Our flight left at 6:15am from Tel Aviv.  Last glimpses of Israel from the air.  We boarded the bus for the airport at midnight and rode for around 2 hours to get there.  We went through line after line after line to get through customs and immigration and checking...

Last stop on the tour train is Bet She’an.  It is the world class in terms of it’s examples of Roman ruins/cities.  The city here really is something to see.  Pretty amazing.  Here is the model of the area. There is a theatre and a couple of hippodromes just like we...

You may remember me mentioning Mt Gilboa when we visited Gideon's Spring.  Mt Gilboa is nearby to the spring.  This is the mountain above the valley where Saul and David met Goliath and the Philistines.  The exact place is not known, but Gideon's Spring is still...

What a God-thing.  We only got to go to Mt Tabor because of the rain.  It really ended up being a special trip.  We left on the bus and could see the mountain as we approached. We drove through a Bedouin town on the way up.  Eitan tells us that this particular town is...

This is our last day of touring, and whoa what a doozy!  We went to another place pastor had never been before.  First thing in the morning we went to the place I wanted to go to the second most.  The place I wanted to go to the most was Jacob’s well, but that is...

This area is where my screen-shot of my map was taken...way up north in the Golan Heights, almost to Lebanon and Syria.  This place was a place of massive pagan worship to the Roman gods, particularly the Roman god Pan.  So Pan had himself a bit of a fetish, he liked...

So if you remember way back to Tel Megiddo, the word “Tel” means that it’s an area that has been built up, one civilization on top of another.  In the case of Megiddo, it was 26 layers, one on top of another.  Here at Tel Dan, it is two.  The original buildings and...

Day 10, again, was a bit slower paced, and we spent longer at our two destinations with more hiking involved.  Thankfully, I was feeling a bit better this day because we did some walking.  I think I ended up with north of 14.000 steps.  These two sites were worth the...

Our guide for the hike extension, Eitan, had gone to live on a kibbutz when he turned 15.  The one he went to is on the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, and we happened to drive right by it, so he took us for a tour.  A kibbutz is a community that runs with...

We get off the bus and enter the walkway down towards the Sea of Galilee...another site built right by the water. We are immediately greeted by peacocks and other migratory birds as we’re walking toward the spot where we will eat our box lunches picnic style. Of...

I was surprised by just how moving this place was for me.  When we were told where we were going, I thought it would be neat, but we really have seen a lot of ancient ruins by now, and they all look kinda the same.  The story is what makes them so special.  This place...

I can’t remember if I talked about Mr Arbel on the first day we toured or not.  We walked along the valley on day 1 I believe, looking up at the caves that people lived in, in Jesus’ time.  Bedouins and Jews lived in the mountains between Nazareth and the Sea of...

What a busy day, Day 9!  Lots of cool stuff to talk about today.  One of the highlights was off the tour path...Pizza Hut!  After a busy morning of touring, we got to stop at an Israel supermarket.  Evan and I got some cereal, some Coke, and some Oreos to get a little...

We don’t know where Jesus’ first miracle of changing the water into wine actually occurred, other than it was in Cana.  There is a church in Cana, still a hopping city, that honors this first miracle.  There is also a wine shop capitalizing on it, too, that we may or...

(Sorry, whomever that is that I captured their “good side.”) : ) Not far from Nazareth is the ancient city of Zippori.  I must admit to not seeing very much of this particular site because I was feeling the worst, physically, this day.  I think there is a lot more to...

As I mentioned, right by where we petted the kitty, our first stop on Day 8 after the drive back up to Nazareth was the Orthodox Church of the Annunciation.  It is not known for sure where the angel appeared to Mary to give her the news that she would be Jesus’...

Today we had a comparatively lighter day.  Some travel in the morning as it was time to leave Jerusalem and travel back up north to stay in Nazareth.  We had a very nice hotel at the Ramada in Nazareth, best food yet...I loved the little footballs of deliciousness...

This is a newer site, found in the late 1800s I believe.  This area was being excavated for something else until ruins were found here.  The people that found it and subsequent scholars agree that it is maybe not the tomb of Jesus, but they can’t rule out that it...

