Hey guys, day 3! This post is brought to you by my dad. Love to all... ~Laura We started our day by visiting the ancient city of Dan. It's located in northern Israel at the headwaters of the Jordan river. The tribe of Dan was alotted the land by Joshua (Joshua 19:47) and settled in it. Time passed, when King Solomon died, the kingdom of Israel divided in two, the northern tribes going with Jeroboam. Since Hebrews were required to only worship in Jerusalem, he built temples in Bethel and Dan so his kingdom wouldn' t wander away. The main gate used during Jeroboam's time... The original city gate made of mud brick that Abraham likely walked through. The townspeople buried it beause stacked stone is much stonger. It remained buried until 1983 when it was rediscovered. It is in pristine condition... Next we journeyed Mt. Bental which currently is home to a U. N. observation post. They monitor Lebanon, Syria and Israel from there. We could hear artillery and heavy weapons fire from Syria. There are bunkers and trenches left from the '67 & '73 wars. We saw the U.N. soldiers keeping watch on villages, including those under control of ISIS, and we saw military trainees enjoying lunch and ordering coffee, carrying their M-16s. After a lunch stop at St. Peter's fish... We visited Capernaum in the afternoon. The ruins pictured a 5th century Byzantine synagogue built on top of the 1st century one. Then it was back to kibbutz Ein Gev for a refreshing swim in the Sea of Galilee.
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Yes, I know I'm really behind on posting. But here is the rest of day 2. So after we left Megiddo, we stopped to go into a tomb. No, there were no bodies. Since this isn't a monument or anything, we got to crawl around inside it. This is a first century family tomb, and it had 5 niches for bodies. There was also a room with a hole in the ceiling but I'm not sure what that was supposed to do. It was fun though. After our short tomb excursion, we went to get coffee. There was a McDonald's. They didn't have big macs... That is just sad. Then we went to Mt. Precipice. This is the place that the crowd tried to throw Jesus off of for claiming to be the messiah. The view was amazing! After that, we went to lunch at the Canary Resturant. Lunch was great. Then we went...well I don't really want to summarize so just read this. Ok well basically this church was where Jesus fed the 5000. The church and landscape was very pretty 😊 The last place we went was the Mount of the Beatitudes. It was another gorgeous church and view.
Hey guys, it's day 2! This morning we went to Megiddo. It deserves its own post. Here goes... Megiddo starts out in a facinating Solomonic gate. Basically that means that the gate is shaped like an E and soldiers hide in the little niches. This, naturally, goes into a lot of ruins. I'll put a few photos of the city... Megiddo overlooks a valley where the battle of Armageddon will supposedly take place. Yeesh. It was beautiful, though. We continued our tour and saw an old cistern where they stored grain Next we saw a palace and stables. The last thing we did in Megiddo was to go into the water system. So awesome!
Hey all, We have arrived! Here is how day 1 went. Day 1 started out on a plane. We flew straight from NJ to Tel Aviv. On the way, we flew over Greece Hey look, it's Mount Olympus! (I actually have no idea. I left my topographical map of Greece's mountains at home. Darn.) Soon we were to Tel Aviv. And you thought Israel was a bunch of sheep and rocks. Well it has that to. Anyway, we landed. Yay for people movers! Note that if the pictures are really small, sorry I can't edit them. Just zoom in, k? Thanks. Then, we got on our tour bus. Our tour guide is named Shafik. The first place we went to was Ceasarea. Ceasarea is the city that Herod the Great built. It's most famous for its harbor. The first thing we saw, though, was Herod's theatre. Then we saw some ruins and rocks. THEN there was the harbor. Those guys are our pastor and another person. If you can see, there is no sand. It is literally all seashells. Then we left through a crusaders gate. Some interesting architecture stuff
After that, we went to lunch at the Druze Resturant. We ate rice, pita, fried lentils, and goat and chicken kebabs. Also other things I think. Then we went to Mount Carmel. This was the place where Elijah dumped water on his sacrifice and God sent fire. This opened out onto a view of the Jezreel Valley. So beautiful! Next we went to our hotel, which is called a Kibbutz. They served a great buffet.
Hi people! I'm in an airport! Whoa, let's back up to about...6:15 am. That's when our friend picked us up And took us to the airport. (Thanks Karen) We got through security pretty quickly, and soon were on our (very small) plane Don't know if you can see that. Anyway, soon were in the air. And in the clouds. Until we got to Newark, NJ Ok, for my Newsies fans (hi Davey) here's the Brooklyn Bridge And the skyline of NY Then we landed. I will be in layover for another hour and a half, then we fly. I won't post again until tomorrow night. Love you guys. Bye!
~Laura (Update: I did originally post this in NJ but their airport is terrible and doesn't have free wifi so the pictures didn't load) Hey everyone!
Welcome to this blog. I really thank you for reading. I wish I could bring every single person with me, but unfortunately, that isn't possible. So this blog will help send a little culture back. Here's 2 quick things you can do. 1. Pray for us. That we get everything packed today, that we have a safe flight, that we will learn a lot and grow in our faith. 2. Leave a comment! I would love to hear from you while we're gone. I'm going to miss everyone and it would be great to see how your life is going. You can also email or text (Please note we won't have data in Israel so we won't be responding very quickly) Hopefully, the plan is to do 1-2 posts a day. They will probably come out at a weird time since I won't be able to post until we get back to our hotel. I will mainly be the one to post, but my mom or dad will probably do a few posts too. The posts will probably be pretty long, since I am planning on taking a lot of photos. : ) Anyway, if you check the blog about once a day, you will be caught up with what's going on. I'm rambling. I've never done a blog before. Hopefully this isn't a disaster... ~Laura |
AuthorThis blog is mainly written by me (Laura Walkendorf,) and also by my parents. Archives
April 2017
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