Traveling Day

Our flight left at six this morning so Kory set his phone alarm and I put in a wake up call for 1:30.  When the phone rang this morning I just lifted it off the receiver and said, “Thank you” and hung up.  Kory checked his phone and said it was one o’clock so he went back to sleep.  I thought it was odd to get a call so early.  A few minutes later I got another call, but it was from Runar, the guy organizing our trip, and he was wondering where we were.  Everyone was loaded into the bus and ready to head to the airport.  It was then I realized the hotel didn’t make the wake-up call I requested and when Kory set his alarm, he forgot there was an hour’s time difference between Israel and Norway so his alarm didn’t go off either!  It was two o’clock!  We all made a mad dash out of bed, grabbed our things and ran downstairs with our heart’s racing and our eyes barely open.  It’s not how I like to start my day, that’s for sure.

Both Kory and I had trouble sleeping last night because there was a horn honking repeatedly just outside our window for a very long time around midnight.  Today is some kind of celebratory day in Jerusalem commemorating their victory in 1967 over getting their city back from Palestine.  There is a lot of extra media in town right now because of that, and our guide thought perhaps that had something to do with the riot we saw yesterday on the Mount of Olives.  Today we are pretty sure it had to do with the horn honking too because apparently someone left some kind of “package” at the bus stop right in front of our hotel so the police were called in and they blew it up.  The bus stop windows shattered in the process but at least no one was killed or hurt.  Jerusalem is not a safe place, but I guess America has its problems, now too.  We are glad to be back in Norway.

Kory and I got pulled aside in security at the airport in Tel Aviv.  They x-ray all the luggage coming in and if they don’t recognize something, they open the bags.  For me, it was a pair of binoculars and Kory’s suitcase had a book in it.  Much ado about nothing.  Security is unreal in that place with at least six check-points and three security screenings before getting on the plane.  Insane.

We flew into Vienna again but had to rush to catch the flight to Oslo, so the day went much quicker than the travel day getting in to Israel.  We had just an hour to kill in Oslo but everyone was so tired by then we all just sat like lumps on a log and didn’t do much.  I had a little chat with Eli, the sister to our tour group organizer.  She lives in Trondheim and has four kids, so she very much enjoyed some time alone with her brother on this trip.  She was telling me some of the Norwegian customs she thinks are a bit odd, like all their formalities, stand-offish behavior, and unwillingness to acknowledge those who strive to get ahead.  She also said it’s considered rude to call someone on the telephone and interrupt their day, when a text message will do.  I guess that’s why everyone here sends text messages so much.  I always thought it was to save money, but now I know.  She also said it’s against the law to neuter animals.  I always thought people just didn’t do it, I didn’t realize it was against the law.  She agrees with me on many of these strange customs – they just aren’t nice.  So we had a good yak and then it was time to fly home.

The crisp coastal air greeted us like a refreshing splash of cold water when we stepped off the plane.  The sun was shining and I must say, when that happens, there is nowhere to be that is more beautiful than our little city in Norway.  What a welcoming sight.  We took the bus and were back home in less than an hour from when we landed.  We unpacked a few things, had a bowl of ready-made Rømmegrøt for dinner (sour cream porridge) and then went to visit Tante Kari to show her the video of Kaleb’s baptism.  We didn’t visit too long because both Kory and I were walking zombies, but she was still thankful we stopped by. 

Kory and Kaleb were in bed early, but Kaleb asked me to wash his “Baptism” t-shirt so he could wear it to school tomorrow.  It takes HOURS to wash a load of clothes so I’m forcing myself to stay awake so I can hang it to dry before I go to bed.  I realized now I should have bought two of those t-shirts – one to wash and one to wear – and I’m sure I can throw out half his clothes because it seems he won’t be needing them anymore.  He already hung his baptismal certificate up in his room and he put a poster of Jerusalem on his wall between the top bunk and the bottom one.  Funny boy.  I’m glad he’s mine.  We had a wonderful trip, but it’s always good to be home.

(Most kids snuggle with their Teddy Bear when they fall asleep.  Kory is in love with his I-pad.)

Our Last Day in Israel

The morning started out on a somber note as we took an hour to tour through Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum here in Jerusalem.  It was about as good of a field trip as a homeschool mom could hope for.  Kaleb learned much about politics, religion, prejudice and man’s inhumanity to man in just one swath through that place.  He had a lot of questions afterwards, which was a good thing.  We bought a couple books there that will hopefully extend the lesson once we are back home.  Security was tight, as it has been everywhere we’ve been here.  Soldiers, police and security cameras have invaded this land more than any enemy army, I’m sure.  (See photo below of all those female soldiers.  Nils-Petter is checking them out!)

Our next stop was supposed to be the Mt. of Olives and then we were to walk down the hill into the Garden of Gethsemane, but just as we were approaching the top of the mountain, a riot was happening.  There was a huge crowd of young men carrying on in one big street brawl and our driver was worried they would be throwing rocks and creating trouble we didn’t need to be part of.  Busses were backed up coming from the other direction.  We watched some of the crowd run away, but Gillie, our driver,  still chose to go by another path and skip that area altogether just to be safe.  He drove us right to the Garden of Gethsemane, which means “oil press” so it was obviously full of olive trees in Jesus’ day and still is to this day – many of them ancient. 

