesus in a robe and gave him a crown of thorns.  We saw one of these game boards etched in the floor of the old Roman barracks area at the start of the Via Dolorosa. 

Friday, June 1 - back to the desert

As is becoming normal, we visited a number of fascinating sites.  This is supposed to be our last day in the desert and that is none too soon for me.  There are a lot of interesting things to see, and this was very much the life of not only the Israelites but also for Jesus, but I don’t think I’ll complain about Nebraska heat for quite a while.  The temperature was not that bad by itself – only about 90.  But there is zero shade, no clouds, and heat also radiates up from the barren ground.  Couple that with always climbing up or down fairly steep trails and it makes for a long hard day.  But now for the details.

We started the day by leaving Bethlehem for the last time and driving down to Jericho.  This is considered the oldest city in the world – dating back to at least 9000 BC.  It is also the lowest city in the world.

This was the first city the Israelites conquered after coming into the Promised Land.  We walked around the perimeter of the ancient city just as they had been instructed to do (but not blowing rams’ horns).  It took about 11 minutes and is about ¾ of a mile around it – much smaller than I imagined.  Supposedly on the 7^th day of walking around the city they walked around it 7 times and then shouted and the walls fell down, allowing them to simply overrun the city.  They did not settle there, but instead continued in toward Jerusalem.

Excavation site at Jericho

It was also near Jericho that the prophet Elijah was taken up to heaven in ‘chariots of fire’ leaving behind Elisha to take over as prophet.  Elisha is described in the bible as having made a spring in Jericho change from bad water to good again.  That spring still flows here.

We drove a short way out of the city to a place where we could connect with the ancient road from Jerusalem to Jericho.  We hiked along this for about and hour (2 miles or so).  

Starting up to the road

It is narrow (about 3 ft wide) with one edge being the cliff edge and the other steep hillside.  This is undoubtedly a road that Jesus walked many times in his life.  It would have been the road he and his parents took to Jerusalem when he was 12 as well as the road he took when going up to Jerusalem for the last time.  It is also likely that this is the road Joseph and Mary took when going up to Bethlehem for the census, during which time Jesus was born.  It was thrilling to walk this same road but by the end I was beat. 

Along the road - note the drop off

And more hiking

Looking back from where we got off the road

 At the end of where we hiked we found the Monastery of St. George.  We did not have time to go down there.

We were heading back to Jerusalem where we will be staying for the next few nights.  Along the way we stopped in a wheat field where John explained that these would have been the fields of the shepherds in the Christmas story.  There is a narrow strip of land used to grow wheat and barley which extends from just below Bethlehem to almost Jericho.  After the harvest, shepherds take their flocks into the fields to graze.  

It was also along here also that we stopped in a cave similar to others in the area which has been used to shelter sheep.  Part of the cave is sectioned off for the shepherds to use to sleep in (the area where Mary would have had Jesus)

and the rest is the sheep pen.  It is likely that this is the type of place that Mary and Joseph had to use as a place to stay and where Jesus was born.  The Nativity area in the Church of the Nativity is a cave so that part is not really disputed.  I cannot imagine a more humble spot for such a magnificent birth!

While here in Jerusalem we are staying at a convent where they also rent out rooms.  I’m not sure if the convent used to be bigger and now with not many nuns here they rent out the rooms or if it was built for both purposes.  I have not yet found an English speaking nun so I can ask.  

There is a statue of St. Theresa the Little Flower here and I’m interested in learning the connection since that was who my childhood parish was named for.

After dinner we went down to the western wall to witness the start of the Jewish Sabbath.  Jews from all over the world visiting Jerusalem come down to participate.  There is general singing and dancing to mark the start of their day of religious rest.  I saw Russian Jews with their large black wheel shaped hats to Hasidic Jews with their traditional garb, to Israeli solders in uniform (including machine guns over their shoulders) dancing and praying together.

A gold Menorah is also located at the square.  This has been built by the Temple Institute which we visited yesterday and I'll post more information when I finish updating that day.  It stands almost 6 feet tall and includes 95 pounds of gold plating.

Dome of the Rock at night from our hotel/convent