Jan 4, 2020 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
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 very special first today that will surprise many of those who have known me since forever, an extra special memory. More on that later. First, let me tell you some stories about today unrelated to tour stops.
I was still not feeling great today, but let’s be real here, I was going to suck it up and go anyway, no matter what. I was glad for what I thought was going to be less walking, but still ended up well over 12.000 steps, again, more on that later. My technicolor Nike Vapormax shoes are getting a serious workout on this trip. Today we visited the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized, and Jericho, followed by the Upper Room (not actual but representative) and David’s Tomb (maybe). Lunch was in Jericho coupled with some shopping, I thought you might like to see what we had.
The beans in sauce were pretty bland, but the rice was good. Falafel is not my favorite, but it’s edible. French fries are always a hit with me, and Evan too. We both particularly enjoyed the schnitzel and fries in pita that we had a Qumran. Fried pita with olive oil is OK. Carrots and cole slaw are alright too. The soup was really good, a veggie soup with cauliflower and beans etc. The dessert cup was OK. I don’t love sweets usually. It was a kind of like coconut tapioca. We are not starving over here, but we are having some cravings! The number one craving I keep hearing? Bacon Cheeseburger. Mmmmm.
Money here is Israeli shekels. Twenty shekels is about $6.35 or so. I don’t understand the gold coins yet. Some fraction of a shekel from what I can tell.
Outside of lunch in Jericho, Evan got to have a ride from Sam, the camel. Sam gives kisses.
This is a seriously patient and gentle camel. It was cool to watch him sit down and stand up for very very short rides. Neat experience.
Out front of the hotel where we got lunch were several peacocks, including chicks. They were neat to see.
As we were driving through Jericho, our guide Mike pointed out a sycamore tree. This one was not old enough to be the one of Zaccheus fame, but it was interesting to see a representation of what it would have looked like, and that was in Jericho, the oldest city in the world at 10.000+ years.
On to the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Bum bum BUM (cymbal crash…)!!!
(Tomorrow y’all. I’m tuckered out and Evan is already crashed. Catch you on the flip side! Good night!)
Jan 4, 2020 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
(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 and am not including pictures and identifying details.
OK! This was a wonderful add-on that became available for us to do through the tour company and our guide. There are families in Bethlehem who opened their homes to us to share a meal and a conversation about their lives. We were taken by bus from the hotel for about a 30 minute drive into the area of Bethlehem. We had to cross the wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and make sure we had our passports along in case of questions. (We ended up not needing to produce them). The bus took us to a parking lot with people ready to pick us up and take us to their homes for supper. Evan and I were picked up by a man named George, a grandfather and father. He spoke some broken English, but we were able to communicate a little. None of us speak Hebrew, so we were at the mercy of them speaking English.
When we arrived at George’s home, his wife was there making a meal for us. She spoke no English at all, but speaks the language of love through food! She made us an amazing meal of chicken with herbs and a rice dish with peas and carrots. We also had yogurt and a sort of slaw/salsa mixture made from tomatoes, cucumbers, green onion, and a fresh herb like maybe parsley. My finicky eater, Evan, loved the chicken, and even tried some herbal tea after supper. I had some Arabian coffee, very yummy. For dessert we had a wafer with chocolate, like the inside of a KitKat bar. They thanked us for the gifts we brought for them, candy for the kids, spices, and a sampler of Jack Daniels Whiskey.
Their daughter-in-law Mary was there as well, with 2 of her sons, and she spoke fluent English. We learned that she was a physical therapist, just like one in our group! So the two of them “talked shop” a little bit. We found out that Mary wanted to be a midwife before she went to college, but her father said no; he thought she would not want to have children after seeing childbirth and would never marry, so he refused to let her take this path. The way she told the story was funny! I also learned that therapist’s like me don’t really have work in this part of the world. It’s not something that is done. It was fascinating to hear Mary speak of their culture and lifestyles.
