Captivating: The Holy Land of Israel

[The Old City in Jerusalem, Israel]

We spent the first three weeks in Jerusalem studying the Bible. We worked on the Old Testament from Joshua to Ezekiel! It was amazing to really study that part of the Bible and be able to see the history of Israel. I was able to picture everything I was reading because I was there to see the modern rebuilt cities and everything around it for myself. It was no longer just studying the Bible but I was able to live around the cities and visualize what the Bible was talking about! I was also really challenged in my photography while I was here! We had a speaker here that talked about the heart of an artist. It seriously renewed in me the fact that God has given me a gift that I need to be using it to touch the world. So through that I was able to really push myself and work really hard on my photos and taking pictures in Jerusalem almost everyday! On top of that we got to experience the snow here. It was wet and slushy but we still had fun trekking around from home to class everyday in it.

[Morgan, Tara, Naphtalie, Emily, and me out in the snow]

We lived right outside the West wall of the Old City and were able to be in the city everyday if we wanted to. It was so awesome to experience the culture there, and really see the division within the Old City. There was such a difference in each of the four quarters, it amazed me. We literally walked from an area of shops after shops with people yelling everywhere to this calm clean quiet family area. You can also really see the way people here have gotten caught up in worship of things, instead of God Himself. People expect to come to Israel and be so much closer to God, but the fact is that God isn't here in these places more then He lives in us everyday. Coming here you get more knowledge of what happened in the time of Jesus and can get more of a picture of where Jesus might have walked. Yet no one really knows exactly where anything was when Jesus was here. They have guesses but the city has distored and rebulit 4 times, so there are layers upon layers over this land.
Then there were things like the Wailing Wall, Mount of Olives, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Doom of the Rock! They were all so different within each other. To be able to see how Jesus would have walked from the Mt. of Olives and then into the town, was beyond my belief and totally blew me away!

[Dome of the Rock]

[The pool where Jesus told the man to pick up his mat and walk]

Fountain for cleansing at the Wailing Wall]

[Some of the millions of papers in the Wailing Wall]

[Burning candles in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre]

[Women lighting candles at the Holy Sepulchre]

The last week we were in Israel we split up into teams and traveled around to see the parts of Israel we hadn't been able to see. My team and me spent 3 days around Galilee, a day at the Dead Sea, and then part of a day at the Dome of the Rock. It was amazing to see more of the places that Jesus went and how He traveled from one place to the other. To be able to get a vision for what the Dead Sea and Galilee really looked like. Things are different now and updated and modernized but it was really being able to see the culture here so that I could understand the culture better.

[ On top of Arbel Mountain]

[Arbel Mountain]

[The Ruins in Bet She'an National Park]

[The Theatre in Bet She'an National park]

[The Dead Sea]

[The salted rocks at the Dead Sea]

[Dead Sea shore with salted Rocks]

[The Sea of Galilee]

We volunteered at the Nazareth Village, where they dress up like the 1st century people and live like they do so that people can get a visual for how it really was. As they give people tours of the village they tell the history of Israel straight from the Bible and are the only people that tell the full gospel message completely open. It isn't just a place for tourist but is a missionary to these people and an opportunity to preach the gospel to every person that walks through their doors. While we were there we got to see the tour first hand and then got to help them around the village. The boys got down and dirty doing yard work and the girls cleaned up around the village and made the lanterns for all the visitors.