We watched the lizards scampering around among the rocky paths and garden plants and enjoyed the shade of the olive trees before taking a peek into the church that stands over the place where Jesus supposedly prayed the night before he died.  The streets around that place made it anything but peaceful as the traffic was jammed and horns were blazing.  I think Israelis think the horn is one of their gears on the car and it must be used often.

We missed our chance to see the overview of Jerusalem from the Mt. of Olives which was a disappointment for a few in our group and we also ran out of time to see Hezikiah’s tunnels, which was a big disappointment to Kory, but he was glad to know at least it’s now open to the public.  He was in there forty years ago only because he asked some local kids where it was, but it was in no way accessible to the general public like it is today.  Oh well, at least he saw the hotel he stayed in back in those days, so that made him happy.

We walked to the Old City and in through the Lion’s Gate of Jerusalem and then down the Via dela Rosa, the path that Jesus took on the way to his crucifixion.  It took a while to get through it all as we stopped at many of the churches that have built some form of memorial in honor of the many different aspects of that fateful day.  Some were simple, some were downright gaudy.  The one over-the-top one was of course the one where the Greeks believed was the actual spot where the cross stood.  That place was also packed but the line to get in to see the hole in the floor where they say is precisely where the cross stood, wasn’t too bad.  None of us chose to kiss the floor in some ritualistic pilgrimage, however.  Norwegians are just too practical for that kind of thing.  They even had some slab of marble made into a shrine that people were bowing down and kissing because it was supposed to be the slab where they laid Jesus after they took him down from the cross.  It’s shocking how people desire so much to be around these supposedly holy things, but miss the point of holiness altogether.  If they understood it, they certainly wouldn’t be bowing down to kiss something symbolic, even if it were the real deal.  Ugh.

Halvor gave us all kinds of information about designs of the chapels and churches, what the murals represent, who made them and what year.  That guy’s brain is better than Wikipedia and Google, combined.

Some of us women were hoping for a little time to shop in the Old City, but we had a 3:30 appointment at the “Garden Tomb” so we couldn’t linger.  I was able to pop into a few stores while Halvor was giving a lecture here or there to buy just a few quick items I spied as we stood there, but I could have used an hour just to stock up on some Christmas presents.  The prices were very cheap compared to that store in Bethlehem, but oh well.

About a hundred years ago some guy from England decided that he found the “real” “place of the skull” where Jesus hung on the cross and was buried.  So now Jerusalem has double the pleasure.  Actually, Halvor said the Garden Tomb is a category four location – total hogwash – but you can’t convince the volunteer guides otherwise.  What it is great for, however, is to show how a local garden looked and what an ancient tomb looks like that was cut into a wall.  It also provided a cool and shady spot in which to have communion and spend some time in prayer.  Those aren’t bad things at all, and the surroundings really did bring scripture more to life, so it was good in that way.

The group (minus us) went out for Kosher food tonight.  The hotel food isn’t all that great so they opted to have one last good meal in Jerusalem before we leave.  We aren’t picky and are happy to eat anything we don’t have to cook ourselves, so we didn’t mind dining alone in the dining room.

We are calling it an early night since we have a wake up call at 1:30 in order to catch our flight out at six in Tel Aviv.  Some of our group just might try to stay awake the whole time.  I guess security at the airport is brutal as they go through every little thing in all our luggage so we have to allow time for that.

All in all, it’s been an incredible trip.  There are things we all wish would have been a little different (like cooler days), but I’m pretty sure everyone was glad they came and this group was certainly an easy one to travel with.  I’m not much for group tours but I’d do it again in a heartbeat with these guys.  I hope they feel the same about us.

Oh (not so little) Town of Bethlehem

Today was our day to see Bethlehem.  It’s a city under Palestinian rule, so our guide, Halvor, was unable to take us in.  Our driver had connections, so once we got in through the border crossing, a Palestinian Christian guide came aboard our bus and started telling us about his city. 

It’s a walled city, with barbed wire on top.  It’s just like the old days when people built fortified walls around their town to keep it safe, only it wasn’t the Muslims that built the wall to keep the enemy out – it was the Jews that built the wall to keep the enemy in.  Weird.   Our driver told us it costs a million dollars a kilometer to build such a wall, but it’s the only way the Jews feel safe, and there are police with machine guns at each entrance point out of the city.  They have really beefed up security in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, (which is right next door, actually) because after the suicide bombers had their peek in the year 2000, tourism dropped off from two million visitors a year to Israel, down to only 200,000, so many businesses failed during that time.  Now they have recovered from that blow and are doing well again, but with much caution in the wind.  It’s amazing though, how chopped up Israel is with different areas controlled by different factions. 

