Day 3

Another beautiful morning! We have been blessed with such great weather so far. So nice to be able to enjoy the day without having uncomfortable weather to distract us.

Today we started out on top of Mt. Precipice. This gave us wonderful views of Nazareth on one side and the Jazreel Valley on the other. This is the area where Jesus first announced his ministry and identified himself as the Son of God through the reading of the scrolls at the synagogue. The congregation were then determined to throw Him over the cliffs, but obviously were not successful. This view was spectacular! I have been pleasantly surprised at the landscape of this area. Where I was expecting desert and sand, there has been rolling hills and mountains. Fields and hillsides of wildflowers. Lushness of farmland and accommodating temperatures. What a way to fully appreciate God's handiwork!

Anyway-on to the Nazareth Village. They have set up a village in the middle of Nazareth that depicts how people had lived in Jesus's time. There were donkeys, a shepherd tending his flock, a carpenter, a weaver, and various buildings set up to show us how the homes may have been. Our guide took us through the village and gave us a little talk on the various activities, as well as how it was to live in this type of climate. Not at all like I had imagined. The movies get it all wrong. I have always imagined flat, dusty roads; homes built of wood. The terrain is very rocky and homes are built out of stones into the sides of the hills. There is a 410-year-old olive tree that was transplanted there about 10 years ago. Apparently olive trees are very hardy and live forever. We are supposed to see first century trees later this week in the Garden of Gethsemane. We found out that our guide there was a Meninite on the last day of her 2 1/2 year ministry trip. She lives in Canada and will be returning there after getting to do a little touring for herself. She was a very sweet girl.

On to the Catholic Church of the Annunciation-the spot where Catholic's believe the angel told Mary that she was to bear a son. We also visited St. Gabriel's-a Greek Orthodox church built over a well named "Mary's Well". It would have been the village well that everyone would have gone to to draw water. The Greek believe that Mary was visited here and given the news. If memory serves, the bible does not specify as to where Mary was when the angel visited her. Many of the sites that we have visited have been "traditional" sites. There is not absolute proof that the events happened at exactly these spots, but we can be sure that they did in fact happen somewhere in the vicinity.

Our guide, Dan, took us through the village streets of Nazareth. So interesting. Walking down the narrow stone streets past all of the vendor shops. This is not something that we would have been able to do if we had planned our trip and done this on our own. He took us for lunch to a little "pizza" shop that he had found. We had a little pizza made on a flat bread-maybe a pita??-topped with goat cheese and a herb that I have never experienced. Starts with a "Z" Very unusual, but good. We ate standing up or sitting on the curb in that little alleyway. Quite the experience.

Next was Zippori/Sepphoris-the childhood home of Mary. And of course, another Catholic church build over the site.

For the perfect ending, we headed down to the Jordan River to allow those of us in our group the opportunity to be baptized in the same River as Jesus. Stephen double-dipped (Mikel's term. She didn't like re-baptized) his three daughters and about 5 others. Mike and I chose not to participate. It was a beautify setting and there were many groups there participating. Stone seating was available for viewing the participants. This is our last night in Tiberias. Tomorrow we head to Jerusalem for five nights at the Olive Tree Hotel. We will visit Bet She'An and Megiddo. Should be another very fascinating day.

Day 2

It was a gorgeous day today! We couldn't have ordered better weather. Winds were light and the sun was sunny. Today started out with a drive north to Capernaum. The city where Jesus spent most of his ministry. We started out on the Mount of the Beatitudes where Jesus is believed to have delivered the Sermon on the Mount. There is a chapel there built by Mussolini in 1937. It was made of Italian Marble. Just beautiful. It is maintained by nuns of an Italian Franciscan order. The grounds have several areas separated out where people can spend time in worship or just to be still. We sat grouped together on large rocks and looked down the hillside-just as Jesus must have done all those years ago. It is so beautiful. The rolling hills are lush and green. There is a lot of different crops grown out here-mostly we saw different kinds of fruit trees:bananas, mangos, cherries, apples, pears, olives. Oh, and grapes. Lots of grapes.

Next was Mount Hermon. The melting snows provide water to the Jordan river. It is also the traditional site of the Transfiguration. Pan's Cave/Gates of Hades (same cave) is also there. There is a Druze Temple built up on the hillside. The Druze are a Muslim sect that are pretty much exclusive. They don't recruit, but they are never allowed to leave. We drove through a couple of their villages.

Lunch was St. Peter's fish. Tilapia with head and fins still attached. It was actually pretty good. Gotta try and experience as much as the culture as I can. I think only a couple of us passed on the fish and had pasta instead. I kept thinking of "The Amazing Race" and all the strange things that they have to eat on there. Don't think I could do it.

Next was south down to the traditional site of Peter's house. There had been a church built over it and lots of excavations of villagers' homes.

