Today is Monday, October 24, 2022.  Tomorrow we set out by car to New York, to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal where we embark on a 26-day cruise, stopping first at Southhampton, England, then approximately 12 days either at sea or visiting ports in Norway before returning to Southhampton and then back to New York.  We hope to get good views of the Northern Lights especially from Tromso, which is more than 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle.  We have never been this far north before and are excited to be taking this journey.  We will be traveling with our friends Bill and Carol Beydler, which we have done before.  We have always enjoyed their company on our journeys.  

Stay Tuned for more blogs as time goes by. 

At Ben Gurion airport

We are sitting at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv waiting for our flight.  Airport security was easy and we have about two hours to wait for our flight.  We have had an interesting last week in Nazareth.  We went somewhere every night except Friday, either for ice cream or for dinner.  On Monday we were upstairs in our building for ice cream with a couple from Canada.  Then on Tuesday we went to visit Afif and Mimi, our first friends in Nazareth when we started coming here ten years ago.
On Wednesday we went to the home of Morag's co-worker, Adel, and had a great evening.  We go to visit them once every time we come to Israel.   Thursday we went to the home of Morag's other co-worker, Moin, and were entertained by their son who is a professional musician.  He plays the lute and did a rendition of Malaguena, which was really something to hear.  He also played one of his own compositions, which was a classical type of music.  The young man is a very famous musician in Israel and is known throughout the middle east.
Friday night we had the two Canadian couples in to our flat for dessert.  One of these couples left on Sunday so we said goodbye to them later the next day.

Sunday we had to bid farewell to our friends at Good Shepherd Baptist Church in Nazareth in the morning and then to our friends from Cana Baptist Church in the evening.  These were sad times for us because we have no guarantee that we will see them again this side of glory.  We were all sad to say farewell.  This year we have become closer to them than ever before.

I hope you have not been too bored reading our blogs.  We are looking forward to seeing family and friends soon.  

One week later

Sorry we haven't been in touch this last week.  The reason is that we have been very tired and it took us quite a while to recover from our trip.  We also had to start work, which is hard going and we get very tired out from it.  We had three nice days in Migdal, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in a B&B run by a Christian group.  In fact, we met a lady from Glasgow there so Morag and she had a good blether.  We actually took it quite easy because the whole group was tired and this was a great place to relax; good weather, good view, good company, good hotel and a lovely garden.

We looked around at a few sites.  Alan preached at the church in Cana on Sunday night, which went over very well.  People from Cana had us for dinner both Sunday and Monday.  On Tuesday we all came back to Nazareth and we showed them around and had them for dinner that evening in our house.  They left fairly early because they had to fly back to the U.S. on the Wednesday morning.

Weather is absolutely wonderful.  Today it is in high 70s.  It's nice to be in this part of the world at this time of the year.  The flowers are blooming and you don't need a coat.  It's quite nice.  The group, before they left, all had colds.  Mel caught one as well and Chris has a sinus infection, but things are looking up now.

One thing Morag is excited about is the story of her bed.  The mattress is too big for the bed.  It overlaps the bottom footboard and in order for that to work there are two mattresses under it to support it.  Unfortunately one of the mattresses is not wide enough to fit the frame so she has been sleeping on a slant since she has been here.  Last night, during the night, she thought that this was maybe the reason for the pain in her back.  So she got up this morning and she and Mel took off the three mattresses and put the smallest one on the bottom and placed two-liter soda bottles that were filled along the side to fill in the gap and then put the other mattresses on the top.  So she just had to try it out and the trial turned into a three-hour nap.  She was so excited that she was on the level.  It's the first time she has ever slept on soda bottles but it worked and now she is a happy camper.

So, life goes on as normal in Israel.

Quick word

We are getting ready to leave to join the Beydlers and others at Migdal in Galilee.  They have been in Jordan for the last three days while we came home to work.  We are going to join them in a B&B and we will have a sort of relaxed sight-seeing vacation type journey and will not be going at the speed we were with Dr, Bookman.  The weather is better so we expect to have a nice few days.  Two families from Cana will be having all of us for dinner on two separate nights and then on Tuesday we expect to show them around the Nazareth area and we will bring back them back to our house for dinner and then they leave the next day for the U.S.  We have rested these last three days, working some, cleaning house, doing laundry; nothing too strenuous.   Yesterday we walked into town and picked up a few groceries then walked nearly home again but couldn't face the uphill walk, so we got a taxi at the bottom of the hill to take us home.

This was a new car, still had plastic on the seats and the guy told us we were his first passengers.  So they offered us dessert to celebrate the occasion of the new taxi.  On the outside of the taxi in the top left-hand corner of the windshield was a flower arrangement stuck to the windshield which was rather attractive.  It was also there to celebrate the new vehicle.  We thought all that was rather interesting.

We will be in touch when we return to Nazareth.

Last Day on Study Tour

On Wednesday we started out by walking to what is a likely location for the Upper Room where Jesus had the Passover with his apostles. After that we walked down to Gethsemane.  From there  our bus picked us up and took us to the Garden Tomb.  It cannot be the actual burial site because the grave is from the wrong era, but it is a much nicer place than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, although that tomb is from the right time frame.  