So she chose from the ~dozen fields that were offered inside the West Bank area, because to study outside of the wall is not allowed unless they completely leave. The government will not allow them to leave for study or even medical care outside of the wall unless it is something that needs a specialist that isn’t available inside. So she chose physical therapy for her path, and enjoys the work she does. There are definitely difficulties with this area, particularly for Christians, as the number of them is dwindling here. Mary said that there are only around 37,000 Christians inside the wall now, around 1% of the population. They are leaving because of the difficult circumstances for Christians in this area. The majority of the population is Muslim.
Mary’s younger brother returned home from work while we were there and brought us some crosses made of olive wood for a gift. He runs a laser cutter at work so is an olive wood craftsman. As we finished our meal, we hugged and squeezed back into George’s car. Such a pleasant meal was had by all, and so wonderful to meet Christians in this part of the world. Really, a highlight of the trip, for completely different reasons!
Jan 4, 2020 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
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 diamonds are a currency that you can carry in your pockets if you need to flee. It was interesting.
Next, we went to the house of the High Priest, Caiaphas, which was the first trial of Jesus. After Judas betrayed Jesus and the soldiers came to arrest Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was taken to the home of Caiaphas. While this was happening, outside of the house Peter was denying that he knew Jesus. The mosaics and artwork in this church depict the denial of Peter and the rooster crowing.
This is the door to the church with Jesus in the blue and Peter taking the stance of “not I, Lord, I will not deny you.” There is another statue of this on the other side of the church, which I could not get a great picture of because there was a group around it the whole time I was in the area. 
This is above the door, neat.
Just one of the murals in this lovely church. My favorite artwork in this church was on the ceiling though. Check out this cross.
So beautiful. Caiaphas was the High Priest, an important man, so it is a sizable area, and in those days, if you were going to have a would-be criminal in your home, you would keep them in the cistern, like a prison. So Jesus would have been lowered into what is now called “the sacred pit.”
In the same room now is this statue of Jesus in chains.
In order to lower Jesus into the cistern, He would have been put into this hole, which was later, during the Byzantine times, marked by three crosses.
So this plaque tells us that there are crosses here, but when you go down into the cistern, the sacred pit, you can look up and see them in the opening.
While we were down in the cistern where Jesus was held, one of the men in our group read Psalm 88. Pastor said he believes that this psalm, written long before Jesus was born, captured Jesus’ feelings in this particular moment. Whenever we feel alone, abandoned, heartbroken, afraid…we have a Savior who knows exactly how that feels. He felt it most acutely this night, not only betrayed and abandoned by His closest friends, but also feeling the weight of all of our sins on Him…the wrath of God. We closed our eyes and felt the dark silence of this place. Yes, I cried again, but by now I’m carrying tissues everywhere.
As we leave the house, we see steps from Jesus’ time, that He would have used at least twice during that 24 hours. Once into the house, and again when He left for the Antonia Fortress to face Pontius Pilate. These are original steps, the real ones. We could walk down a few of them.
After leaving this area we walked back up the hill a bit to an overlook area. Along this walkway was a few poinsettias.
I was surprised to see them there, but thought they were beautiful. From the overlook we could see this:
So, see this green area of prime real estate in the middle of Jerusalem…NOT developed? This is known as Potter’s Field, the field that was purchased by the high priests with the money that had been paid to Judas to betray Jesus. Since that was blood money, it was cursed or unholy ground, so it remains undeveloped to this day. It was used after the time of Jesus for the burial of poor people and criminals.
Next up is the supper we ate with new friends in Bethlehem, a wonderful addition to the trip, and so interesting!
Jan 3, 2020 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
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 one of these spots nowadays it will run you a several million dollar donation. Yikes.
When people visit loved one’s graves here, instead of flowers, they leave rocks. Some of them had many rocks on them.
Soon we are down in the Kidron Valley coming into the gate for the Garden of Gethsemane. Not large really, maybe 25-30 meters squared that is fenced off so you can’t walk through.
There are many old olive trees in the garden, but the oldest dates back to the time of Jesus.
Next to the garden is the Church of All Nations, or the Church of the Agony, and the altar is behind the rock Jesus prayed on. It is a dark, but incredibly beautiful church.