Further south is the White Chapel that honors the area that the Catholics recognize as the place that Peter was named as the first Pope. Lots more excavated stones from various sources.

We then visited a museum that houses the "Jesus Boat" This first century boat was discovered in 1986 in the Sea of Galilee by a couple of fishermen. The lake level was low due to severe drought. The boat was carefully extracted and is now on display here.

Finally, we boarded a tour boat to ride on the Sea of Galilee. This was a perfect ending to a long day. The weather has been fabulous and the ride very calming. One of our boat guides cast out a net. Caught nothing on the first time. So of course was encouraged to cast it on the other side. He did. And caught a tiny tilapia. Threw it back.

Dinner buffet at the hotel again and another evening with most of our group catching up on Facebook and emails. What did we do before all this technology?

Anyway--tomorrow includes a visit to Little Nazareth and Baptizing in the Jordan. Can't wait!

Day 1

3:30am wakeup Monday morning, 11:00am arrival in Tel Aviv Tuesday morning. Of course, that does include a time difference, but it has been a long trip getting here. The flight was uneventful-which is always a great thing. There was one interesting thing that happened on the flight. There was an Israeli choral group traveling back from a performance in NYC. About an hour before landing, they starting singing some of their selections. Beautiful! It reminded me of the Hallelujah flashmob. Several people-including myself-were recording them. A lot of people were standing in the aisles and watching. Eventually, the captain announced that everyone had to sit down and put on our seatbelts, so the show was over. But it was fun while it lasted. If the internet here weren't so testy, I would try to post the video. Maybe later. Mike and I weren't able to sleep on the plane, so we have pretty much been awake since Monday morning. Sooooo tired. 26 of us loaded up the tour bus at the airport and headed north to Caesarea. We toured the grounds of the Roman theater and Herod's aquaduct on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. For centuries, they had been buried beneath many generations of rubble. Universities and Israel has only been excavating it since the 1960's. The water of the Mediterranean is the bluest and clearest of any I have ever seen. And such a beautiful beach-fine white sand. There are several other tour groups around and many people were taking their shoes off and wading through the water. After that, we went about 40 miles north to our hotel in Tiberias. It was only about 3:00pm, so we were able to rest awhile and get cleaned up a little before meeting for dinner. The hotel sets up a buffet dinner where we have ample opportunity to sample many of the exotic flavors of this country. I was urged to try a "real" Greek olive-even though I don't like olives. Jackie assured me that these are different and that I would like it. Still don't. More for you, Jackie :D The hotel grounds are beautiful. We are right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Our room has the view of the Sea and the hotel swimming pool. Gorgeous! Tomorrow's tour includes the Mount of the Beatitudes, Capernaum, the traditional site of the multiplication of the fish and loaves of bread, and a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. Early start: wakeup is at 6:00am. It is about 9:30pm now. So I will try this again tomorrow! Til then! :)

Israel Bound!

Even with the best of intentions, I often fail at the follow-through. I really did intend on posting about that trip to Guatemala, but for various reasons (some my fault, others not so much) I let that one go. That trip in particular was almost a year-and-a-half ago and I've been to Guatemala again since then. It was still fun re-reading what I had posted back then.

Now it's almost time to add another stamp to my passport! I am so pumped up about this one. A group of about 25 people from our church is about to embark on a journey to the Holy Land. I can hardly wait. As fast as the past years seem to have vanished in the blink of an eye, this past month seems to have come to a near standstill. We have been preparing for this trip for almost a year and now the day is almost here. We leave dark and early on Monday the 28th. We fly to New York and then directly to Tel Aviv-not to return again until April 6th. Mike and I are pretty much ready to go. All that is left is the packing. And dealing with the consist nagging feeling that there must be something we have failed to include in our reminder list.

So my latest intention is to blog about some of our adventures while we are there. I have even purchased a new Flip camera, so there may be video included! We shall see. I am of the understanding that we will have Wi-Fi available in our hotels and that the touring part of our days will end fairly early, so we should have some free time in the evenings.

Okay, now that I have posted this, maybe I can get to sleep. I was staying awake composing this in my head, so figured that I may as well get up and crank it out. The rest of my week composes of laundry, carpet cleaning, a little tutoring and getting through three more days of our beans/rice/tap water diet. Not sure that I'm going to make it, but I'm gonna try.

