My Trip to the Holy Land: Spring Break 2014-Pt. 3

More Encounters! (Trip Journal March 13th) 

Hello all,

I am currently sitting on a bus heading from Nazareth to Jerusalem. It’s just past noon here and we’ve already had a great morning.

We woke up early today to go and see an Arch Bishop of Melkite Catholics that you may be familiar with named Elias Chacour (He’s written the books Blood Brothers, We Belong to the Land, and Blessed are the Peacemakers). He told us the story of 1 Kings 21. It’s an interesting story in the bible if you have the time to read it. It was basically putting an emphasis on how God does not want men to kill. He calls himself a walking contradiction. Words that describe him are a proud Palestinian, who is also Arabic, Christian, and a citizen of Israel.

Chacour preached to us on many things. I’m just going to list a few things that he talked about and if you have questions, I can answer them, or if you have more interest, I’d be happy to share more details.

The most important thing he started with was hope. He encouraged us to keep a smile of hope that shines from our heart through our face. Our course, hope is a major theme that all Palestinian leaders try to instill in their people during this time.

Another topic he touched on was the fact that when thinking about hate and conflict, we must look at towards God. Chacour said, “What have we done to each other? Each and every one of us have been born babies made in the likeness and image of God”. I think that is very powerful because it is a reminder to all that are discrimination against each other are learned and we are not born with them.

He reminded us that many years ago the Jewish people were seen as “Dirty Jews” by Western Cultures. Now, it is no longer the Jews, but rather the “Dirty Arabs”. I know this may seem harsh, but it’s true. It is more often then not that in the states we are fearful of Muslims and Arabs. We are fed that they are all terrorists and they are most likely the ones with bombs and that we need to be fearful of these kinds of people. I can say after six days of being here, I have not met one scary Muslim/Arab. They are all much more generous and kind then most Americans. I was guilty of believing these stereotypes and was fearful when I first arrived. I am not pointing fingers, but I am rather sharing that now that I have been here and seen what’s going on, I am more fearful of the Israeli forces and terrorist attacks. More murders from Israeli forces happened last night.

I was brought to tears when I heard a story of when Chacour went to a Native American Reserve in Oklahoma. He entered the reserve and was greeted my the tribe who gave him an eagle feather and said, “We understand your conflict Abuna Elias, for we are the Palestinians of the United States”. The chief of the tribe was relating to Chacour in the sense that they had lost their land and been forced into small areas as designated zones. Another comparison I heard was the swiss cheese example. Israeli’s have all the cheese with all the resources, which the Palestianians are shoved in all the holes of the cheese, reliant on the others and unable to get to other holes.

Religion has created discrimination in our society. There are the Orthodox Greeks, the Jews, the Catholics, the Lutherans, the Muslims, etc. Even the thing that is supposed to bring us together, through God, is separating us to some extent. The church here we visited is for all religions, races, and ages. It is a house of God, in which anyone who wants to come, will be accepted with open arms. It was uplifting to hear the lack of judgment and love for people in this church. Many churches are missing this.

Did you realize that there are 12-14 Million(yes, MILLION) Christians in the middle east. I didn’t even realize how many Christian brothers and sisters we had here. Yet, even with that we must remember that it is not just about the Christians, but Muslims, Jews, and all other people are children of God. Here in Israel, Jewish ID cards have a 01 while Palestinians have 02. There are not first rate and second rate citizens. None of us are God, therefore we are all equal under God. The common goal should be “unity through diversity”.

Another thing I was reminded of during this talk was the fact that Christians do not own a monopoly of good. Good comes from all races and religions. Muslims, Jews, Arabs, Blacks, atheists and so on, all do good. They are all making a difference in society.

The final take away should be, “We do not need to just learn together, we need to have a longer memory of when we all lived together in a common community”. Here is a picture of myself with Abuna:

After we met with Chacour, we saw the church of his town. It was a beautiful church that was completely donated from people and places from around the world. Of course, I have many pictures to share.

