Jan 1, 2020 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
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 maybe do some laundry, in the sink/tub…no laundry facilities for us to use. Always an adventure! The day started out with breakfast, I thought I’d give you another glimpse of some options at breakfast.
Pita with hummus, veggie quiche kinda thing, stuffed mushrooms, the egg in spaghetti sauce option, and either sweet potato of some kind, or something in the squash family, with a cheese something on top. They were also serving the cheese and fish bar as usual, salad bar stuff, and fresh pancakes hot off the griddle and eggs made to order. We are so not starving around here…
Next we jumped on the bus for a trip into the country. Down the hill toward the Dead Sea valley. We took the road that is built on the tradition road into Jerusalem. This is where the story of the Good Samaritan would have taken place. Our first stop was Masada, Herod the Great’s fortress on the Dead Sea. Next we went to Qumran, or Qumeran as it is sometimes spelled. This is where a shepherd boy from Bethlehem found the Dead Sea Scrolls in a cave in 1947. Last, we visited the Dead Sea itself for a quick swim.
I promised I would try to remember to take a picture of the necklaces that Evan and I got. We both got crosses with Eilat stones in them. Eilat is the national stone of Israel. It is blue and green, and it has been said that the colors resemble the colors of the earth as seen from space. Here’s Evan’s:
A Jerusalem, or pilgrim cross. Here’s mine:
Not a super clear picture, sorry about that. I was trying to get close enough for you to be able to see both the blue and the green in the stones. Very cool, I like it!
We also saw two fighter jets flying over the Dead Sea. This would be them flying directly over the border with Jordan. Neat to see. We also saw a large herd of ibex, and a herd of camels:
Ibex, like a deer with big horns.
A few of a good sized herd of camels.
And a shepherd on a donkey minding them.
I also wanted to show you this picture of the Dead Sea. It is VERY low nowadays, Mike says. The Jordan river, which flows into it, is drawn from for water heavily upstream, so it is not filling. It is so low, that I took this picture of some of the exposed land, that’s not usually exposed, and the Jordanian side has built a bridge out there into it now. I asked Mike about how the Jordanians would handle that area if one were to walk out there, and he said it would be ill-advised as it would be surely land-mined. Pastor said one could walk out there and meet Jesus in person. OK, good tip!!!
The last picture I wanted to share here is this sign for En Gedi. Mentioned in the Bible more than once…this is the area of Saul and David chasing and running. This area is one that David speaks fondly of, certainly his old stomping grounds. Very cool to see the terrain and the very land where this stuff happened. Gives a vivid mental picture of Biblical lands.
Next up is Masada, a non-Christian site having nothing to do with the Bible, but pretty freaking interesting historically.
Jan 1, 2020 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20, Uncategorized
Our last stop for day 3 is the Shepherd’s Field where the multitude of angels announced Jesus birth to the shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks by night.
So this area is, of course, not far from the nativity spot, just across a short valley, and the site is of the dwelling/home of the shepherd’s family, which is now a tiny chapel. The manger has a nativity in it, and there is a hole in the roof of the cave as a chimney, and other holes cut in that are skylights. Here’s a chimney picture.
Next to the cave is a church with great acoustics. We sang “Angels We Have Heard On High”, well, the glorias in excelsis Deo part anyway, with another group who was singing in the church when we arrived. Then we sang in there too, and I loved the look on a man’s face in the next group who came into the chapel after us, who obviously didn’t speak English because he was enjoying us singing a familiar tune in English as much as we were enjoying the group before us singing a familiar tune in, I think, Latin. At least that’s the way I interpreted the look on his face.
In front of the church is a fountain with sheep, cool.
Afterwards, this area, during the Byzantine time, was inhabited by folks worshiping here. There is evidence of a Byzantine church with a tile floor, and a baptismal pool. That was cool.
Then there were a series of cave dwellings that we got to walk. Or sometimes crawl through. I swear these were short people living here. Evan and I and a few other brave souls crawled through one of the larger ones. Very cool!
Yes, we were in that cave…
There’s a skylight cut into the roof of the cave.
It was neat to imagine the place where the heavens opened with angels singing and praising God.
The evening concluded with the drive back to the hotel through the checkpoint and a great supper. Super nice hotel, the Dan Panorama. I tried to stay awake for the talk with Pastor, but couldn’t make it anymore. I napped for a few hours and then woke up to FaceTime Jake and chat with some family. I blogged for a couple hours and then passed out again. Not a lot of sleep, but good. Now as I type, we are on our way on the bus to Masada and the location of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran, as well as a visit to the Dead Sea for a swim. More later!