Some in our group had a hard time understanding our new guide because his accent was pretty strong and he talked fast, but if I clued in enough, I understood him.  He was a funny guy.  He first took us to Shepherd’s Field, which is one of the three big communities inside the walls of Bethlehem.  It’s quite developed now, but right next door is still an undeveloped ex-shepherd field where we were able to see where the shepherds were actually “keeping watch over their flocks by night.”  Of course, the actual place where the Greek Orthodox believe the angels appeared to the shepherds, has a church built right over the top of it.  It is in the general area for sure, and easy to understand the significance, but these “actual spot” places just seem like ancient tourist traps to me.  We got to go down into an excavated shepherd’s cave in order to see how they may have lived and that was cool, literally.  (The photo below is of our group, standing near a shepherd's field in Bethlehem with Jerusalem in the background on that hill. - Double click on any photo to enlarge it.)

All the bus drivers and tour guides get kickbacks from certain stores if they take their busload of tourists there, so we had the obligatory stop at one of those places inside Bethlehem.  The guide swore it was a Christian owned store and we would be helping to support the 20% of Christians left in his town (50 years ago there were 75% Christians there), so we stopped.  I became suspicious of his intentions when I saw the big Muslim “eye” symbol right smack dab over the entrance to that shop.  Any dedicated Christian would have a cross there, but maybe I was wrong.  I didn’t buy much.

We were just killing time anyway because it was Sunday and our real intent in going to Bethlehem was to see the place where supposedly Jesus was born.  How anyone can know the exact spot is beyond me, but for centuries anyway, people have designated this one little hole in the wall to be the birthplace of Jesus.  Churches have created their own form of idol worship in doing so, so it was a bit sad in that regard. 

We had to wait a good hour before they opened up the basement (photo above was taken in line while waiting) where the star lies in the floor  (below) that is supposed to be over the spot where the manger was.  The church, which sits over the top of this place, is now owned by three different denominations, with the Greek Orthodox owning the biggest portion, the Armenians a small piece and the Catholics, one wing.  Each set of monks has to have their little procession in front of that star each Sunday and then “cleanse” it before visitors can come in.  Weird.

Once the line of tourists got going, it went very slowly, as two by two, people descended into the narrow stairwell and fell at their knees to kiss the floor that covers over the place where Jesus was born.  I find it hard to believe they can pinpoint a two foot by two foot square on the earth and say, “this is Holy because He was born right here” and just five feet away “this is where He was placed in the manger,” and the exit stairway was “the place where the wise men came to visit him.”  Yeah, right.  They may not have come for two years after he was born… so all this idolatry was just freaky.  

The worst thing was the “Milk Grotto” which was a place we thankfully didn’t see.  The Catholics found a white rock very near the manger sight and said that Mary spilled some of her milk while she was feeding Jesus there and God turned it into stone.  Now women travel there to receive a blessing for good milk production and healthy babies.  It kinda ruined the whole “Church of the Nativity” thing for me when I found that out.  But the fact is, Jesus was born in Bethlehem and we were in Bethlehem today “and it was good.”

Our guide had his own spin on Jesus being born in a manger, too.  The way we tell the story in America is that it’s a little shameful that Jesus didn’t even have a decent place to be born, being in with the animals and all, but our guide, who is a multi-generational Bethlehem resident, said with great pride, “… and they put him in the stable to be with the animals to protect him and keep him safe from Herod, so he wouldn’t know where he was.”  First time I’ve heard it explained that way.  So he was not ashamed there was “no room at the inn.”  I guess everyone has their side to every story. (Photo above is inside the church built over the "manger.")

We were told the reason they know this place is authentic is because in the 300s (AD) the mother of Constantine converted to Christianity and wanted to find the three most important places in the life of Jesus.  She traveled to Israel and found pagan temples built over the sight where Jesus was born, where he died and where he taught his disciples.  She was told the pagans didn’t want people coming to worship Jesus at these important sights so they tried to convert people back to pagan worship, by building temples at these exact locations.  She tore them down and had proper Christian churches built there.  And at one point her church was torn down at Bethlehem but later rebuilt. When invading Arab armies came to tear it down again, as they did with all churches in the area, they found a mural painted on the outside of the church of the three wise men, and they were dressed in the same kind of clothes they were wearing so they thought it was a holy sight for Muslims and left it standing.  Ok, then.

Because of the long wait to go in and see the “Star” in the floor of the church, our guide told us that he often takes tours to the church, but they have no time to wait to see the star.  Not that long ago he had a group from America come on tour with him and it was clearly written in their itinerary they had no time to see the star, but just the church.  They were of the “ugly American” type and they began to yell at him and make a big scene as they wanted to see that star.  He couldn’t do anything about it and finally lost his temper and yelled back.  It wasn’t a good day for him, especially since that same afternoon he had another group from America with the exact same restrictions.  So, he got clever and took them to the church, but only the part that’s owned by the Catholics so they didn’t see the Greek Orthodox side and all those standing in line.  He told them this was the spot where Jesus was born.  They asked to see the star.  He told them it was out getting repaired.  They believed him and were satisfied.  He then told us not to repeat that story because he was a certified tour guide and they aren’t supposed to do such things.  Oops.  We all had a good laugh over that one.