We went to a small area of the Israel Museum where the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept on display.  Well, some of them.  I am sorry to say that we were not allowed to take pictures of any of the scrolls that we saw because camera flashes degrade the parchment, so we weren’t...

Pontius Pilate judged Jesus in the courtyard of the Antonia Fortress on the northwest corner of the Temple Mount.  At the time, the courtyard was open to the sky, while now it is covered over to be the foundation for housing above.  Thankfully, they preserved the...

After we went back outside of the church by the ladder no one will move, we went through another doorway and entered a deserted courtyard. These tiny green doors are entrances to the rooms of the Coptic monks that live here in the church.  They open up into larger...

This is going to be a marathon.  I may have to break it up into components because there is so much here.  Choosing pictures to narrow down to is almost impossible because of the richness of the content.  I’ll do my best. We start early in the morning by walking...

Today was quite the day.  It was our last day with our tour guide, Mike.  On day 8 we switched to the “hike” and got a different guide, but retained the same sababa (awesome) driver, Hasim.  Hasim has been a driver for 15 years and it shows.  Dude is amazing at...

Jericho is the oldest city in the world still inhabited.  We’re talking over 10.000 years here.  Our tour guide, Mike, is a Jericho boy, and he had no shortage of good things to say about his home town.  He says the weather is the best in the world, year round.  We...

I learned some stuff today.  Well, to be honest, I’ve learned a lot of stuff every day I’ve been here, but this one is special.  I didnt know, for example, that the place where Joshua brought the Israelites into the Promised Land was the same place where later Jesus...

Definitely a highlight, although it is impossible to choose a favorite.  I talk with my clients often about how the path out of the thinking that is stealing their peace is like the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  It reminds me of the scene in “The Empire Strikes...

Day 6 was a bit of a travel day.  We went to Jericho and the Jordan river and then back to Jerusalem for a little more touring before heading back to the room a little earlier than some days.  It was a great day!  While this trip has been loaded with firsts, I had a...

(Before I continue, one brief note...if you are a person I might text normally, I have not been able the send or receive texts for the last 24-36 hours.  Don’t worry, I’m OK...just can’t see or send texts.) Also, to protect the family’s privacy, I changed their names...

After lunch, we got a tour of the Caprice Diamond, hmm, headquarters maybe?  We got to see a $230,000 5 karat diamond in their showroom.  The Jewish people have been in the diamond business for many generations because they have long been a people oppressed, and...

This will have to be my last post tonight, I still feel crummy and have to get up in 6.5 hours. As we continue down the triumphal entry road, (dodging the random car here and there) we see on either side...cemeteries.  Mike tells us that if one wants to be buried in...

So next we walked down from the top of the Mount of Olives along the road of the triumphal entry.  Scary road.  One car width and STEEP.  Let me tell you, the drivers here are crazy and are not afraid to use their horns.  Our bus driver Hasim included.  We love that...

In the upper courtyard there are trees and birds and kitties once in awhile too.  Evan is becoming known as the cat boy because he pets the kitties wherever we see one.  That’s my boy!  Cool to see the trees on top planted in the terraces. Our crew took pictures on...

So it is so hard to pick favorites...again, this is up there for me because I did an entire, lengthy Beth Moore Bible study on this next one.  We went back out of the Dung Gate, and walked around the southwest corner of the temple. We went to the south side/wall of...

So I redid the Tour Life Day 5 post and added the rest of the Day 5 stuff, so make sure you go back and read that one!  : ) We got up very early in the morning to see some things before the crowds got bad, and OHHHH was it worth it.  Mike is the MAN...he knows his...

Tonight is our meal with the family in Bethlehem.  We won’t get back until around 8:30PM local time.  Today we had almost 10.000 steps in before lunch, and I have caught the cough that has been going through the bus.  I cannot promise I will blog tonight, as there was...

Our day today ended with a short swim in the Dead Sea.  Evan and I both opted to not get all the way in, but got wet up to our knees.  The water was cool, but not freezing, and felt like baby oil on the skin.  People were walking around slathered with mud, which one...

Qumran is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947 by a shepherd boy who was originally from Bethlehem.  Fitting!  The scrolls were scriptures on scrolls that were remarkably close to the translations of Bible we already had, but just older.  Mike said that the...

