Israel Day Two and Three!

Day two – Gorgeous morning run. Passed the fruit stand and ran up hill to the city, kfc was quite a humorous thing to see…back down passed the VW dealership and down the hill / freeway! Back up the hill along the hillside and to the hotel, down a dirt road by cattle and around the hill were most of the valley could be seen! TRULY BREATHTAKING, just as I always envisioned Jesus and his followers walking on!!!

Day two was filled with great sites. We traveled Mt. Carmel, where Elijah called down fire from heaven, the sea port of Caesarea which was the beach home of King Herod, the ruins of which served as temporary homes for day time fishermen. It was an amazing structure that even included an amazing swimming pool (compliments of the ocean of course)! We went to Megiddo which according to prophecy will be where the last battle of Armageddon will take place. A very unique experience included visiting Nazareth Village where you walk into the land and a presentation much like Jesus would have experienced growing up. The Baptism service at the Jordan was interesting, I didn’t realize how small the Jordan really was and so much Scripture came to life by seeing the geography of the land on this day.

Day Three
Stops included Sea of Galilee, Capernaum, Mt. of Beatitudes, Boat Ride, Fish Lunch, Beit Shean, Jordan Valley and overnight in Jerusalem.

Today was an AMAZING day! I started the morning with a 10 mile run along the Sea of Galilee…breathtaking (I will post pictures via facebook later). I meet a man from Austria and had a very interesting conversation. A great start to an awesome day!
The food at the second hotel was amazing, but enough about that…

Capernaum was the location of Peters house, a mansion compared to the houses around it. To me two events stick out from this day. First, the Mt. of Beatitudes was an amazing reflection on who Jesus taught us all to be! I have so much to work on where my thoughts here…the church at this location was GORGEOUS!
God used some very effective means of communication to speak with me today, especially at the boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. Remember this is the place where Peter is given so much grief for sinking after he took his eyes off of Jesus…lets give credit where credit is due, at least he got out of the boat!
The fish was fried, but the waiter asked for mine to be baked. It was good, but I really loved seeing the expression on Sarah’s face when they served the WHOLE fish eyeballs, head, tail, and all deep fried to everyone sitting around us!
It truly was an amazing day…what a blessing going here has been!

Day One – Planes, Busses, Treadmills, and a Fruit Stands!

Shalom!

Day number one of Touring the Holy Land has quickly come to an end. Today was mainly an entire day devoted to traveling. Our first flight was delayed three hours so we were all anxious to get to Newark to meet the rest of our group, not to mention the comfort getting off of a propeller plane into a 777 Jet would bring us! We arrived at Dulles airport at 2:15ish and finally arrived in Israel 3:45 p.m. if your trying to do the math don’t forget the 7 hour time difference. The great news is the second plane was roomy for me, and the guy sitting in front of me didn’t shove his seat in my face, which was nice for a change.

After arriving we took a bus ride, it was very nice, peaceful, in fact so peaceful I had difficulty keeping my eyes open. We arrived in Nazareth and had dinner here at the hotel. Dinner was interesting!

The hotel has a pretty decent fitness center, and by decent I mean I can run on their treadmills and not EXPLODE them…I kind of have a reputation for exploding cheap treadmills if your wondering...

I ran 10k in just under 45 minutes…it was very nice to get my blood circulating. The flights were actually nice, the people seem amazing, but the highlight of the day so far for me is the fruit stand that a small group of us just walked to.
The fruit is AMAZING!!! I picked up oranges, apples, grapefruits, pamagranet, and strawberries were what I picked up…

Tonight we are in Nazareth, tomorrow morning I will run in the land where Jesus walked…Tomorrow we go to Cana, Nazareth Village, Megidido, Mt. Carmel, Caesarea, I will be baptized in the Jordan River, and we will spend the night near the Jordan River.

I am sure tomorrow will be a day full of amazing things…I will keep you poosted!