We had to have our passports at the ready when we exited Bethlehem and reentered Jerusalem.  Soldiers came on board our bus and gave us the once over.  I was glad for that and also glad to have gotten into Bethlehem in the first place because it was closed when I was here last so I didn’t get to see a thing.  But surely, it needs only to be a once in a lifetime experience.

Gillie, our driver, took us back to Jerusalem to see the Old City.  I didn’t realize it’s only six miles between the two cities.  Everything is really close here and every little hill and valley has its own name so it may seem like it’s a different place far away when reading it in the Bible, when really, it might be just a block or two down the street.

Halvor met back up with us and gave us the low-down on the Western Wall of the temple in Jerusalem and then we all got to go say our prayers there or tuck our list into the cracks of the wall.  God promises his eyes and heart will always be there so it’s sacred ground and those requests are thought to be powerful ones.  Kaleb sat on Kory’s shoulders, trying to find a crack that wasn’t already full in order to hold his prayer requests, which included the names of all his unsaved friends, and that “I will become more Christ-like.”  It made me teary-eyed.

We then got a tour of the old market place in Jerusalem and a few other history lessons from Halvor before we got on the bus again and headed out to the campus of his training center on the backside of Jerusalem.  We passed by the “road to Emmaus” on the way.

Halvor and his wife got a “call” from God to set up this Hebrew language school to teach translators “the language of the Bible in the land of the Bible.”  As we have seen this past week, actually being in the Holy Land makes the scriptures more alive.  The majority of Bible translators have never even visited Israel, let alone lived here, so he offers a six month course to help bridge that gap.  Their goal is to get the Old Testament translated too, since most other translators just work on the New Testament.  His wife is a language professor and they operate under the Dept. of Education at the local University.  Halvor does the Biblical geography part of the learning and knows everything there is to know about archeology. He only does a few tours for tourists like us each year.  What a treat that we got him.  Kory and I decided to support his ministry after this, as it’s definitely a much-needed work of the world-wide church.  They get most of their funding from Finland, since his wife is from there (but grew up in Tiberias).   Two years ago a group from Finland shipped them a two-story log cabin kit, then came and assembled it, so now they have a fabulous Scandinavian “hytte” (cabin) as a central meeting place.

Sadly, though, one of their students from Scotland, who has been living in Africa over twenty years and learning a very difficult language there, was killed by the only bomb that’s gone off in Jerusalem in a long while.  It was just two months ago.  She was passing by a bus stop at precisely the wrong moment.  Halvor presided at her memorial service and they haven’t really gotten over the shock of that whole episode yet.  But God had a plan and the fact she was a Bible translator was in the news a lot when she died, so they are hoping some good will come from it.

We left Halvor’s place with a prayer and a song.  Kaleb was thrilled it was his favorite Norwegian song, “Uten deg”, lead by Adrian, the guy that baptized him.  The words, when translated mean, “Without you, I am without hope, but with you I have everything.”  Isn’t that the truth!  And Kaleb was also thrilled that today he got the silver necklace we ordered for him for a baptismal gift – it’s his name in Hebrew – inside the Christian fish symbol.  He is wearing that with much pride, along with the t-shirt he got the other day that he refuses to take off.  He seems genuinely pleased to be here and we are all a bit sad that tomorrow is our last day.

Wandering in the Desert

There is most certainly a God in heaven, and He rained down blessings on us today – literally.  We woke up to rain in Jerusalem!  Quite unusual for the locals, but just the ticket for us, if you ask me.  It cooled things off considerably and today it only reached 90 degrees.

We were out of our cushy hotel pretty early this morning to get a jump on the desert scene.  Because it’s the Sabbath, most tourists head out to Masada and the Dead Sea since nearly everything is closed in the city.  We were among the hoards today, but it really didn’t present a problem for us.  Perhaps our guide was peeved at the other guides that yelled to their people while standing right next to us at Masada, or our bus driver got peeved by tight parking places and so many buses, but this is where ignorance was bliss and we just went about our merry way as if this is how life is in the desert. 

Our first stop was actually the Ahava factory next to the Dead Sea where they make truly the world’s best lotions from the rich minerals found right next door.  I bought some hand lotion 15 years ago and gave it to some friends as a gift and they still talk about it and I still remember it, that’s how incredible it is.  I bought 12 tubes of it today and they threw in an extra one for free.  Oh, happy day.

JJust a little south from that stop is the historical sight of Masada – a place were 1,300 years ago (or so, as I can’t remember all the details), a group of Jews were escaping obliteration by the Romans, and hid up on the top of a plateau in the middle of the desert.  King Herod once had a mansion there, so it was well stocked with dried foods and water cisterns and this group of Jewish families kept the Romans at bay by pulling up the ladders that are required to access it and pelting them with stones when they tried to come up.  Unfortunately, the Romans were a determined lot, and built forts all around the base of that mesa, full of 10,000 soldiers, who started building a ramped road up to the top.  When they completed the road and it was a sure bet they were going to break through the fortified walls, all the Jews killed one another so they wouldn’t be taken into slavery.  It’s not a place mentioned in the Bible, but it sure is an important sight in Jewish history.  Kaleb was a bit bored with it, but otherwise the rest of us were rather intrigued by the tour.  We all took the gondola to the top where Kory bragged that 40 years ago he ran up that hill in 24 minutes.  The record now is 18, but most take 45 minutes if they walk it.