After this meeting we headed off the Jerusalem. It is about a two hour ride. During this ride, the weather turned for the worst. It got very cold and rainy, and to be honest we were all very unprepared in our clothing. It really distracted me from the sites we saw, but I am going to do my best to relay what I remember.

The first thing we saw in Jerusalem is the Mount of Olives. This is the hill that overlooks the entire city of Jerusalem. We all got an overview of the city and took several pictures. Here is one:

Again, it was rainy so it was hard to take pictures. We then walked to Church of Dominus Flevit. This is where Jesus wept in Luke 19:41. There was a pretty church and more ruins.

After this, we continued our walk in the rain to necropole. This is a large graveyard on the Mt. of Olives. It is traditionally the first place people will be risen when Revelation comes true (I think? It was really confusing). Anyways, we then went to the Garden of Gethsemane. You can read up on what this is in both Luke 22:39 and Matthew 26:36 as well as Mark 14:32. All three of these gospels tell the story which this place was dedicated to. There was a huge church(The Church of All Nations) built here as well which held the stone in which Jesus is believed to have prayed in agony on(Also called the Basilica of Our Lord’s Agony). Here is a picture of the stone and art on the wall:

In the garden itself, there are said to be olive trees that are as old as 2,000years, which infers that they were some of the same trees that Jesus himself walked near. Here is a picture of one of the Olive trees in the garden:

We then went to another look out view on the opposite side that viewed the Mount of Olives. This was very cool to see up the mount. Here we also saw ancient tombs of some leaders. One of them included the tomb of Zacharias ( the father of John the Baptist). Here is a picture of me and that tomb(The one that looks like a little house):

We then headed to the church of St. Peter. This was very interesting. This church is dedicated to basically everything that Peter did in the bible. From Jesus speaking to him about the keys to heaven in Matthew 16:19 to the betrayal of Jesus Christ. Here is a picture of the door to the church:

Inside, was a beautifully done church with wonderful murals and unique stained glass. Below, of course, were caves and ruins on which the church was built. These ruins were of the jail in which Jesus traditionally spent the night in before his death. We went into the room in which Jesus would have stayed in for the night and it was very sad. We read psalm 88:87, which was a psalm which Jesus probably would have remembered and said since psalm was usually one of the big ones that he prayed. Here is a picture of a further description:

After freezing our butts off, we finally headed to our new guest house. It is beautiful and definitely a room for queens. Look at the gold curtains!

And furthermore, the food is wonderful! Look at this meal! 

I am very tired and we have a big day ahead. Only two more days to enjoy the great sites, food, and culture!

I apologize for my journals being a little less descript. It is hard to explain a lot without pictures! I think a synopsis is better and I can give further explanations later!

I miss you all and hope the rest of your afternoon goes well! Goodnight.
Love,
Danni

The Day of Via Dolorosa (Trip Journal March 14th) 

Good afternoon everyone, 

I hope everyone is enjoying my journals. I know that I am getting more and more tired as I write them. Coming back with jet lag is going to be very difficult, I can tell that already! 

Tomorrow is our last day on the trip. Sunday morning, we will be leaving our guest house at 5AM and traveling on plane the entire day. If all goes well, I should arrive back to O'Hare around 6:30PM. Anyways, that means tomorrow is really the grand finale. I am sad to leave, but ready to share my adventures back home! 

I am completely exhausted. Today was the most intense day we've had yet, so I apologize ahead of time for typos and/or other sources helping to explain what we saw (I promise the pictures are still genuine though!).

Today began early with a great buffet breakfast here at the guesthouse. They ended up having some American delicacies such as Nutella and Tabasco hot sauce. We then were off to travel to The City of David. Here is some wikipedia information to sum up what that means ( I apologize for my laziness). 

The City of David (Hebrew: עיר דוד‎, Ir David; Arabic: مدينة داوود‎) is the Israeli name for the oldest settled neighborhood of Jerusalem and a major archaeological site. It is on a narrow ridge running south from the Temple Mount in the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem. It was a walled city in the Bronze Age and, according to tradition, it is the place where King David built his palace and established his capital. The City of David enjoyed the defensive advantages of its position by the Tyropoeon Valley to its west, since largely filled in; by the Hinnom valley to the south, and the Kidron Valley on the east.

