Spring Trip to Israel

I know, I have taken forever to resume this blog but things have been incredibly busy.  Now I’m trying to play catch up on a good many things.

Israel was amazing, of course.  About half the things we did were totally new to me.  We had the legendary Harding favorite guide for Israel, Yossi.  He truly made the trip what it was.  It was awesome to be able to be in Israel for a second time. I know many people go their entire lives without being able to travel there; I am truly blessed.    

To make this quick, I will just list some of the places I visited:

·      Tel Aviv

·      Mt. Carmel

·      Mt. Beatitudes

·      Mt. Tabor (possible sight of the transfiguration)

·      Nazareth

·      Jerusalem

o   The Western/Wailing Wall

o   The Temple Mount (including walking a tunnel under the wall)

o   The Dome of the Rock

Standing in front of the Dome of the Rock.

o   The Old Market (found a store there named “Alabama: The Heart of Dixie.”)

·      Garden of Gethsemane

·      Mt. of Olives

·      The Garden Tomb (what a tomb that Jesus would have been put in looked like)

·      Dan

·      Caesarea Philippi

·      Caesarea Maritime

·      Capernaum

·      Bet She’an

·      Floated in the Dead Sea

·      Took a boat on the Sea of Galilee

·      Stood on the banks of the Jordan River

·      Hikes through the beautifully empty Judean desert

·      Into Palestine for Bethlehem

The hikes through the Judean desert were awesome.  It was so empty and wide, it was crazy!  Definitely in my top favorite things we did.

Hiking through the Judean Desert

Staying in a kibbutz was a fun experience.  Each time I felt like I was living in the DHARMA barracks from LOST (you know I had to mention Lost in this blog).  

One of those rooms was mine in the kibbutz.

People in Israel were so friendly.  You could talk to anyone.  I talked to this private guard at our first hotel in Tel Aviv.  She was 21, my age, and came from a Jewish family.  She grew up in California but moved here when she graduated high school and joined the military to do her two years of service and was now out and working as a private guard.  She was currently with a Birthright Israel group from Hungary (I think they were from Hungary.  This is the problem with blogging a month out).  Talking to her was one of the highlights of my trip.  I really got to see and understand what the nation of Israel is and what it is like to someone of the Jewish faith. 

Being in Israel does not feel like a foreign country.  So many people speak English and the entire country is really, really nice.  There were so many times we were on the highway and you could have easily forgotten that you were not in America; it was beautiful.  Don’t think of Israel as desert; that’s only half right.  Northern Israel is very green and luscious.  Jerusalem is at about the middle of the country and that is where it starts to become like a desert.  If you keep traveling south, towards the Dead Sea, then it is very desert-like.  In fact, it is a desert.    

Our Muslim camel that gave our students rides. 

It was amazing how many other countries we saw visiting Israel.  There were tons of people from Nigeria.  The funny thing was that in Israel, the temperature was about 60 to low 70s everyday.  Well, the Nigerians that stayed in our Kibbutz were always wearing huge winter coats, gloves, scarves and toboggans, even inside at dinner.  I guess it felt that cold to them.  We also saw groups from China sitting around biblical sites reading out of their Bibles and listening to their tour guide. 

Standing on the Mount of Olives looking down on the
Old City of Jerusalem.

It’s amazing to see that such a small piece of land, Israel, about the size of New Jersey, can mean so much to so many people around the world.  Think about it, everyone is focused on this part of the world.  It is important to Jews, Christians, Muslims and even followers of Baha’i.  It was awesome to be there.  I’m so excited to be able to visit there three times a year; I am truly blessed.  I know this was a very short post that doesn't do Israel justice.  Hopefully, you'll still be reading the blog this summer when I go again.  You can also check out my album on Facebook for more pictures.