The Dead Sea was calling our names after we were all dripping in sweat from the high desert.  Actually, the breeze up on top of that plateau was rather refreshing, so it wasn’t as miserable as I was expecting it to be.  But the Dead Sea water, even salty and slimy as it is, was a welcoming experience.  Halvor pointed out the land of the Moabites right across from where we were, where Ruth came from.  It’s just weird to think about these Biblical places as being so close and so real.  That Halvor, he knows every inch of this land and who lived there from what year to what year.  How he keeps all those dates straight in his head is a modern wonder.  Of course, if he were wrong, none of us would know, but it’s still impressive.

The level of the Dead Sea has dropped significantly since I was here last, and unbelievably since Kory was here 40 years ago.  It’s of national concern, since all the water from the Jordan River is being syphoned off for agriculture.  But the minerals are still there so we weren’t disappointed with our dip into the Sea.  Kaleb thought it was just a hoot that he could sit down, as if in a chair, and stay there.  It took a little balancing to lie back and get his feet out of the water.  If he lost his balance, he’d risk getting his face wet, which is quite dangerous since the salt content is so high, eyes sting and noses burn something terrible.  He was careful to wear sunglasses to protect from any splashing.  We all got in and it was so nice!  There was a hot spring mud bath there too so many just rolled around in the mud like pigs.  I covered my arms and legs and face with it and let it dry as long as possible so now my skin is soft as a baby’s butt.  It’s easy to see why so many beauty products are made in this area.

Kaleb was sorely disappointed we stayed just over an hour at the Sea.  “What could be better than this?” he kept asking.  Whatever was ahead of us was lost to him because he’s decided he needs perhaps three days of just floating on the Sea before he’s had enough.  Too funny.  It will be yet another day he will never forget.

Not far from the beach we were at, was the entrance to Qumran, a place recently built to display the cave where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1940s.  They have now excavated the sight of an Essene village right there, also.  John the Baptist was thought to have come from that sect – it was basically a writer’s colony as they just wrote day and night – their own stuff as well as copying scripture.  For whatever reason, probably the threat of invaders, they stuck some of their writings in clay pots and hid them in nearby caves.  A shepherd boy was out looking for his lost goat two thousand years later and he tossed some rocks inside a caves (the hills here are literally covered with caves).  When he heard the rock make a funny clinking sound, he went and checked it out and discovered the ancient scrolls.  Once they were determined to be authentic, the other caves were searched. That’s where they found the one cave with the complete text of Isaiah in it, which silenced all skeptics that say the Bible has changed over the years.  It was word for word the way it is today, so it too, is an important historical find in this Holy Land of Israel.  Hallelujah!

We journeyed back into Jerusalem after our stop at Qumran.  We passed many Bedouin camps that are nothing more than sheets of metal leaning against thin wooden frames, and that’s their home.  They tend the sheep and goats for a meager existence.  Kaleb saw three goats all standing on top of each other, reaching the leaves toward the top of the tree.  Talk about desperate!

We checked into a new hotel tonight and had just enough time to clean off the sweat and grime from the day before we all had dinner together.  After dinner the rest of the group went out to find a sports bar to watch some big soccer match tonight between the two top teams in Europe.  Kory and Kaleb opted for playing chess on an I-pad in our room while I posted my blog and tried to load some photos.  We all have our priorities.  The lobby of the hotel was completely packed all night with many Jewish and Catholic groups doing their own thing – singing hymns and chants and gathering together or coming and going.  It almost felt like a scene out of the Star Wars bar, with all kinds of attire and  headdresses, but not quite.  It was crazy busy though.

As we were driving through this desert region today, Halvor began to tell us how the 23 Psalm really reads in Hebrew.  It’s much easier to understand its significance when we are tootling around in the place it was actually written.  What the English translation calls “green pastures” really means “rare patches of grass” which are anything but green in this land, but they are indeed, rare, so the sheep would certainly appreciate them.   The “valley” of the shadow of death is really a “ravine,” which there are plenty of around here and they could all mean death with the loose surface gravel and with wild animals once roaming this place.  And the image of “still waters” takes on real significance when most of the time when water is present in the desert, it’s raging and causes flooding, since it’s an all or nothing kind of deal.  In fact, Halvor told us that some of the seeds that have been found in the desert will actually sprout in a matter of minutes if put in one’s mouth, and they will nearly come to bloom shortly thereafter because they are so desperate for water and conditioned to having such a short reproduction window.

Kaleb also queried Halvor again today on some of the other phrases he says when he prays in tongues.  Kaleb is now certain that he is speaking Hebrew when he prays.  One of the phrases he says means “to do something” and another means “educated” or “smart person.” He was pretty proud of that one, but I reminded him, he’s not praying to himself when he prays, he’s praying to God.

