1. Our Israel Trip May 22 nd – June 4 th , 2009

11. Still at Dan. It was a really beautiful place with great scenery and a lot of history.

44. Mount Precipice – This was the mount were the leaders of Nazareth took Jesus to throw him off the edge of a cliff after they asked, “How can this be? Isn’t this Joseph’s son? Luke 4:16-30 We stopped and read some scripture and sang a few songs here. Scott and Paul also were about to throw Tel off the cliff for no good reason, but I convinced them to stop.

48. Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus gave His sermon about Beatitudes – Matthew 5

61. Our first view of the Jordan River

66. I apologize for the bad hair, but the wind was blowing pretty hard!

68. He was a big hit with our tour guides too!

70. Matthew 8:23-27 – Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee Matthew 14:22-33 – Jesus walked on water

73. Gadarenes (or Kursi). A few of us hiked up to another point at Kursi. This is where Jesus cast the demons into the pigs and then they jumped off the side of the cliff. Matthew 8:28-34

74. This was just a cool sand press thing that wrote sayings into the sand when you turned it.

77. Don’t they look oddly similar???

85. Scott and Tel were here

92. ADULT SUPERVISION REQUIRED…

94. This is Tony’s, our favorite restaurant in Nazareth. It was the only place we could find American food, like pizza and chicken strips!

95. And THIS was my favorite dessert!!! It’s called Qnafah (pronounced Knaffe). Whatever it is, it is DELICIOUS!!!

98. This is Mount Gilboa (Herod’s Spring). This is where Gideon took his men to select who would go to battle. Only those who cupped the water in their hand would be selected, only 300 in total, yet God still gave them the victory. Judges 7:1-8

107. Come on…everybody’s doing it!

112. After dinner, Tel took a hit off the Hookah bong…don’t worry, it’s just tobacco.

117. This is the border between Israel and Syria. The land in the front is Israel, and towards the back is Syria.

118. The road down from on top of the Golden Heights. Check out that hairpin turn. That was just one of many. The bus actually scratch one of the concrete barriers on one of them. Scary!!!

120. Yardenit is a place on the Jordan River where baptisms are done. Although this was not the exact spot that Jesus was baptized, it was in the same general area.

124. After that, we had a picnic of hamburger pitas and watermelon. Later that night, we went to decorate the church for the wedding. Here is the view of Nazareth from the church. We spent 2 hours putting up decorations, just for them to decide that they didn’t like the color of it, and decided to take it all down. So, basically, we did nothing for 2 hours!

125. OK, this was one of my favorite stops! ICE CREAM!!! There were 7 of us who went for ice cream, and we could either get 1 ice cream each for 15 shekels, or we could get this “trough” of ice cream for 65 shekels. It was such a hard decision, but we went for the trough! It was 20 scoops of ice cream, and we could pick whatever flavors we wanted. My favorite was coconut!

131. A typical stable

137. The view of Nazareth from our hotel room.

146. The remnant’s of Herod’s palace.

155. “Floating” in the Dead Sea. I was in a LOT of pain. Salt in freshly shaven underarms is NOT a good feeling!! Me Scott

158. Our first view of Jerusalem…

162. This is the view of Jerusalem from a cool overlook. You can also see the city gate surrounding Jerusalem. You can see the Dome of the Rock which is where the Holy of Holies used to sit. In addition, you can see this graveyard. This is a Muslim graveyard. It is believed that Jesus will return in the area, in front of this entrance to Jerusalem, so they put this graveyard in front of the city to keep Christ from being able to return from here. They are sooo crafty!

167. This is one of the gates in the wall around Jerusalem. This is the Stephen’s Gate or the Lion’s Gate. See the lions carved into the wall?

169. You can’t hardly see it in this picture, but there are carvings in this stone. They are “King’s games.” This is where the soldiers would sit and play games. This is thought to be where Jesus would have been beaten before He was crucified.

187. Dome of the Rock – this is on the top of the Temple Mount (Mount Moriah, the highest point in Jerusalem). This is where the Temple actually stood. It houses a rock that is thought to have been the altar where the Ark of the Covenant once sat.

206. So, Scott got pooped on by a bird, and I almost ate a bug. This little guy was in my mouth. He tasted like lead.

210. This is the wall separating the Palestinian territory from Israeli territory. As you can see from the sign, Israeli citizen’s are not welcome and vise versa. On our way back into Jerusalem, we had to get off the bus and go through a secure checkpoint where we had to show our passports.

214. And that is it…our trip to Israel comes to an end, but it will live on in our memories, and in these pictures, forever!