Israel Adventure

For the girls' birthdays in March we decided to take a family trip to Israel. Not your typical birthday present, I guess. Our oldest had taken a solo trip to Seattle for his 10th, and we fancied ourselves starting a new tradition. I failed to take into consideration that our lifestyle might put a little dent in those plans for future celebrations. Instead, all of us boarded a plane for an 8-day whirlwind tour of Israel with a high-school friend and his parents, who now host tours to the Holy Land. I learned that you can take a whole lot of pictures in just 8 days. Especially in Israel. I also learned that as a full time mom/ homeschooler, eking out a moment here, 5 minutes there, to tackle sorting the photos, and trying to make a photobook and a post to the blog, is crazy frustrating. There's just no time. I have actually started waking up an hour and a half earlier to incorporate answering email and working on the photo album into my daily schedule at a time when the kids aren't awake to wreak havoc in my absence. (Although, as is to be expected, all kids are up early today as I type this, Noemie is fussing at Gigi and Gigi is wailing in response. And cabinets are slamming down in the kitchen meaning that Toby is down there helping himself to the last of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, only available by 4 week mail order. Why???  And I just realized I forgot to put Dominic's tooth fairy money under his pillow...)

So here are my favorite photos of every day from our trip. 

First stop, direct from our 12 hour flight, we went to Caesarea Maritime, Herod's seaside resort on the Mediterranean. 

We drove a little ways away to find one of the remaining portions of the aqueduct that supplied fresh water to Caesarea from the Carmel Mountain area.

Mt Carmel had a church with a rooftop observatory. This was Toby's favorite stop.

The next day we visited Tel Megiddo. A tel is a mountain made of the remains of civilizations that have built on top of each other. 

From Tel Megiddo we went to Mt Precipice overlooking the gorgeous Jezreel Valley on one side, and sprawling, modern-day Nazareth on the other. 

The eternal, perfect God would send his Son into the world to redeem us from sin by being the ultimate, spotless sacrifice, laying down his life, suffering death on a cross. An angel announced to a young Israelite girl that she would be the vessel that would carry him into the world. To commemorate this occasion, the Catholic Church built a massive church complex to worship.... Mary.

 I love this picture because Mary is clearly saying, "What the heck, you guys? Don't you know you're only supposed to worship Jesus?" 

Falafel or Schnitzel? Those are our lunch options. Every. Day.

But it's delicious so it's ok.

Hello, Sea of Galilee. Aren't you looking lovely this evening?

Favorite spot for sure!

The next day we went to another church. In their effort to mark and preserve spots of traditional significance, Franciscans and Carmelites bought a lot of land and built churches on top of the locations. This church commemorates the teaching of the Beatitudes.

Toby was really excited because he saw some real monks like in Age of Empires. Noemie scrambled to keep up with her experiences in a journal.

At Capernaum we saw ruins of an early church that some believe to be the home of Peter. This synagogue was built some time later. Is that sky blue or what?

Someone is feeling very Zaccheus as we admire the remains of the industrial town center.

Notice the menorah on the capital? A rare archaeological find.

Not so rare- buildings made out of the black basalt stone of the region. 

We took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, complete with Chris Tomlin blasting on the speakers. A little kitschy considering the profound history of the location. Nevertheless, it was Noemie's favorite part of the trip.

Stop. Hammertime.

My favorite part of the trip was this brief stop on the Jesus Trail. Perhaps it was my favorite because there were no other tourists. There were no gimmicks or giant churches or people trying to sell us prayer shawls or Phoenician glass or olive wood crosses (all things we did eventually purchase elsewhere.) Just the slopes and the kinds of flora that Jesus himself would have seen as he walked from Nazareth to Galilee and back again.

We went to a clean part of the Jordan River where some from our group were baptized. On another day we would go to a part of the Jordan River that was probably closer to the place where John the Baptist would have baptized Jesus. (It wasn't as pretty.)

Bet She'an was a hit for sure. The tel hides over twenty sandwiched layers of past civilizations. The city was inhabited over 3500 years before the Philistine inhabitants hung King Saul's dead body on its walls. King David would conquer it and King Solomon would establish it as an Israeli city. 

The remains of the Roman Decapolis city at the base of the tel was destroyed by an earthquake in the 700s. It was left more or less untouched and today is the biggest archaeological park in Israel. It is overlooked by the tel which you can climb. This makes for really cool aerial views of the Roman city or, in Tovi's case, and excellent spot for throwing rocks to watch them explode. 

From Bet She'an we traveled south through the Judean wilderness, in which Jesus spent time during his temptations immediately following his baptism. 

Just outside of Old City Jerusalem is the David's Tomb complex which houses David's sarcophagus  and, directly above it, the Upper Room site of  Last Supper and Pentecost fame. But who is buried in David's Tomb? David's buried in Bethlehem! Speaking of Bethlehem...

Of all the churches, the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was one of my faves.

If you have an interest in Orthodox iconography, this is the church for you. I may have been geeking out a bit.

People wait in line for hours to touch the silver star in the grotto. The star is situated on the spot where Jesus was born, according to tradition. The very spot. No other spot but this one. 

Luckily, our wait wasn't that long.