Halvor has a special ministry here in Jerusalem for those who want to learn Hebrew so they can translate the Bible into their own language.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Kaleb becomes one of his students one day, as he’s very smitten with this whole language thing. 

I think this has been the best family vacation we’ve had to date.  It’s certainly been meaningful, spiritually, but also just incredible on every level imaginable.  And there’s more yet to come!  Hallelujah!

Our group overlooking Jericho.

Baptism Day

We were notified that today was the day for baptisms in the Jordan River, last night.  I was worried Kaleb might chicken out, but he actually got very excited about it.  So after breakfast this morning, we checked out of the hotel in Tiberias and got on our bus, which took us down through the Jordan Valley.  Our first stop was the baptismal sight that was built by some Baptists from America, and a group here in Israel. It’s located at the very south end of the Sea of Galilee just as it flows into the Jordan River.  The river there has enough water for people to actually get dunked.  Further down, there is so much water taken for irrigating crops, it might be hard to get someone’s feet totally wet near where Jesus was believed to have been baptized – not far from Jericho.  It doesn’t look much like a river at all and is difficult to see as it winds on down through the Jordan Valley into the Dead Sea.

So, Kaleb had butterflies in his stomach and his heart was racing, he said.  He was all smiles as we approached the sight.  One other woman from our group wanted to be baptized, but Kaleb went first.  Since Pastor Mark didn’t come along, he said he felt comfortable having Adrian, the Worship Pastor at Agape, do the job.  Adrian went to Bible school for three years but isn’t an ordained pastor, nor has he ever baptized anyone before, but no one seemed to mind.  Rune said that in Norway, anyone can baptize anyone else, so it was fine with us to go along with the Norwegian rules here in Israel.

The fish in the Jordan River were nipping at everyone’s feet, so it created a bit of a commotion, as Adrian and Kaleb got in the water.  The other distraction were the river otters, or nutrena, swimming near everyone (I’m not sure which critters they were but there sure were a lot of them in that area!)  Unfortunately, Kory and I both viewed the whole thing through the lens of a camera – me taking photos and Kory filming, but it was still a sight to behold.  We didn’t know that Kaleb was being filmed by the company that runs that place, so we bought a good CD of the whole thing immediately afterwards.  (One can never have too much documentation of certain events.)  It was a pretty exciting moment and my heart was racing right along with his.  It’s one of those days he will never forget – Hallelujah!  And it looked so angelic with the white robes and all.  Adrian got Nils, a beefy guy in our group to help him, as he was worried about the whole dunking part, and not getting them back up out of the water, so it did look a little funny have two big guys helping one small boy, it’s better safe than sorry.  Halvor said sometimes they have to close that baptismal sight because the water is raging so much that people could actually be swept away.  That was not the case today, though.

Kaleb wouldn’t take a shower all day, as he wanted to hold on to “water” and the memory as long as he could.  We bought him a t-shirt that said, “I was baptized in the Jordan River!” and he wore it all day.  I doubt he’ll take it off for a while, as he’s pretty proud.  We are too.  He kept saying to himself all day with a bit of an astonished tone,  “I got baptized in the Jordan River!”

So after the other baptism was done we were back on the bus again, driving toward Jericho.  We stopped quickly at one spot nearby where an arena was discovered in some guy’s back yard where many Christians were martyred – torn apart by the lions for their faith (see photo of our guide telling us about that place.)

Jericho city is now under Muslim rule so sometimes it’s “open” (not dangerous to enter) and sometimes it’s not.  We would have had to hire a Muslim driver and Muslim bus company to get us in there, just to be safe, so they opted to stick with the cool guy we already have and just take a peek from a safe distance, up on a nearby hill (see photo below).  We had to travel through a Jewish settlement to get there, which was surrounded by guards and barbed wire fences.  People here have yet to learn how to share or get along, and that is evident everywhere we go.  Sad, but Biblical.

I found out today that it was 100 degrees yesterday at Capernum.  No wonder we were melting.  Today, it was 108 when we stopped for lunch near Jericho.  Uff.  The area around Jericho is just dry and rocky, but where there’s water, it’s truly an oasis in the desert.  We passed date palm farms, we saw melons growing, turkey farms, artichoke fields, tomatoes in greenhouses, you name it, they grow it, plus citrus and many of the other crops I’ve mentioned before.  It was easy to see why there’s no water in the Jordan River.

Our guide told us today that because of the spring wild flowers (which are incredibly beautiful and plentiful), the spring crop blossoms and the blossoms in the fall, honeybee keepers are able to get three full harvest of honey a year, which is not so normal in other parts of the world.  I thought that was pretty cool, considering it’s the land FLOWING with milk and honey.  I’m not sure how well the cows produce, but it must be good.