Masada is the location of the Dead Sea fortress built by Herod the Great around the time of Jesus, the first century, when he ruled up until 4 AD.  What slays me is that this entire place was built for Herod to have a place to hide if the Romans or any other enemy got...

Happy New Year!  Welcome to a new decade...the roaring ‘20s!  Whoa right?  Today was Day 4 of touring, a slower day tour wise so we could breathe a little, not walk quite so much, (only 7,000+ steps for me today!) and get back to the hotel a little early to nap and...

I forgot to mention re: shopping...in Bethlehem are lots of, shall we say, street vendors?  Let me tell you, these guys are AGGRESSIVE.  I’m glad a friend who has been here before warned me to prepare myself to say no SEVERAL times before they backed down.  They were...

We got to stop at a place that manufactures 65% of the Holy Land olive wood sculptures and see their workshop. This dude was doing finishing carving and varnishing.  No mask, and a cigarette burning.  It was a tad unnerving, wondering about his lungs and whether or...

I made that title plural, because we actually saw three springs there.  The first one is the neatest...check this out: Sorry the pic is sideways again.  The back right corner of the cave shape is where the water gushes out, at a pretty good clip, too.  The water is...

This is up there for me too.  Jesus home during His ministry years, and the home of not only Jairus, as in Jairus’ daughter who was raised from the dead by Jesus, but also the home of Peter’s mother-in-law...so Peter’s home and the site of the very first church of...

Yep, this is near the top of the list for really amazing spots, for Day 2.  Lots of days to go with lots of neat stuff to see, but this is pretty darn cool if you ask me.  So I didn’t know what this was either, but I know the Bible stories.  Cast out your nets on the...

I can’t say I knew much about what this was until we got there, but the stories from the Bible relating to it, I did know. The most prominent one being that this is the place that is said to be where Jesus fed the 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish.  The church that is...

I tricked you...I’m going to slip in a quick post about some other things before Tabgha.  We had a box lunch planned from EO today.  Let me tell you, do they feed us.  I could have literally had three meals from this lunch box.  Check it out. What the heck...how much...

Another very emotional stop for me...you can’t believe what I’m about to show you.  Still in awe myself, and I saw it live and in person.  Our last stop before lunch was a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee.  Our guide Mike had brought a big bag of leftover bread for us...

Next up was the ruins of the town of Chorazin.  There are different spellings, but this was the spelling in my bible.  This site was particularly neat because we were allowed to roam around in the excavated ruins, and there was almost no one else there.  It really...

Well, I have to admit, I got really emotional on a couple of the stops today, and this was one of them.  Our first stop of day 2 was the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus preached His sermon about who are blessed.  I couldn’t even make it through our devotion, it was...

Last stop before the hotel today was the Church of the Annunciation and St Joseph’s Church in old-city Nazareth.  This would have been Jesus’ home town area.  The Church of the Annunciation is in honor of where Mary lived at the time the angel came to visit her to let...

After lunch we went to Mt Precipice.  The corresponding Bible reading is Luke 14, when they wanted to throw Jesus down and kill Him.  Let me tell you, the average Joe would not survive being thrown over the side of this thing, there are really nasty jagged rocks all...

Still before lunch today, we went to Tel Megiddo.  Tel means like “mountain”.  It’s the foundations of 25 cities all built on top of one another, so it’s up a ways now, like a mountain.  The oldest part of the excavation was the gate to the city from 6,000 years ago,...

We did a very very short stop to see the remnants of the aquaduct system used to get fresh water to Caesarea.  Water traveled 5 miles from Mt Carmel to provide water to the city.  It was a short stop, but cool...we collected some neat shells on the shore and got some...

Our first stop today after leaving Netanya was Caesarea to the north.  Caesarea was built up just before the time of Jesus around 22BC.  It was built as a port city by Herod the Great.  This is the Herod that was not real excited about the birth of a new king rumor...

Well, we made it through our first full day of touring.  I thought I would share a few non-tourist-destination type things.  For example, the food.  I’ve eaten more than a few things I don’t recognize, and a few things I do. Last night’s buffet at the hotel was...