Bethlehem has new art too.

And goats. Noemie found a goat.

There's even a holy site made of the "Shepherd's Field." There's not much left to the field. But, as you can imagine, there's a church there.

This pretty rocking chapel is small, meant to look like a nomadic tent. Noemie sampled the great acoustics by singing a Christmas hymn. Some Italian tourists were impressed and shouted "Bravo!" She was delighted in that ten-year old embarassed sort of way.

Love this boy.

Up at the Rehavam Observation Point at the top of the Mount of Olives, we found a camel inclined to give kisses.

 Fortunately, the camel was also inclined to carry cute kids in circles around the promenade. The kids loved their camel ride, courtesy of our sweet tour hosts. The view was pretty spectacular.

They loved the camel, Kojak, as well. 

From the Mount of Olives we descended down the "Palm Sunday Road" (incidentally, less than a week before actual Palm Sunday), passing the oldest Jewish cemetery in the world, and stopping at the Garden of Gethsemane. 

The Church of All Nations, located at the Garden, is another example of the best of human artistic genius dedicated to the construction and adornment of a building meant to honor God. 

Whether or not the building is used for worship of the Creator or the created, is difficult to tell.

Gigi ponders these deep insights from a pew.

Caiaphas' house was not as picturesque. It had a dungeon-like holding cell where Jesus would have been kept while awaiting trial. Danny stayed outside with the littles. Their peaceable behavior and attention span had reached the limit.

A statue of Peter outside Caiaphas' house depicts the moment where he denied Jesus. I'd hate to have a statue made that commemorated my biggest failure.

Day 6! We have arrived at Masada. We took a cable car to the top of the mesa. Masada is located in the desert near the Dead Sea. It certainly felt like a desert at the top, especially with the sun reflecting off the light colored sand as far as the eye could see.

At the Masada fortress, Dominic was selected to demonstrate how a system of channels and dams collected rainwater into cisterns for the use of the residents at this outpost. With a capacity of 40,000 cubic meters, 1000 people could have lived off of such a supply for 5 years!  

The caves of Qumran were not far away. A history buff's dream!

And then Gigi's favorite stop, the Dead Sea! 

Why was it her favorite? "Because it was all muddy and floaty."

We learned quite a bit about the Dead Sea. For instance, it's not just a lot of salt. There are high levels of chlorides, magnesium, and bromides as well. You are not allowed to swim on your tummy- a drop on your tongue burns! And ingestion requires immediate medical attention. 

The sand feels like clay. Getting out was difficult because your legs would sink into the muck- as deep as half way up your calf. Now imagine trying to un-shmluck your foot out of that without losing your water shoe!

The next day we visited the Temple Mount. The area is patrolled by armed Jerusalem Islamic Waqf guards. Danny was not allowed to put his arm around me for photos. We had to make sure not to look at all in love. It was very difficult. 

Solomon built a temple. The Babylonians destroyed it. Herod rebuilt a bigger one. The Romans destroyed that. In the 600s, Muslims built the Dome of the Rock shrine on this spot, the third holiest site in Islam, to mark where Mohammad reportedly visited heaven on a winged horse. The Crusaders turned that into a church when they came marching in in 1099. When Saladin took Jerusalem in 1180, he removed all traces of Christian worship from the Temple Mount. In a twist of irony, the golden dome of a Muslim shrine has become a symbol for the capital of the Jewish state.

This panoramic shot was taken from behind the Dome building.

We had the opportunity to visit the wailing wall but only Gigi and I took that opportunity (on the ladies' side of course.)

I don't remember where these gardens were except that there were some bathrooms nearby where Gigi and I hid while a Palestinian man was taken down by police for being belligerent. 

At the French church located at the pools of Bethesda, Gigi and Tovi led our tour group in song with "Jesus Loves Me."

On the Via Dolorosa, we walked through the Convent of the Sisters of Zion which stands over the place where Jesus was scourged and condemned.

Did I mention I took over 3000 pictures?

It's just such a fascinating place.

And colorful.

And look! A hidden Mickey in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher!

And a hidden Jesus of course.

And light coming into shadowy places and reflecting off the incense smoke.

And Gigi bouncing off the walls perhaps from too much incense smoke. 

These were amazing adventures. More meaningful than Milan. More powerful than Paris. I hope someday we can go back. And we are thankful for the sweet Bagwell family who let us join them on this adventure.

Prior to our trip, we said goodbye to Luna. As in, goodbye forever. We sent her to a lovely family in Santa Cruz. She can go eat someone else's walls.

When we flew back in through Miami, we stopped for a birthday party with friends. 

We flew back to Bolivia at the end of the month and jumped right back into school. Within a week, we found out we would be losing our precious Florencia. Her daughter has been in therapy for a weak eye for over a year. Her evaluation revealed that very little improvement has been made so she needs more intensive therapy. We have all shed our tears. We are definitely more sad at her parting than we were with Luna's. In May, we lose our art-gardening-sewing teacher (and one of our best friends) to the cruel cycle of job advancement; her family moves on to Switzerland. And at the end of that month we lose our other closest friends here to Denver. These next few months may be a bit of a bumpy ride but that just makes us hold on a little tighter to the Lord. It's all good.