Kaleb and I sat in the front of the bus, right behind the tour guide.  We can hear him talking to the driver in Hebrew.  Kaleb told to me that it sounds a lot like when I speak in tongues.  Kaleb got curious and we started asking Halvor if certain phrases both Kaleb and I say, mean anything in Hewbrew (Kaleb has been speaking in tongues for a few years now.)  The first thing I asked him about, he said it has no known meaning to him, but it’s exactly the same phrase he often repeats when he’s praying in tongues.  Interesting.  We asked about two of the phrases that Kaleb often uses, and one of them means a “counting”, like adding up numbers, and another is actually one of the Hebrew words for God!  How incredible is that?  Kaleb was thrilled by that bit of info.

So on we headed, into Jerusalem today (see photo above).  We saw the old part of the city and the Mt. of Olives from a lookout on a hill, before we went to our hotel.  We were supposed to stay four nights in one place, but they ended up too full for our group so this one night only, we got upgraded to the Crowne Plaza, which has the best food in Jerusalem, we were told.  We all agreed after we ate dinner there tonight.  Kaleb said it was no “coincidence” this feast happened on the very day he was baptized, as it’s traditional to have a big meal and party after someone has been baptized in Norway.  Truly God’s hand was on this day.

We had a few hours to kill before dinner tonight so we all headed down to the “Market” near our hotel.  It’s a real locals place – no tourist traps to be found anywhere.  And it was quite the cultural experience since we were there just an hour and a half before the Sabbath began and people were crazy busy running around getting all they needed for the next 24 hours.  It was a lot like Pike’s Place Market, only with a definite foreign flare.  Nearly every male was wearing either a black hat and coat or the tradition skull cap we see in America.  Many had those long sideburns as they aren’t allowed to ever cut the “corner” of their hair so they dangle down like pigtails.  The streets and aisles of the market were jammed packed, but it started tapering off in the last half hour so it was interesting to people watch and just observe folks moving through the streets. 

Tonight after the sunset, the hotel began to observe the Sabbath.  The pool, gyms, stores and services were all shut down.  The funniest thing is that some really orthodox Jews believe that even pushing the elevator button is considered work (they are the ones that pre-tear their toilet paper on Friday because if they need any during the Sabbath, it’s forbidden to do that kind of work on Saturday), so the elevators also take a Sabbath.  All the buttons are inactivated and the elevators just run on a routine where they go up to the 21^st floor, then stop on every other floor on the way down, so we get off as close to our floor as we can and then take the stairs  to our room.  I noticed the couple in the room next to us had all their lights off when I came back tonight, as it’s also forbidden to turn on lights.  The streets of Jerusalem are also silent – no cars can even be driven if one is an orthodox Jew.  But I’m sure they will be closing their doors, and hopefully flushing their toilets, so how they get away with some things being considered work, and other things not, I can’t really tell.  It’s a good picture of the ineffectiveness of man trying to please God by following legalistic laws, and missing the whole point of grace.  Jesus, their Messiah, came to abolish those laws, yet they still don’t recognize that.  Sadly, they aren’t the only ones.

Day Two

It was a hot one today in Israel!  Traveling with a group from Norway, it was easy to see their melting point, which came about three this afternoon in the heat of the day.  It was well into the nineties, and everything Biblically significant suddenly wasn’t nearly as important as jumping into a cool pool, which thankfully, our hotel provided.

We started off our day today, “walking on water” as Kaleb said, since technically, we were walking on a boat that was on the water.  There are a lot of boat companies that take tourists out on the Sea of Galilee because of it’s obvious Biblical significance but also to demonstrate the type of fishing via net casting mentioned in many Bible stories.  We were out there a good long while and even stopped and just worshiped God with singing.  It helped that the captain and his crew had musical instruments on board and were also accomplished singers.  The boat captain has been doing these tours for decades and after hearing so many people praying and singing to the Lord while out on the boat, he actually thought there might be something to the whole Christianity thing, and he made a choice to follow Christ, so he was a cool guy to hang with for a while.  He’s converted many popular Christian songs to Hebrew words, so we sang some of those today – and I bought his CD so I can try again at home.  He says he’s the only Christian boat company on the lake.  Being out on that lake was fairly surreal while we sang praises to our Lord.  Very memorable, for sure.

The boat trip took us to the far north end of the lake – to a new museum at the water’s edge that’s been built since I was here in 1996.  Back then, the “Jesus Boat” had just been discovered under the mud of the “Sea” because of a draught situation.  It’s planks were finally sticking out after two millennium.  They had just excavated the boat fifteen years ago but now have built an appropriate shrine over it and they show a pretty good movie they made while trying to get it up out of the muck.  The gift store there does a good bit of business, too.  The boat is from the days of Jesus so it’s easier to visualize all those Bible stories about Jesus being in a boat.

I asked out tour guide about what happens when people buy land they hope to build on, but then discover ancient ruins under the surface.  It’s easy to believe something could be found around here, no matter where someone dug a hole.  He said the government employs a fleet of archeologists that go to every site that’s been given a permit, just to check on it, because even though they are required to stop construction if they find something, no one ever does because there is just too much to be found.  So the archeologists just try to determine if the site is “significant” before it gets totally destroyed and they might do an emergency dig to see what they can salvage, or if it’s significant enough, they will stop the construction altogether and the land owner loses out.