November 9, 2009
After a wonderful omelette breakfast at the Vista Real Hotel, we loaded the bus and left for Zacapa. The team decided to wait to do errands in Zacapa instead of Guatemala City. The skies cleared up for us and we had beautiful blue skies most of the way. A HUGE answer to prayer!
We arrived at the orphanage just after noon, unloaded the bus, and determined what we could get started on. A couple of the men decided to stay and get started on the well pump while the rest of us went for lunch and to take care of a little business.
Let me tell you how awesome Gary, Randy, Scott and Tony are. The first task was to get chain link fence put up to keep out curious children. The Solar panels are on the roof and mainly just need to be wired to the batteries that are being installed in a storage room. They think it will take about 1 1/2 hours to complete. The well pump is installed in the cistern! Water filters have been replaced. They were able to accomplish much more than they had expected at this point.
There are 96 children here now. They range in age from 6 months to 17 years old. There are many children still here since my last trip a year ago, and probably 3 or 4 from two years ago. We could see the excitement in their faces when they recognized us from the previous trips. This is a government-run transitional orphanage where the children weren't intended to remain for long, but since international adoptions have been suspended, many are staying here longer. Also, many of the children are social orphans-they are placed here if their parents are going through a custody battle or if their parents are not able to take care of them. Many of them are visited by their parents periodically.
So today we got loads of hugs and tickles. Lots of kids way too big to be carried begging for it. Lots of requests for help to do things that they know the Gringos will help them with. The monkey bars are high up off the ground and some of the girls want help because they are afraid to fall. Jennifer latched on to me early on and took me on a tour to see the raised vegetable garden and their chicken coup. They are growing onions, carrots and tomatoes-if I was able to understand correctly. They seem to be especially proud of the chickens-as we were on our way out, another child was leading another of the ladies on a tour.
I know there's a game plan tomorrow, but I'm not quite sure what it is. I just know if someone hollers "Help!"-that's where I come in. The kids are going to be taken to a park to be kept out of the way as much as possible. They are expected to fill the cistern with water before 2:00pm when the city turns off their supply for the day.

Arrival at Guatemala City

11/08/2009
Guatemala City-Vista Real Hotel

We are here!! The flight was uneventful-which is always a good thing. And all of our bags made it! Woo Hoo!! We arrived in Guatemala City to an empty airport, and more importantly, empty streets. Traffic is usually quite heavy and we arrived at the hotel in only a few minutes. It was raining when we loaded the hotel vans, but stopped by the time we left the airport. The forecast is calling for a chance of thundershowers all week-but we are praying for a reprieve as we have a lot of work that can't get done in the rain.
We had a late light dinner when we arrived at the hotel. Soup and sandwiches. Wonderful Tortilla soup. We are loading the vans at 8:30 in the morning and have a little business to take care of before we head to Zacapa. We should be getting to the orphanage at about 2:00pm tomorrow.
This is going to be a fun group to work with. Oh, my goodness! Already lots of goodnatured teasing going on. But everyone is excited to get to work.

5 days to go. . . . . . .

......so, naturally I can't sleep again. Music lessons plans floating through my head. Do I have everything? I'm pretty certain that I do, but there's that nagging thought that is saying that there's got to be something that I'm forgetting. It can't be this easy, can it?

Did some more shopping. I bought stockings and stocking stuffers for all of the kids and the workers, too. Everyone seemed to like everything that I bought. Last year, the kids went crazy for the few tennis balls that we had taken, so this year everyone is getting one in their stocking. I also bought bubbles and candy to go along with the sunglasses, trinkets and small stuffed animals that we already have. The workers are getting lotion, Christmas socks, lip balm, a hair brush, note pad and pen and candy. I also went to Teacher's Tools and picked up a few musical rhythm pieces to use. I still need to make copies of the music and insert them into sheet protectors. I hope one of the translators can read music and knows the musical terms. I think that the kids will enjoy the recorder lessons. Donna found some nice colorful ones that will make it fun. This will be another first for me. Perhaps that's why I am having a hard time getting to sleep.

We spent nearly 3 hours last Sunday at the church packing all of the Buckner bags. Heather and Donna sorted through uniforms. They barely made a dent in the huge stack of boxes that are there. There will be a lot left over to send to the private Christian school that we help send several of the kids to. They are excited to be getting them. The Choir was faithful in providing lots of toothbrushes and toothpaste. Just these took up almost half of a bag.

There will be so much to do while we are there. The well is the most important need right now. Hardly any water is being sent in right now. They are even doing without showers and are flushing the toilets with buckets. The electrical system has to be upgraded to handle the pump for the well and more pipes need to be buried. We found out that the electrical system that they currently have could not handle the water filter pump and run the computer at the same time, so they have been turning off the pump during the day. Also, the current is so weak, that all of the appliances that we have installed quickly burn out. Please pray that we are successful in installing the well pump and completing all of the electrical wiring. We only have about 3 1/2 days to do it.

So, today I had jury duty. I was placed on a panel that has to reconvene on Wednesday. At least we do know that it is for a misdemeanor case. I was a little nervous about being placed on a trial that would last more than a week. There is still a chance that if I am not placed on this particular jury, I can be placed on another. Today's pool was one person short of filling all of the juries that are needed this week. Chances are that we will all be placed on a jury unless some of the cases are settled beforehand. Hopefully, I will be placed on the one that I am being sent to on Wednesday. I'm praying for that.