Thanksgiving Cruise to the Holy Land-Part Three

The day finally arrived...when we woke up, we were docked in Haifa, Israel.  I honestly had just a few trepidations about visiting an area of the world that is constantly in the news and not usually in a good way but the opportunity to walk where my Savior walked and to see the landscapes He saw quickly overrode any concerns I had and I think both Travis and I were so looking forward to the next two days.

Our friends had taken on the responsibility of setting up tour buses and guides for our large LDS group.  They did an awesome job!  After meeting in the elevator lobby on deck 2, we had a prayer and exited the ship to find two shiny, comfy buses waiting for us.  We were divided on to the two buses and our guides introduced themselves.  Our guide was named Morticai or Moti for short.  He was an interesting guy for sure!  He started off with a couple of off color jokes (he obviously didn't really understand his audience very well) but he was so knowledgeable and really wanted us to understand more about the Jews, the conflicts between them and Israel's neighbors and most of all he wanted us to know how proud he was of his religion, his heritage and his country.  I was pretty impressed except for a time or two which may come up later in the blog.

 We had a very full day of sights we wanted to see and the challenge was to keep us moving along.  It was hard because you could easily spend half a day at each of the sights, but with only two days...we were pressed!

Fresh pressed Pomegranate Juice!

Our first stop was Mt. Tabor or the Mount of Transfiguration about thirty to forty minutes away. 

Waiting for the taxis to take us up the rest of the way

The buses could only go up so far on this huge mountain that sticks up in the middle of a big valley.  At one point we had to get off the bus and transfer to smaller taxi vans for the remainder of the climb to the top.  Talk about your switchbacks...they went on and on!

  We finally arrived on top and took some time looking around while all of the group made it's way up in the vans.

There is a beautiful church here and there was a mass going on, so we could only go in so far.  We then went out to an overlook area and had a sweet devotional.  

My first view of the Sea of Galilee

We took the taxi vans back down to our waiting buses and then we headed for the Sea of Galilee.  It is below sea level and when we came to the sea level sign, our guide stopped the bus so we could get out and take photos.

From here we drove down to the River Jordan.  This was an interesting stop. The locals will be the first to tell you this is not the exact spot where John the Baptist baptized Jesus.  It's actually about 120 kilometers south of here.  The river is not what it was in Christ's time. Then it was a good sized river, not they actually have to pump water out of the sea to keep the water flowing in the river.  

It was very commercialized.  A Kibbutz that was located here realized they could make a business of renting white clothes and nice spots along the river for groups and individuals who wanted to be baptized here.  It is a beautiful spot!  For our devotional here, Bro. Cherrington said a few words to remind us of our own baptisms and covenants, then the kids sang a primary song...so cute! 

It was getting to be lunch time, so Moti said he'd take us to Tiberius and that there was a street full of falaffel stands where we could get something to eat.  It was along a very busy street in a mostly Arab city and we all jumped out of the bus and crowded around the shops to get something to eat.  Travis and I had our first falaffel.  It was pretty good.  They also sell shawermas, which are grilled chicken or turkey meat, hummus and veggies in a pita.

One falaffel and a coke, please!

Trying to connect with Israel's country wide free wifi

Falaffel- Fried breaded chickpea balls with veggies and hummus..yum!

From Tiberius, we made our way further around the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum.  This was our assignment for devotional.  I learned so much about Capernaum and what an important place this was to Christ.  He found his first apostles here..the fishermen of Galilee and Matthew the taxman.  He lived here for two years, it was His home base. 

  Peter lived here and they have excavated what they think is his actual house.

The church built over the remains of Peter's House

Many miracles and healings took place in Capernaum and the Bread of Life sermon was given in the Synagogue in Capernaum.

The Synagogue ( This was built in about 4 A.D. over the one from Jesus' time)

 From here we headed back the direction we came and up onto the Mount of Beatitudes.  This is a beautiful park like area, with a church and great views and run by the catholic nuns.  One thing I learned was that Constantine's mother decided in about 3 A.D. to determine where she thought many of the important sites were and then she would have a church built there.  We had a nice spot for devotional and spent about an hour here.

Dallin and Travis at the Mount of Beatitudes

The Sea of Galilee

 Our last stop for the day was at Nazareth.  This city is one that has a lot of contention between the Christians (Jews) and the Arabs (muslims).  At the top of the hill in a seedy part of town is a beautiful church. Tradition says is the place where the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary.  The church is fairly modern and is built over a previous shrine to mark the spot. The church is built to look like a lighthouse.

Walking up the hill to the church

Moti explaining the scenes in the door

The shrine in the lower level of the church

This is the only place I ever felt a little bit scared.  The church closed for the night and we walked back down to a busier street corner to meet the bus, which wasn't there yet.  As we were standing on the corner, the call to prayer started from the mosque tower right by where we were standing.  We seemed pretty exposed there..a large group, obviously Americans. 
There were a few anxious minutes for me waiting for that bus to show up!

That was it for our first day in Israel.  Can you believe all that we saw and experienced in just our first day!?   

love and miss you all,
-corri