The entrance.
The other side of the entrance…soooo pretty.
There were several cross stained glass windows like this inside the church. Beautiful.
The rock thought to be the one Jesus prayed to the Father on, asking Him to take this cup from Him, but “Thy Will Be Done.”
Above the Altar.
The front of the church.
OK…this was where we broke for lunch and drove up by the embassy for yucky pizza. I need to go to bed, and Evan just got back from playing cards in the lobby. Just to immortalize it and drive a friend crazy…Evan beat TJ in golf (cards) in two 9-hole games. TJ won a quick 3-hole shootout so he could sleep tonight. You’re welcome, TJ. : )
Jan 3, 2020 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
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 guy, he’s a great driver and has not hit one thing despite incredibly tight corners for such a huge vehicle. It’s seriously impressive. Anyhow, we walked down it, like I said, steep, and hard on the ole knees.
About half way down, we stopped at another church called Dominus Flevit.
This is a church that honors the scripture that talks about one of the places Jesus wept. Here is where he looked back and Jerusalem, and wept for her as it says in a couple of the Gospels, one spot is Luke 13:34. The church was closed when we arrived, but opened just in time for us to peek in for a bit. We had a devotion here, so of course I’m balling. From this vantage point, pastor pointed out, you can see the Garden of Gethsemane right below, the gate that the soldiers who would arrest Him came from, and the ease with which Jesus could have fled from them and went over the side of the Mount of Olives to Bethany to his friend Lazarus’ house and disappeared. It would have been so easy. But He didn’t. He allowed Himself to be arrested. It was so easy to see from this spot. Now, back to Luke 13. Jesus wished He could gather His chicks like a mother hen, and this is the art on the altar of the church.
Very neat church, designed to look like a teardrop.
And the inside like tears running down.
Ok…as we continue down the Mount of Olives, we reach the Garden of Gethsemane. Keep in mind…at this point, we haven’t even had lunch yet.
Jan 3, 2020 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
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 the steps leading up to the Dome and ultimately the Holiest of Holies, which is thought to be “somewhere” up there, although the Muslims believe it is inside the dome. The Jews won’t come any closer than the WW because they don’t want to accidentally step on the Holiest of Holies. So the Temple Mount is on Mount Moriah, where Abraham intended to sacrifice Isaac. The rock at the very top was also a threshing floor back then. It is near Mount Zion, and the Mount of Olives is also right across the Kidron Valley to the east. Seeing it in person really helps drive home the geography of the Bible in ways I didn’t expect. Super interesting.
This very expensive monument is thought to cover the place of Isaac’s would-be sacrifice, had the angel not stopped him. It cost an exhorbitant amount of money with no expense spared. There have been incidents up here because of it’s religious importance, so there were armed police around and security checkpoints again. They used to not let people up here for awhile because of an incident, but recently began allowing it again. I was grateful for the opportunity to see it, even though we were not allowed to enter. We could walk all the way around it, though, which we did.
We exited the upper courtyard and Dome of the Rock area through the arches on the east side. Right outside of that was the Beautiful Gate, or the Golden Gate. Also not in use today, but we could see it from the inside.
There were olive trees growing inside this area too, as we made our way north to the north east gate, the Lion’s Gate, called that because it has two lions on it. I also thought it was neat to find out that this was the gate that the sacrificial lambs were brought into the temple through. The Lion and the Lamb. Anyway, here’s where we walked out.
See the lions to the right of the top of the door? There were two just like it on the other side, too. From here we could see the path of the Triumphal entry. This is the ride Jesus took on the donkey on Palm Sunday.
It’s the road coming down the hill to the right of the building. This is the Mount of Olives which also holds the Garden of Gethsemane. The top of this mountain is where we went next. Here is the view from there, from the other side of the Kidron Valley.
Completely different perspective on the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount. We were just over there, what, 15 minutes ago? Granted we took a bus and the walk would not have been that easy, even if it were still a mountain covered with only olive trees as it was back in Jesus day. Next blog…
