Israel

I recently traveled to Israel with my family and church group over the Christmas and New Years holidays.  While we were there we were able to see a lot of the holy sites and visit many of the places that Jesus walked.  It was a great experience and really neat to see all of the places that are talked about in the Bible.  Here are some of the places we visited and some of the neat sights that we saw.

The theater at Caesarea.  Caesarea was a Roman city built by Herod

My dad standing where the chariots raced

The Mediterranean Sea

Inside one of the gate entrances to the city

The outside wall and surrounding moat of Caesarea

 Lunch! 

Mount Carmel- the place Elijah confronted the 450 prophets of Baal.

View of the Jezreel Valley from Mount Carmel

My sister and I with Pastor Thompson

Our view of the Sea of Galilee from our hotel in Tiberias.

The deck of our hotel

The Mount of Beatitudes-
the place where Jesus preached Matthew 5

Capernaum- Jesus' adopted home

The church built over the house of Peter

The supposed remains of Peter's house

 Lunch- pizza and whole fish

2000 year old boat found near Capernaum

 The boat we took out on the Sea of Galilee- a wooden boat like those in Jesus' day- we took the only Christian worship boat on the Sea

My sister, Brittany, and I about to get baptized in the Jordan River (It was freezing!)

The amphitheatre at Beit She'an- one of the most impressive digs in Israel dating back to 3000 BC

Mosaics from ancient bath houses

The entrance to Tel Megiddo- a major battlefield and setting for the future Battle of Armageddon (Revelations 16:16)

Rainwater cistern

Entrance to the fortress's water works

The spring and source of the fortress's water

MCDONALDS! ($9 for a burger, fries, and drink...crazy)

View from Masada- a stronghold in the desert made into a fortress by Herod the Great

Some of the group walking down from Masada on the snake trail

The cable cars we rode up on

Incredible bath house- they used a raised floor in order to heat the water from below

En Gedi- an oasis in the desert

The lower falls

The caves where David and Saul might have hid

 Qumran- the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found by a Jewish sect called the Essenes

One of the caves the scrolls were found in

The Dead Sea

We were few of the brave ones who went swimming in the Dead Sea

 We floated like crazy...you could hardly swim because it was hard to keep your feet underwater

The crowd watching us swim from shore

Bethlehem

Entering the Church of the Nativity- The doors were made smaller during the Crusader period so that horses could not ride in

Waiting to enter the cave where Jesus was born (waited about an 1.5 hours)

The star marking Jesus birthplace

The manger marking where he was placed after birth

The Catholic church next to the Church of the Nativity

A nativity scene in the church

Arabic writing on a lamppost

The view from our restaurant in Bethlehem

 It was a hookah restaurant! (no we didn't smoke any)

Jersusalem

The David Citadel Hotel- where we stayed in Jerusalem

Christ Church- the oldest protestant church in the Middle East (built in 1819)

A YMCA we saw on the way to the Jerusalem Prayer Center

The Jerusalem Prayer Center

The Israel Museum- contains a scale model of the Old City in Jesus time as well as the Shrine of the Book

A track and field facility I could see from the museum :)

The building that holds the Shrine of the Book

The City of David

Descending into the City of David's water works

The wet path is pictured on the left- it is about an hour's walk through a dark tiny tunnel (scary!)  The dry path that we took is on the right-still claustrophobic but only took about 15 minutes to walk through

Olive Tree in the City of David

One of the gates into the Old City

 The Streets of the Old City

 On the left, you can see marks in the wall from battles past- on the right is an opening for archers to shoot arrows through

Our wonderful guide, Reuven

 On the right is an ancient ritual purity bath

 These are the southern steps leading up to the temple, where Jesus walked

The Western Wall (Wailing Wall)- a plaza of prayer for the Jewish people- left side is the men's and right side is the women's

Many pieces of paper with prayers on them were slipped into the wall

A practice for a swearing in ceremony for some Israeli soldiers

Entrance to the Western Wall and Dome of the Rock

 On the right is the terrible bathroom we had to use at the Dome of the Rock

The Muslim mosque

Inside the tunnels of the Western Wall

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher

This is the traditional place that Jesus was crucified

This is supposed to be the center of the world- we've touched it!

The Old City of Jerusalem 

 The Garden of Gethsemane

The Mount of Olives

Graves on the Mount of Olives

 This guy convinced my dad to buy his headwrap thing haha

Taylor riding a camel

You can really see all the thousands of graves on the Mount of Olives from this view- the Jews believe that since the dead in Christ will rise first, those closest to the Mount of Olives where he is supposed to come back will awaken first- they pay tons of money to be buried here

The sign directing us to Caiaphas' House where Peter denied Jesus 3 times before the rooster crowed.

 The cave in Caiaphas' House where Jesus was supposedly held prisoner before His crucifixion- on the right is my sister reading from Matthew 26

 The place where Pilate's Pavement is located- this is where Pilate made his judgement on Jesus

Above is a circle board drawn in the stone and used by the soldier's to play a game where they would torture prisoners (such as Jesus)

Calvary and the Garden Tomb

Golgotha

My lovely parents!

The following are some of the food, drinks, and desserts that we had while we were in Israel.

Lime and mint frozen drink

This place really liked America and hated the French (check out the next 2 pictures) ...they also had amazing pizza

The marketplace in the Old City- probably one of my favorite places

 A coke and a crazy country store that like Alabama

 The trash man on the left and a boy selling bread on the right

A nice house courtyard we got a glimpse of walking by

My favorite place to eat...chicken falafel

As we walked through the streets of Israel's towns and cities, we saw tons of cats.  This is one of the cats we befriended while eating lunch in the Old City of Jerusalem.  This cat had the prettiest green eyes.

Last but not least, here's a video of a parade we saw the last day while we were in Jerusalem.