Galilee

Galilee was amazing and I absolutely loved it. The atmosphere there is so peaceful, relaxed, and refreshing. It was incredible because there are palm trees around the kibbutz we stayed at. The sandy beach next to the sea of Galilee with a calm breeze. It was fantastic. We had a bon fire every night and on the last night, it was a class party. We made smores, played games, and ate way too much junk food.


Our schedule consisted of classes every other day and field trips on the off days. We would have three hours of New Testament and one hour of archaeology. Then we would spend all afternoon doing our homework on the beach. It was so nice. A real break. Our field trips were by far the highlights. The first day when we drove into the Galilee we went to the most northern part of Israel. The best stop of the day was 1.5 hour we had to play at Nimrod's castle. It had no religious significance but it was so fun. Honestly who wouldn't have fun exploring an old castle.


The next field trip was a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee. At first they fed the sea gulls, played music, and we hung out. Once we were in the middle they stopped the boat and we had a lesson about Christ's ministry in the Galilee. It was neat because second half of the signs like this only in Israel trip we were given time just to ponder. I suddenly realized that this was Christ's mission. It was neat to think I have visited where Jesus was born, where he died, but now I finally was seeing where he did the majority of his teaching. It was his mission, just like Spain will be my mission. It got me so excitement for chocolate goodness excited for my own mission. It will be amazing.


Funny story. I don't know what it is but I seem to tear a lot of clothes when I am on the study abroad programs. See the cute pink shirt I was wearing in the picture above. I wore that shirt all day because I wanted to dress nice, especially because that night we were going out to a restaurant. Well I had some time that afternoon and I walked along the beach. Carlee joined me and eventually we ended up skipping and throwing rocks. We were playing a hot potato sort of game and I got hot so I pulled off my jacket. She stood there staring dumb founded at me. I couldn't figure out what she was looking at. She pointed to my arm. I had ripped a whole in the middle of my sleeve along my bicep. It wasn't as long a seem either. I laughed so hard. I was somewhat sad because that was one of the few shirts I had planned on taking home. I guess not anymore. :)

Mt. Tabor was an exciting adventure. We had to leave at 7:30 because there was only 1 bus for both classes to coordinate with. We arrived at the catholic church right at 8:00 when it opened. It is atop Mt. Tabor which is the place they believe to be the Mt. of Transfiguration. I guess another tour group had scheduled the church and so we went to a tent like area next to the church. It was freezing outside, especially with the wind blowing. We were out there for at least an hour as Bro. Draper lectured. Then towards the end of his lesson, the storm suddenly picked up out of no where. The rain came pouring down and was leaking throughout the tent. People started screaming, jumping up to move to new spots, etc. Essentially bro. Draper decided it was hopeless to try and continue his lecture. Once the taxi's arrived, we had to make a run for it. We were soaked as you can see in the picture. I was wearing my khaki pants and the entire front side of me was completely see through. Thank goodness it wasn't the back side, right? It was so fun.

It was no amazing to spend so much time where the savior taught the people. I loved the time to ponder, study his teachings, and to read Jesus the Christ. It was amazing to learn how Jesus' mission was so much to get the people to understand how much he loved them and was reaching out to them. He just wanted them to repent and to accept him as the Messiah. Here is an example of the beautiful sunsets we were privileged with every evening. It was fantastic and of course as always I learned so much in the formal and informal teaching moments.
The last day, before driving home, we stopped at a cemetery in Haifa. It was where the first two converts to the church from the Palestine mission were berried. They were Germans living in Haifa. I guess the missionaries had a lot of success with the German people in Palestine. There were also two graves there for missionaries who passed away while serving their missions. It is interesting that often we may not understand what the Lord's mission is for us. For these young men it was to be buried here in the Holy Land. Israel decided they would allow the established churches, like the Jews, Muslims, and Christians to have a presence in the Holy Land, but they would not allow any new churches. When they were building the Jerusalem Center, people tried to claim that we were a new religion trying to make our presence here. The church used those two graves to show that our church had a presence here in the Holy Land before Israel was even a state. How cool is that. The Lord really is watching out for his church. It is amazing.
I am sorry this is so long and I haven't even written a quarter of what I was able to experience in the Galilee. It was incredible and if I were to come back to Israel, I would definitely stop at Jerusalem, but I would want to spend some time in the Galilee.