Jan 1, 2020 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
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 on the street too as we walked to the Church, but not as aggressive as those boys trying to get us before we got back on the bus to head for lunch. Dang. The group is now comically and randomly saying to each other, “6 for $20” and we all know what it means!
OK! On the the Church of the Nativity. We entered through “the humble door” or “door of humility”, not sure which. It was made very low and small to keep thieves from bringing carts into the church and carting away artifacts. It worked, too. Definitely helped to preserve the church. It’s a low duck to get in though.
This is a view toward the back of the church where we entered. The first thing we saw was the original first century floor through a hole in the floor we were walking on, which is like 1500 years old. The floor underneath of course being more like 2000 years old.
Tiny mosaic tiles, just like the ones in Tabgha. So so so cool. There was more of this mosaic on the walls.
The monks that live and worship there are of three denominations: Roman Catholic (Franciscan), Greek Orthodox, and Armenian. They have a schedule for sharing that is governed by Jordan, a neutral party, so they don’t argue. This Jordanian entity also helps settle disputes when repairs and renovations are needed, like a new roof. These people are seriously protective. We had to wait here..
For about an hour and 45 minutes, at a standstill, while the monks did a service. The smell of incense was very strong as they carried it through, and security officers were walking around clapping at people and demanding silence. A couple scolded our group of kids for sitting down during the wait and wanting to play cards…”it’s shameful, you’re in a church,” which is fair enough given the location…but not how they did it. Then they proceeded to cut in front of our group. Really? Talk about Christians in a holy place not acting like Christians. I suppose that is not the first time by any stretch, but it was ironic. Another group also tried to cut in front of the Nigerian group in front of us and the security crew straight up HANDLED IT. They were not having it. Like riotous kind of behavior that was RAPIDLY dispensed! Those officers were not fooling around with that nonsense.
Finally, it was time for us to go down into the cave below and see the historical spot of Jesus birth, and then the historical spot of the manger.
The star is the spot He was born. They moved us through here very very quickly (because of the long lines) and then we turned around and went down to see the manger.
Our group stood out of the way in the small room and sang a verse of Silent Night while we were down there. Neat.
The walls of the cave were visible, and blackened some I’m sure by the candles burning down there.
This ornate door was on the Roman Catholic side on our way out of the cave. I thought it was neat so I’m sharing… : )
We got a very very quick glimpse into the Church of St Catherine, right outside. I loved this stained glass window.
Also the statue of St Jerome.
He translated the New Testament from Greek into Latin, so his name is on this pillar in Latin.
This is the statue of ooo. St Charles? Someone help me if I have it wrong…slaying the dragon, which is a Crusades era depiction of Christ defeating satan for his bride, the church. I can look it up sometime, but not at 2:30AM before another long day of touring!
Here is the Christmas tree in front of the Church of the Nativity.
And next is the Shepherd’s Field…but I am sleepy and need a rest, so I will finish this up tomorrow. Thanks for reading y’all! I have been surprised by how many folks have told me they are reading it! I’m honored!
Jan 1, 2020 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
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 not he might “woof” himself at any moment.
This is a wood pile that was aging. I don’t think I uploaded a picture of the machine that does the rough cuts for the carvers, it was hard to see in the picture. Anyway, we then were able to haggle for goods in their store. You don’t want to pay sticker price like a shop in America would be. They’d rip you off. You want to barter and negotiate. Evan rather enjoyed watching me do this…he had the biggest grin on his face when we were done. Mom too!
Here are a couple really cool pieces we saw.
Very neat nativities.
This one was HUGE. I think they were asking like $12,000 or so. Negotiable of course.
This was my favorite piece in the whole store…super expensive but SOOO cool!!! Solomon’s temple! With a calculator in it… Wow was that a neat piece though. I didn’t even ask how much it was. Evan and I each got a necklace with Eliad??? Stone? A stone that is only found in Israel. Very cool. If I think of it tomorrow, I will take a picture of them. After that, we went to lunch. They served us pita with plates of stuff to stuff them with, and then a huge plate of rice and fried chicken. There are American drinks too…Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite etc. Coffee and tea, and other good drinks that are less familiar but yummy.
One last thing…Israel does not have Starbucks. They have Squarebucks, and Stars and Bucks in Bethlehem. : )
OK, next up is the Church of the Nativity.
Dec 31, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
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 crystal clear. It flows out between rocks you can walk on and touch the water.
It’s surprisingly not as cold as I would have thought. Perfect temp for swimming. My son, the cat whisperer, found another cat to pet. Not as bad this time since he could immediately wash his hands in the water.
It was perfectly content to lay on his lap and give itself a bath. Anyway, the water then flows via cement canals to an area that turns into a little pool spot for people to swim in, in the summer time.
