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!
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.
Dec 28, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20, Uncategorized
Well, we made it! What a marathon. We’ve been up for I don’t know how many hours, but still haven’t slept yet. We arrived safely, took us awhile to get through the line to have our passports checked, but then the tour company greeted us and were ready to load us onto the bus for the hotel. Tonight we are staying at the Ramada in Netanya. Very nice room. We are on the 7th floor overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. We got to walk along the sidewalk above the shore a bit and have a quick photo shoot.
Our rooms weren’t quite ready when we arrived because it is the Sabbath here, hence the quick walk, even though we are exhausted. We are going to dinner tonight yet too, they advised us not to go to bed as we would wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. I don’t think they know how long my boy and I can sleep when inspired like we have been. We are in the room now though, and already had a quick shower to rinse off, and headed to supper. The planes were all super hot, lesson learned…wear cooler clothes, so we needed the rinse off!
Supper buffet was really yummy. Local fruits and veggies, the salad bar was yummy with guacamole and hummus with bread and some pea and carrot salads. The dessert bar was mostly little petit fours. There was beef tongue and spicy salmon and other fish on the main menu, I hear. None are my favorites. The potatoes and corn were good though.
Tomorrow we are scheduled to see Caesarea, Megiddo, Nazareth, and the Sea of Galilee, if memory serves. We are staying the next two nights near the Sea of Galilee. Thanks all, for the prayers and well wishes!
Here are a few pictures.
First sunset on the way from Tel Aviv to Netanya. Shot from the bus at high speed, sorry!
The Mediterranean as we were coming into Tel Aviv. There is a God and boy does He make pretty pictures! Sorry, I don’t know how to change the orientation yet…
First glimpse of Tel Aviv from the air.
What a cool building.
First glimpse of the Mediterranean from the ground…almost to Netanya.
Again with the God thing…He was showing off today!
Another glimpse of Tel Aviv from the air.
So I know this is a crappy picture, but right below the no-smoking sign to the right of the cord is a rainbow. We were flying down the highway when I took it and had to go fast before it was behind a building. Rainbow on the first day! Yay!
A walk on the sidewalk next to the Mediterranean right outside our hotel in Netanya.
More pretty sunset.
Evan took my pic by an “I love Netanya” sign, but didn’t get the words in it…doh!! ; ). Lots of compliments on my snazzy shoes…in every country we’ve been so far!! Evan can’t stand it…he thinks it’s giving me a big head. I just told him I have excellent taste in shoes. He hates that. I love it!! LOL. OK, off to bed now, more tomorrow!
Dec 28, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20, Uncategorized
We have arrived safely in Vienna! Whoa was that a long flight. We stood up and walked and went to the bathroom one time for about five minutes, the rest of the 8.5 hours we were seated, sardined in. Evan said he lost part of his soul during the flight. I’m still feeling excited though, albeit with a serious case of tired rear end.
So it’s morning here, even though it is the middle of the night back home. Perhaps because we have been flying 700 miles an hour toward the sunrise for the past 8 hours. It was cool to watch our position on the map and see what we were flying over, even though we couldn’t see anything.
Our flight for Tel Aviv leaves in around an hour. Then we will have a bus ride for not sure how long, to get to the hotel. Evan and I will likely skip supper tonight to sleep through. We have some protein bars, and prefer that and sleep to the alternative. We had a fast food kind of chicken sandwich here at the airport, meh. Not great, but we’ll live!
OK, I’ll see if I can post some pictures too. Next stop, Israel!
Good Morning from Vienna!
Dec 27, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20, Uncategorized
At the airport! Just checked our bags for the first leg.
The morning went smoothly, even though neither one of us could sleep much with the excitement! We are at the airport now, eating lunch at Granite City. We got through the first, most lenient of our checkpoints, and had our first devotional and blessing as a group. We number 29 pilgrims in our group, all together.
We are hoping that Chicago goes smoothly as we have to recheck our checked bags there, and in Vienna as well, and hoping we can use our special pillows to get some rest on the flight. So far they have let us keep our snacks, so we’ll see how long that lasts.
Dec 23, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20, Uncategorized
Hi all! I’d like to invite you all to follow along as my son and I travel to and around the Holy Land for two weeks from Dec 27, 2019 to Jan 10, 2020! I will plan to post blogs regularly while we’re gone; I’m going to shoot for at least once daily. I hope you will enjoy reading about what we are doing as we see the sights in this amazing part of the world. Stay tuned, I’ll be posting more soon!