Then we started out for the Dead Sea but only got as far as En Gedi, where we had lunch.  We could not get down to the Dead Sea because there were sinkholes in the road and they had it closed off.  After lunch we went to Massada and dropped off some of the group.  Five of us did not want to walk down the siege ramp as the others did so we drove around the mountain to pick them up on the other side.  It took more than an hour to get to the other side and it was a twisty, winding road.  

Tuesday, 24 February

Wow, has it really been four days since I wrote in my blog?  We are just so tired when we come in at night that I often forget to write.  On Saturday we drove west to Beth Shemesh, Lachish, and the Ela Valley.  This is the valley where David had his battle with Goliath.  We had an interesting lecture about the battle and saw the valley where it likely took place.  We went to a place called Azeka and from there we had a good view of the valley.  We then drove around and had a good look at the city from mountainous overlooks on all sides.

On Sunday we visited Gibea and what was to have been King Hussein of Jordan's palace but that idea got stymied by the 1967 war.  He was sure he would have Jerusalem for his capital, but things didn't work out that way.  We then went to the Israel Museum and saw the huge model of the old city, followed by a visit to the Shrine of the Book.  We saw some other antiquities then were asked to leave the museuym since it was closing time.  That night we took a walk along the south wall of the city to a place outside Herod's poalace.  Our leader thinks that this is more likely the spot where Jesus was taken for his trial by Pontius Pilate and makes a compelling case for this, more than I want to include in the blog.  He says that people have it all wrong as to where the trial took place.

On Monday we went to the First Temple Museum where we had an interesting hostess who told us a little about the first temple.  Then we went to the Western Wall where there were several young meh having their Bar Mitzvah.  Then we went down to the City of David, took a look at some diggings, saw a movie about the place, then most of us went through either Hezekiah's tunnel or a Canaanite tunnel where we met at the pool of Siloam.  We had a late lunch at the Hurva synagogue, then the ladies went shopping and I came back to the hotel to rest.

This morning we went first to the Davidson Museum, which is dedicated to the southern wall of the temple mount and we had an interesting lecture about the architecture and the engineering that went into building up the temple mount.  We then went up on the temple mount where the Shrine of Omar (Golden Dome) and the El Aqsa mosque are located.  The Golden Dome is located probably on the spot where the Holy of Holies used to stand in the first temple.   We had to leave the mount about ten o'clock so we went from there to a church where they had a lot of artifacts from Jesus day and older and then to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  From what our guide said, if either of the two grave sites is correct, it would be this one because it is the right period.  That ended our day until tonight when we go into the tunnels under the temple mount.  We have been there before, but are eager to go again.

We only have one more day left of our study tour then it is back to Nazareth, so next blog will be from there.

Friday's Report

I can't believe I haven't posted since Tuesday.  On Wednesday we went to Upper Galilee.  I can't remember the order but I think we went to Dan first.  Dan has the largest continuously flowing water spring in the country and is one of the sources for the Jordan river, which feeds the Sea of Galilee.  The spring is located in what is now a nature park, and we walked one of the trails. It was very muddy and we had to walk over rocks that were a bit slippery.  Dan also has an ancient Canaanite gate that dates back to the time of Abraham.  Our leader made sure that those of us who are a bit long in the tooth had someone to help us along.  That was very thoughtful of him.

We also went to a place called Banias; the site of the Biblical Caesarea Philippi.  This is another very nice spring, but not so large as at Dan.  Here there is a famous city gate and what was a temple to the god Pan, thus its name.  It is Banias, not Panias because of the Arabic language problem with the letter P.  It doesn't exist in Arabic but comes out as a B.  They have problems with such English words as "park" or "pray", etc.  They come out as "Bark" and "Bray" instead.

We went to a little strip mall for lunch at a place called Kiryat Shmona, Hebrew for the village of eight. From there we went to a dig called Tel Hazor.  Hazor was one of the three cities that Joshua destroyed when they conquered the land.

Wednesday night we spent in En Gev on the Sea of Galilee, then headed south.  We went to a baptismal site down south, close to the Dead Sea, then back to Jericho where we visited a dig.  There we saw a burn layer that dates back to about l440 BC, and was evidence of the destruction of the city again by Joshua.  This city is under Palesltinian control.  We had lunch there at a cafe run by a missionary group.  Lunch was good.

Because of threatening weather we made a quick visit to Qumran, but didn't go into the park.  We saw some of the caves from the roadside then headed up to Jerusalem.  We were expecting snow and when it snows here the government shuts down the roads.  We made it to Jerusalem okay and checked into our hotel in the old city.

Overnight we had 30 cm of snow or about 7 inches.  Very unusual for Jerusalem.  The place was quiet as a tomb.  It began to wake up around noon.  We stayed in the hotel until about lunch time then went out for a while, and got a good tour of a musuem near Christ Church, the oldest protestant church in Jerusalem.

Water was running in the streets from melting snow.  Now it is very sunny but expecting rain during the day.  Temp expected to be in the low 50s.  We are headed west for the Shephelah and a visit to Shiloh, among other places.  Not sure where.  More to follow.