There are two more springs that feed a couple of the upper pools, and they flow over these short walls from pool to pool. Really looked fun for little ones to be able to play in. We didn’t stay long…back on the road toward Bethlehem.
Dec 31, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20, Uncategorized
So it’s the end of day three, New Year’s Eve!! Well, as I type this, it is now New Years Day here in Jerusalem!!! Happy New Year everyone! I was too tired after supper tonight to do anything other than go directly to bed. Seriously. Tired. I wasn’t really functional. I have now had an almost 3 hour nap and woke up to ring in the new year with Evan, who fell asleep less than one minute after he laid down, not even exaggerating. I got a quick 12:00 on the dot picture with him, right before he fell asleep.
It has been a good day! I woke up this morning at 4:30AM and couldn’t go back to sleep, even though our wake up call was at 5:45. So I packed, and prayed, and waited for the day to begin. We were in Tiberius yet for breakfast at the hotel, and were on the bus and headed south before the sun came up. Breakfast was yummy!
Pancakes the chef was cooking fresh, that pale rectangle thing is a cheese blintz. The round thing is a mushroom quiche with quite a bit of dill. The sesame seed triangle thing was like a croissant “grilled cheese” so had melted cheese in the center. Every morning the buffet has a huge variety of cheese and bread, waffles and pancakes, cold fish and veggies, and some other more supper-like things like pasta and au gratin potatoes. The coffee is yummy, I like it.
The sun rose over the Sea of Galilee while we were on the bus headed south toward Bethlehem. This is the Jordan River Valley and while we didn’t stop anywhere, Mike said that this area was where Jacob wrestled with God. I was hoping we would get to go to Jacob’s Well while we were here, but it is in the middle of a Palestinian refugee camp and it is a volatile area. Like if something bad happens while you’re there, they ask you to stay indefinitely. Although it would be really cool to see, not worth a risk like that!!!
Not a bad site to see! About one hour into our drive south, we stopped near Mt. Gilboa, to see Gideon’s Spring. I’ll post more about that in a minute. Then we continued south along Highway 90 toward the Dead Sea, Jericho, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. The drive was along the Jordanian border and through the West Bank. It was pretty amazing that in 1994 this was a war-torn area. Now Mike says that the soldiers who are positioned on either side of the Jordan river, which forms the border, know each other, wave to each other, and even cross over into each other’s countries for visits. At one point we saw some soldiers talking to some Bedouins along the side of the road. It was too quick for a picture. I also saw a tank with no tracks…looked like it had likely been there for the 25 years. Wild. Again, it came and went too quick for a picture. I did get a picture of a monument to that conflict as we passed by:
It’s like a missile bunker that now is a monument. Along the road we also saw the prison called “Sha’ta” which means “hot peppers.” It is a prison for political people….the hot peppers. Yikes.
This was right out front of the hotel…it looked cool. There are lots of neat things to see. I saw a teal blue hummingbird getting off the boat ride yesterday, so odd to see a bird that color. 
Here is a crop duster that was working along the road we were traveling. He was like a daredevil dude. This is also near the area where Saul defeated the Philistines (so like David and Goliath kind of stuff), and where Saul chased David around trying to capture/kill him. It was really cool to imagine the landscape of that stuff. On the way south too, was lots of farming in the valley, desert mountain areas, and bedouin shepherds. Herding goats, cattle, sheep, and we even saw a few camels and donkeys.
Didn’t get a pic of the camels. Evan took some screenshots of us on the map:
So this is when we were near Jericho and got a quick glimpse of the Dead Sea from the road. We didn’t stop…we’re going there tomorrow along with Masala. Bethlehem is just south of Jerusalem, so that’s where we went first. There was a checkpoint to go into Jerusalem and the soldiers guarding the checkpoint walked through the bus with their machine guns to check us out. It was very quick, they were nice and told us to have a good time, and that was that. Pastor said that those were the good guys with guns, so not to be afraid. Still a tad unnerving. You don’t take pictures of those guys. Going into Bethlehem through the wall was another adventure. They had no problems with us. We got a less invasive step-onto-the-bus-and-ask-us-where-we-were-from-thumbs-up kind of stop on the way out. The politics of all of that are super complicated. Mike was trying to explain it some, but it’s so much. The visas/passports in this country for its citizens is so weird. Anyway, we saw this on the way out.
And it’s blurry, but I shot this quick too…not in a dangerous way…
That’s the checkpoint guard guy with his large gun.
So quite the adventure today, and that was just the bus ride kind of stuff! Next up is Gideon’s Spring, the Church of the Nativity, a shopping excursion, and the Shepherd’s Field.
