Middle East Trip

Many of you know that I recently spent 15 days on a trip to Israel, Jordan and Egypt. It was a totally amazing trip and it's taking awhile to process all we did and learned. I've gone through only about 1/3 of the pictures so will share some today and more later. FYI, on October 15 my friend Renae and I will be doing a trip recap at 6:30 p.m. (EDT) for friends and her family in this area. I'm planning on setting up a 30-45 webcast of the presentation.  If you'd be interested in "attending" on-line let me know and I'll put you on the meeting invite list with directions to connect.

 I think seeing this was made me truly realize I was in the Holy Land. This is the Western or Wailing Wall where Jews go to pray. Throughout the week they stuff written prays in the cracks. This wall is the closest they can get to the actual location of the temple as The Dome of Rock, controlled by Muslims, is now on that site. On Friday evening we visited this area again as it was the beginning of Shebat or the Sabbath. Thousands of people were in this area. There were rows and rows of people facing the wall, praying, chanting, jumping up and down, etc. When finished rather than turning around to walk away the people walk backwards until a certain point as they don't want to turn their backs to God.

This is me overlooking the Jerusalem Old City and the Dome of the Rock in the background. We are at the Mt. Of Olives and then walked into Jerusalem. It was an interesting walk knowing that Jesus had done this same (or at least similar) walk on the night of his trial and then crucifixion. While it was a steep walk we were reminded it wasn't gravity that made him go down the Mt. of Olives to the cross but His love for us.

Some of you may recognize these people. Steve and Myra Ringger and Shari Fiecter from Bluffton, IN were on this trip as well. Getting to know them was a real highlight of the trip for me. I'm sure you will be surprised that Dad looked into his geneaology file and found that Steve and I are third cousins through Grandma K's line. Also, before we left on the trip Shari had contacted me and we realized that we are related to Uncle Joe and Aunt Setta the same way, but I'm on Uncle Joe's side and she was a Kaehr on Aunt Setta's side.

This is the pool of Siloam where Jesus sent the the blind man. Jesus had put mud on his eyes and sent him there to wash off the mud to regain his sight. What the story doesn't explain is that the pool was 600 meters away from where Jesus put the mud on his eyes. After a teaching here we walked the 600 meters back up to the temple area to get a feel for how far he had to walk with his eyes covered.

This is me at the top of Mt. Arbel. It was a rather strenuous hike and others were very helpful and encouraging. The leader said this is the highest point around the Sea of Galilee where the rabbis (and Jesus he believes) would come to pray because you always go up to God. While getting up was challenging, going down was even more so. It was one of the scariest things I think I've ever done, but George the leader had me go right beside him. He guided each of my steps, and I realized that being next to him helped me complete the hardest part down. I was reminded of the need to stay close to God for the steps of my daily life.