At the northern most end of the Sea of Galilee there are some remains of the many little towns mentioned in the Bible.  The only still-alive town, of course, is Tiberias, where we are staying.  It was built when Jesus was 19, so he was certainly here, but the Bible never says so.  It’s odd it’s the only one still standing. 

The bus drove us from the boat museum just up the hill to the Mount of Beatitudes, where we then walked down it, to the sea.  That hillside is where Jesus gave the famous “Beatitudes” speech.  Halvor, our guide, stopped us along the path to read right from the text.  When I was here before, the hillside had cut grass, so all of us on that tour were able to sit down at the top of the hill and our guide went to the bottom of the ravine and just spoke in a normal tone so it was easy to see how Jesus could teach over five thousand at once without a modern sound system.  Sound travels up.  Today, there is a banana plantation growing in that ravine, so the demonstration was not possible and Kaleb was pretty disappointed about that.

Along the shore line north of Tiberias is the area of Magda, where we ate very tasty falafels for lunch.  That’s where Mary Magdeline is from, which isn’t far from the area of Capernum, where Peter lived.  No one has built any shrine over Mary’s potential home (strange, but true), but Peter’s home has a church built right over the top of his place, complete with a glass floor so everyone can see down into where the Catholics believe the first Christian church assembled.  The ruins of a synagogue right next door still has enough things restored it’s easy to imagine Jesus teaching in that place.  Those ruins, however, are from 300 years after Jesus died.  The actual place Jesus taught lies under the floor of where we stood since they built the new synagogue over the old one.  Still, very impressive – and the entrance way to it has been uncovered so it was actually possible today to see exactly where Jesus stepped.  Woo hoo!

Capernum is also the town where the lame man was lowered through the roof to Jesus, and where Jesus fed the five thousand.  Our guide is very good at explaining some of the significances and little nuances in these Bible texts.  Italian Catholic monks have built a monastery in honor of Jesus asking Peter if he loved him (three times) at Capernum.  A German Catholic group has built a church over a church that was built 300 years after Jesus died in honor of Jesus feeding the five thousand.  They even incorporated the original tile work from that very old church, into their new one – it’s the famous motive around here – with the design of the loaves and fishes.   The Greek Orthodox built a church over the spot where they believe the military guy lived that asked Jesus to heal his servant.  Everyone wants a piece of the action.  So Capernum is rich with Bible stories and significance.  I guess if it weren’t in ruins, we’d never be able to visualize anything, as the foundations allow the imagination to complete the picture.   Kaleb and I picked up a few rocks and shells from the Sea there, as well as a little water.  Free souveniers!

We were all significantly toasted from walking around the Capernum area so Rune made an executive decision to take a dip in the Sea.  We went back to our hotel and everyone changed into swimsuits, only to discover the local beach access by our hotel is closed because the water level is too low.  How that matters, I’m not sure, as there is still a whole lake’s worth of water out there, but the hotel pool worked out just as well for all of us.  It’s nice traveling with Norwegians, since they MUST have time to just relax.  Americans would be going from early morning until late night with no rest for the weary.  Norwegians have a difference cadence and it works well for me in this heat – otherwise, I’d be chomping at the bit to see what’s around the next corner.

Before dinner, Kory, Kaleb and I walked into the heart of Tiberias, noting all the dilapidated buildings, gorgeous blooming flowers and little lizards scampering out of our way.  Kaleb was thrilled to buy a new flavor of Tic-Tacs he found at a grocery store we stopped in.  Kory bought some wine and dried fruits and I bought some hummus and chips.  Yum. Dinner was so good at the hotel that we didn’t need any snacks afterwards, though.

Our group met in the lounge for an hour after dinner for more social time that is really more like Rune-entertaining-us-with-his-crazy-stories time.  Tonight it was all about his bachelor party and the fact he was nearly killed by his friends from one of the pranks they pulled.  They bound his hands and feet and threw him in the fjord.  They had divers under the water, ready to save him, but the current took him away before they could get to him, so God was surely there as he was able to free himself before he drowned.  His sister asked me if Americans do that kind of thing before a bachelor gets married.  I had to tell her we do a lot of crazy things, but that sure isn’t one of them.

I had Kaleb stay in the room and write in his journal of our travels, as we met with the rest of the group and our guide tonight, out on the lawn.  The hotel was quite cold from the air conditioning but the temperature was just perfect outside down by the lake.  We all asked questions about spiritual, Biblical, political and economic issues dealing with Israel and their struggle to stay a nation.  Our guide has his opinions about things so it was good to hear them, plus he’s really quite the Bible scholar so he’s able to wrap a lot of current events around a Biblical context and have it make more sense.  It was time well spent.

When we got back to the room, Kaleb was zonked out on the bed with the laptop at his fingertips, like it was his last wish to type “good night” to me before he could no longer keep his eyelids open.  Stakkars, gutt.  It was a full day for us all.