Sun. Nov. 12, 2007
It is hard to believe that by tomorrow night we will be back home with the ones we love. But this also means that we will be leaving the ones that we have learned to love: the members of our group (they have become our little family) our guides and bus drivers and all of the fantastic people we have met along the way. We keep running into members of the Benny Hinn tour group. I have no idea who Benny Hinn is, but I've been told that he is some famous t.v. evangelist (like Billy Graham?). Anywho, apparently there are 1800 (yes, you read that right) people touring with this group, so we are seeing them wherever we go. The people I've talked to have been so nice, and they are certainly visibly excited to be in the Holy Land. This morning we took taxi's back over to the Western Wall. We were able to tour a recently excavated tunnel that runs further along the Western side of the Temple Mount. Any time you dig in any spot in this area, an ancient cite is discovered. And if you were to continue to dig, you would find even more. Like they say, every stone has a story. At the end of the tunnel we walked over to the Arab cemetary, built right at the foot of the Golden Gates. The Arabs are burying their dead here in order to prevent Christ from entering the Golden Gates at the Second Coming, since the tradition is that a Jew would never walk through a cemetary of a Gentile. As if that would stop Him!
It is hard to believe that by tomorrow night we will be back home with the ones we love. But this also means that we will be leaving the ones that we have learned to love: the members of our group (they have become our little family) our guides and bus drivers and all of the fantastic people we have met along the way. We keep running into members of the Benny Hinn tour group. I have no idea who Benny Hinn is, but I've been told that he is some famous t.v. evangelist (like Billy Graham?). Anywho, apparently there are 1800 (yes, you read that right) people touring with this group, so we are seeing them wherever we go. The people I've talked to have been so nice, and they are certainly visibly excited to be in the Holy Land. This morning we took taxi's back over to the Western Wall. We were able to tour a recently excavated tunnel that runs further along the Western side of the Temple Mount. Any time you dig in any spot in this area, an ancient cite is discovered. And if you were to continue to dig, you would find even more. Like they say, every stone has a story. At the end of the tunnel we walked over to the Arab cemetary, built right at the foot of the Golden Gates. The Arabs are burying their dead here in order to prevent Christ from entering the Golden Gates at the Second Coming, since the tradition is that a Jew would never walk through a cemetary of a Gentile. As if that would stop Him!
We went into the market where there are many colorful shops selling their wares. We ate Falalfals (Jewish hamburger, ha ha), many in our group shopped for sovuniers to bring back home and we even walked the ramparts surrounding the Temple Mount. We hit the taxi's just as the heavens opened and poured out rain. We have had the greatest weather for this whole trip, and it didn't start to rain until we were all done--how lucky is that?
A quick word about the food--it's pretty much the same, where ever we go and no matter what time of day: morning, noon, and night it's rice, chicken, beef, fish, huge selection of salad items (cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, etc.), some fresh fruit (kiwi, apples, persimon, pears, sometimes bananas), humus, yogurt, selection of breads, hard boiled eggs (sometimes scrambled), cheese selection and desserts. Yesterday we walked down to breakfast and it smelled different: pancakes! with syrup! and yummy omelets! As Taylor Hawkins would have said, "It was a party in my mouth!" Steve and I acutally paid for some french fries and ketchup today, we were missing our American food--pretty sad, huh?
Monday, November 12, 2007
I am taking a quick minute to finish this blog while waiting to board our plane to come home. This has been such a fantastic experience and I say to all my friends: Come to Israel! It is safe, it is awesome, you will remember it for the rest of your life. Boka Tov and Shalom!
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