Today (Thursday) was a damp rainy day, but it did not prevent us from seeing the things on our tour schedule.  Early in the morning we went to the Mount of the Beatitudes where we had a morning worship service with Steve Green and Chuck Swindoll.   Then we went to the city of Nazareth.  Today it is a bustling city, but in the center, there is a re-constructed village of the small hill country town of Nazareth as it would have looked during Jesus time.  This was to show what life would have been like during Jesus early years.

When we left there, we drove through Cannan, where Jesus performed his first miracle of turning water into wine at a relative's wedding feast.  There was a church there that hosted many weddings, and lots of wine shops selling 'Miracle Wine'.

Then it was on to Capernaum, were we saw the ruins of the synagogue where Jesus did most of His teaching during 2 years of his ministry.  This place also had the house of Peter's mother in law, which now has a Catholic church build above it.

Our main event of the day was late this afternoon when we were both baptized in the Jordan River.  We don't have any picture of this, since we were both in the water, but I think we can get one from others in our group. 



Here is the synagogue where Jesus did most of his ministry teaching.

 

This is inside one of the shops at the Nazareth village

 

This is the church at the Mount of Beatitudes

We had our first full day of touring Israel today.  We went north from Tel Aviv to Caesarea along the Mediterranean.   This was the home of Pontius Pilot while governor of Judah.  We sat in the outdoor theater where Paul argued his case before Festus before going to Rome in chains.  We had a 1/2 hour worship service there.
Then we went on to Megiddo, the ancient city on the hill where, among other things, David looked down upon the battle with the Philistines under Saul, and later defeated Goliath.  Many other battles took place in the Jezrel valley below Megiddo through out the Old Testament.
Next we went on to Mount Carmel where Elijah had the big show down with the prophets of Baal.  There is now a monastery built on the spot where God rained down fire from heaven.
Finally we went on to Gideon's spring where God shaved down Gideon's army from 32,000 to just 300 to defeat the Midianites.
Tonight we are staying in Tiberius on the shore of the Sea of Galilee where we will spend the next couple of days.  Tomorrow is a boat ride on the sea, and late in the afternoon a baptismal service near the mouth of the Jordan river.
Our tour guide on the bus is a native to Israel and a student of OT Biblical studies.  He is a wealth of information, connecting the Biblical accounts with the history we are looking at as we go.  Its going to be information overload.  But is gives you a whole different perspective on what God has been doing through out history with is people.
Unfortunately the internet connection here is very very bad, so I was only able to post a couple of pictures.  The first is Elijah at Mt Carmel and the theater at Caesarea.

Made it to Tel Aviv.  We sat behind some Hasidic Jews in the plane from Vienna which makes for an interesting story.
We are staying the night at the Royal Beach hotel across from the ancient Joppa port where Peter had his vision of unclean food from heaven, and Jonah decided to run from God.
We will be here just one night in Tel Aviv and have a welcome diner with Chuck Swindoil later this evening.
Here is a picture from our balcony on the top floor of the hotel.  And a shot of the city facing the other direction.

 

Time to finally get a shower after 30+ hours of travel. 

It is 9:25am in Vienna, 5 hours ahead of Youngstown.  We made it this far successfully.   Got some really bad tasting apple juice in the Vienna airport.  Waiting for the 10:25am flight to Tel Aviv.
So far, so good.

Day one of the trip is so far uneventful... which is good.  We had a relaxing ride from home to the airport, with a stop at Bob Evans for Breakfast.  We were early enough to the airport that the check-in desk wasn't open yet, so we had about an hour wait.  After checking in we found our way to terminal B and had a difficult time choosing between Max & Erma's and 5 Guys for a late afternoon diner.  Max & Erma's won out since we have a 5 guys at home.  We are now about 2 hours to boarding, then will be out of touch until tomorrow evening, Tel Aviv time (6 hrs ahead of EDT).
We met up with about 15 other people so far on the same trip, so we are expecting quite a group.  Everyone is very nice and as excited as we are.

See you from Tel Aviv!

Well it is Sunday Morning and we are anxiously awaiting leaving tomorrow morning for the Dulles Airport in Washington.  We spent the day yesterday packing and going over lists to make sure we didn't forget anything.

Today we are going to go to church with our children and grandchildren at Victory Christian Center to spend some time with them before leaving.

Well, its 2 weeks before the trip.
We received our packet of information from Inspiration tours last week and have been trying to digest it all.  There is a wealth of information about the travel itself, like how and what to pack, where to be when, etc.  Then there are several books on the Holy Lands with devotional material to prepare you spiritually for the experience.   We are looking so forward to walking in the footsteps of Jesus and his disciples.  It will be so cool to put visual images with the things we have been reading for so many years.
I am uploading a picture here of 3 of our grandchildren just to see how this works.

Us at Whitehouse Farms, fall 2013

So, I figured out how to post pictures.  It takes a while to upload pictures so there probably won't be many.

Until next time....  

BTY; its 72 in Jerusalem today.