Here, we viewed more ruins of the city (Yes, more ruins!).  But the coolest part was being able to walk through Warren's Shaft, which was the water system. We actually got to go underground and see where they dug out for the shaft and how the water comes in. It was really unique. 

After that, we went to the wailing wall (Otherwise known as the western wall).

 This is a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple's courtyard, and is arguably the most sacred site recognized by the Jewish faith outside of the Temple Mount itself.

It was a very crowded site because tonight the sabbath starts for the Jews. There were people coming here to pray and leave prayers. I left a prayer in the wall as well. It is important for the christians because it is said that an ancient temple was built there long ago that was ordered by God much before the wall was built. The Jewish people still believe this wall has the most significance for them. Here is a picture of me in front of the wall(And yes, the head garb is necessary). 

After that we headed towards Lions Gate and the Church of St. Anne. On our way, we ran into a protest. We were surprised to see that the streets were completely blocked off and the Israeli Soldiers were everywhere with guns. We found out that every friday, the israeli soldiers do not let any muslims into the temple to pray that are under the age of 45. Yes, if you are under 45, you are not allowed to pray in your mosque. Silent protesters chose to pray outside the blocked off areas and we did not see any violence (just a lot of pushing to get inside the mosque). Here is a picture of our wait before entering Lions Gate and you are able to see some of the police and blockades You can also see the lions on the wall, hence why it is called Lions Gate. 

Inside, we saw the Church of St. Anne. For those who don't know (Because I didn't), St. Anne is the Virgin Mary's mother. This church was very beautiful and had amazing acoustics. We sang a beautiful song just to hear how great they were. Here is a lovely statue in the church which I believe depicts St. Anne and Mary as a child: 

Nearby we also saw the Besthesda pools which are ancient ruins of pools in which they would cleanse the sheep in before they sacrificed them.

Here is a picture of the sign when we walked in: 

After this we traveled the Via Dolorosa. This is the real life stations of the cross. I will be able to further explain this with pictures, but here is a map of all 14 stations of the cross.

The first 9 stations are spread across the path Jesus took with the cross. The last five are in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is the church built over the place where the cross was as well as Jesus's Tomb. Here is a picture of me touching the rock that Jesus's cross was on as well as a picture of his tomb. We waited an hour to touch the rock that the cross stood on. We chose not to wait in another line for 2 more hours to see the tomb. We instead saw the tomb of the man that gave up his tomb for Jesus. 

We also touched the rock that Jesus's body was anointed on after death. Here is me touching that:

After this long and exhausting journey on the Via Dolorosa, we went to one last stop to a Lutheran church. It was called the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. Here, we saw again with wonderful acoustics. Another gorgeous site. 

We came back to the guest house and rested for a bit. We then enjoyed a wonderful dinner together as a group and had great conversation (and my favorite part, Israeli ice cream! Yum!). 

Sorry for the short synopsis tonight, but as I was saying to my professor tonight, most of these sites cannot be described. No picture gives justice and an explanation could never relay the details and architecture of these complex sites. Today was a day that will be tough to describe even with pictures. 

Hope everyone is well! I will see you all again soon! 

Much Love, 

Danni

The Grand Finale (Trip Journal March 15th) 

Here's to my last journal and last night in the Holy Land! Today was a nice relaxing last day. We have to be up so early in the morning, and again I am tired! I am also excited to share the cool day I had, so here it goes!

