Thursday, May 31, 2012

More on the Trip of a Lifetime

After a good night's rest we headed for more food! Breakfasts in Israel are either dairy or meat as kosher rules don't allow the two to be served together. The dairy consists of veggies of all kinds, a wide variety of cheeses, cereal, yoghurt, breads and fruit. No porridge or meats of any kind. In fact at one place we stayed, cheesecake was served at breakfast. I am not an expert on the dietary laws found in Scripture but I am very happy to report that cheesecake is a clean food and highly recommend it for breakfast. But be advised it does not fuel your body for long so have that second piece!

We then got on the bus and headed to Caesarea. The ruins there were amazing. To stand where Paul was held for two years and to see the way Roman cities were designed was fascinating. Then we visited Mount Carmel and saw where Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal. On top of the mountain all of Israel could see the fire from the Lord come down and declare Him as the only God. Israel should have and did already know this but the world slowly turned them away from God. It is the same for us. The world gets us to look for other answers to our problems while deep in our hearts we know that Jesus is the solution to our problems.

Leaving Carmel we crossed the Valley of Jezreel then climbed up to Nazareth. Nazareth over looks the valley we just crossed and on the Mount of Precipice you see so many biblical sites, Mt. Tabor where Deborah judged, Mt. Gilead where Gideon led his 300 men, Mt. Gilboa where King Saul fell on his sword. This is also thought to be the spot where the people tried to throw Jesus down the cliff after he read from the scroll of Isaiah. It is all right there! Pastor Skip brought the Word and we worshiped the Lord right in His childhood backyard. It left me thinking that I should learn this place for there will come a day when the army of the Lord will come here to defeat the armies of the world. I plan on being there on Jesus' side.

Then we headed for the Sea of Galilee and the town of Tiberias. It was a day when and a place where dreams came true. No! Not Iowa but Israel!

The Trip of a Lifetime

Shalom. Peace. That is in my heart today. Bev and I have just returned from a one week stay in Israel. The Lord blessed us by providing everything we needed for the trip of a lifetime.

The weeks leading up to the trip were hectic to make sure everything would run smoothly here in Jinja. I say hectic, but there was no worry since all the ministries are well handled by Steven, Kelli and the rest of the staff. Bev and I also set aside time each day to discuss our upcoming trip so we would be sure to not let each other miss the things that were important to us.

On the day of our departure we had another blessing. Pastor Aaron Mawanda from Kajjansi asked me to be the guest speaker at the graduation of the first class of the School of Ministry at Namalanda. It was such a blessing to speak to a group of young men that had been taught by someone we had trained at the SoM in Jinja. To see a third generation, over 100 kilometers away, springing forth from what Jesus has started in Jinja was an incredible thrill.

We arrived in Israel at 4:00am and found a taxi that took us on a high speed ride to our hotel in Tel Aviv. The driver did not have to encourage us to put our seatbelts on. But since it was still dark we didn't care that we went too fast as there was nothing to see anyway. By 6:00am we were in bed trying to get caught up on sleep as we waited for the rest of our tour group to arrive that afternoon.

They arrived around 5:00 and we started to get to know our tour mates. We had already bumped into Pastor Skip and Lenya Heitzig in the supermarket opposite our hotel so we knew what time the group would arrive. We got to welcome them as they got off the bus. And they came bearing gifts! Mike and Hilda Butcher brought my repaired hearing aid (thanks Vera and Keith Benevides), Dave and Sue Fischer brought batteries (sent by Dr. Jenny Carver) for the hearing aid which was good since yours truly forgot to bring some, and the Hilland's, Dave and Cindy, brought three pounds of witnessing coins in Luganda. They all did a great service for us (I like to think we did the same by giving them extra room in their luggage to bring home more mementos from Israel).

We then had a great dinner in Joppa at the Old Man and the Sea restaurant. Too much food! But I personally showed great manners and upbringing by eating everything set before me! With the exception of the fish brain and eyes. It was quite interesting the way the fish was served. The fish was cut vertically lengthwise from nose to tail giving it a mirror image of both sides of the fish brains and all. It was like an inkblot image in a psychiatric test. Then it was back to the hotel to sleep and dream of the days to come!