Today began very early. We ate breakfast and headed out to the Judean Desert! It's a long car ride, but there is surprisingly a lot of beauty out there in the desert. The Judean desert surprised me. Maybe it's ignorant, but when I thought of desert in Israel I pictured sand. The Judean desert is all rock! It reminded me of the red rock in Sedona, Arizona for those of you who have been there. Here's a few sites we saw along the way on our long drive:

Our first stop in the desert was the Masada National Park. Masada is basically like an ancient fortress that is on top of an isolated rock in the middle of now where. And yes, I'm sure you guessed it, we saw the ruins of this ancient city fortification. It was built by Herod the Great (so it is very extravagant and there are many palaces) and it overlooks the Dead Sea. The site is gorgeous. Towards the end of the first Jewish-Roman War, the fortress was captured by the Romans. The strange part was that when the Roman's finally captured the fort, expecting to find people to enslave, they found the 960 Jewish rebels dead up there. They had all committed suicide because they preferred that to being enslaved by Romans.

These ruins were so amazingly intact and took you back and made you feel like you were in ancient times. Here are some pictures of the fort and the view from the top:

After two hours of exploring the ruins, we headed to one of the most fun parts of the day, Swimming in the Dead Sea! Yes! We got to get into the Dead Sea and swim in all that salty goodness. Some quick facts about the Dead Sea, the Dead sea in the lowest point on earth and is the saltiest body of water on earth. It is 7x saltier than the saltiest ocean on earth. So, that means as soon as we stepped in this water, every cut on our bodies stung, but even better, when we went all the way into the water, our bodies floated (floated like we were swimming with noodles floated). I am saving pictures of this for when I get home, but I can tell you it was so funny to see all the people floating.

After that exciting (and salty) adventure, we went to the Jordan River. I am sure everyone remembers this this where Jesus was baptized. At the river(which was very high and murky due to large rains) we saw people coming from all over, some of which were being baptized. I got a whole water bottle of Jordan River water to bring back. Here is a picture of me at the river filling my bottle up:

After this, we headed to lunch in Jericho at a touristy restaurant that was much over priced and then did our final souvenir shopping! Man, I bought way too much! Everything is so cool, I just want to give everyone a little piece of this place.

After lunch, we took a cable car over the city of Jericho to go to the top of The Mount of Temptation. This is said to be the hill where Jesus was tempted by the devil (Refer to Matthew 4:8). We were supposed to see a monastery up at the top, but it was closed. We ended up sitting at the top of the hill looking at the amazing view of Jericho. Here is a picture:

After this, we made our final stop in Jericho. We went to see one last place talked about in the bible referring to this verse in Luke (19).

Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. 4So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. 5When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, "Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house."…

We got to see the sycamore tree talked about in this story. It was really unique. Of course there was also a church to accompany this site which we also viewed. Here is a picture of the icon for the story as well as the tree.

After that, our tour was finished. The trip was officially over and we began saying our goodbyes. We took final group photos with our tour guide and bus driver. I am sad to leave this holy place, but I was more than blessed to have 11 days here exploring and growing closer with Jesus.

My final reflection on this trip will last a lifetime. My understanding of my faith as a christian has increased tremendously. The friends and memories I have made here have been much more than I could have ever asked for. I am so grateful the Lord blessed me with this trip and I will forever cherish the moments spent here. I plan for this to be a place that I will revisit in the future (Hopefully not too far down the road). This is a must have trip for everyone, believers or not.

I will be in flight most of the day tomorrow, but please let me know if you have any questions or final comments on my journal. I hope you enjoyed following along with me these last days and I am constantly grateful for the everlasting support of my friends and family. This trip has been a huge reminder about the blessings in my life, as well as a reminded that our Lord is so much greater than we could ever fathom. All success in my life is owed to him for his great love and sacrifice for me. He is behind every single beauty in this life, and for that I praise thee!

I leave you with Psalms 134 & 135

134 Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord! Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord! May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth! Praise the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord, give praise, O servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God! Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; sing to his name, for it is pleasant! For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his own possession. For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and of beast; who in your midst, O Egypt, sent signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants; who struck down many nations and killed mighty kings, Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan, and gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to his people Israel. Your name, O Lord, endures forever, your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages. For the Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them. O house of Israel, bless the Lord! O house of Aaron, bless the Lord O house of Levi, bless the Lord! You who fear the Lord, bless the Lord! Blessed be the Lord from Zion, he who dwells in Jerusalem! Praise the Lord

Much Love,

Danni