Day 6

We wake up to a calmer desert this morning. However the day is cold, rainy and windy. Our first stop is Beersheva, a wonderfully preserved 8th Century BC city. The remains included circular city walls with the foundations of dwellings along the walls. Of course there is the remains of the city water system and another cistern to climb down into.

After a stop for coffee, tea and hot chocolate (like I said it was a cold desert day!), we went to the ancient Israelite city of Arad. There are extensive ruins here from several periods. There is a fortress with towers, an Israelite temple similar to the one Solomon built in Jerusalem.

We ended the touring with Terrance giving us a tour of the site at En Hazeva, Biblical Tamar, where we are staying. Here there are remains of a Roman fortress and Roman bath, fortresses from different times during the Iron Age, plus shrines and buildings.

Several of us help around the area for the next few hours. Some of the men help clean up several trees fthat were down after the storm. Several of the women help Kate fix dinner for the evening. Derrick shows us all how to make Bedouin Bread, a flat bread that is cooked on an iron pan over a campfire. Kate has made Tahine (sesame paste sauce) for us to dip the bread into. Very good!

Home

I am sorry that we were not able to keep up the blog for the last half of the trip. Terrance kept us going all day once we got to Jerusalem and there was no internet access at our guest house. But we are finally home after a 9 hour delay in Tel Aviv, sleeping on the floor at the airport, missing all flights in Newark and spending the night there after individually hunting for any flights available home to the Rogue Valley. Four of us were able to get into Medford and 8 of us had to fly to Crescent City. Thank you to Mike Caplinger who picked us all up in the church van! Two more will be arriving home today. Terrance and 3 adventurous ones will be coming home in a few days.

I will update you on our final days with more pictures soon.

Day 5

We now are heading south to the Dead Sea. Our first stop is Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves nearby. We were able to see a couple of the caves and a few were wanting to make the trek to Cave 6, but it was closed due to flash flood warnings. Nice ruins of the village to see.

Our next stop was En Gedi, an oasis in the midst of this dry wilderness. We had a wonderful hike up the wadi (canyon) and saw some beautiful waterfalls. It was fun to see some ibex and a little mammal called a rock hyrex (sp?).

We then went to Masada, an amazing site on the top of a high mound in the desert. Herod had built an incredible fortress and this is where the Jews had there last stand against the Romans in 67 AD.

We made a stop at the Dead Sea so the braver ones (mostly us women) could take a dip. Was fun! As we traveled farther south we drove into an incredible sand storm.

Then our final stop was our home for the next 2 nights, Tamar, Terrance's dig site south of the Dead Sea. Due to the sand storm, they had lost electricity for awhile. It was the worst sand storm they had seen in the 10 years they have been here. Quite an experience.

Day 4

We are now staying down south of the Dead Sea at an active archaeological site known as Biblical Tamar at En Hazeva. Back to day 3: We went to 3 National Parks that contain ruins, of course! The first one was Hazor which is one of the cities destroyed by Joshua as the Israelites made the conquest of the promised land. It also contains ruins from the time of Solomon.

Our next stop was Dan. We took a lovely hike through trees and along the headwaters of the Jordan River to an ancient Israelite sacred site from the time of Jeroboam.

Then we went to the site of Banyas, which was Caesarea Philippi, in the bible. The vegetation was beautiful and it also contained streams that run into the Jordan river. It had some interesting temple in the rock to the Greek god, Pan.

Day 3

We visited Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus lived and based his early ministry. We got to see an early synagogue that was built on the foundation of the synagogue that was there in the first century. This is where we took the group photo. We also saw a village from that time and the probable house that Peter, the apostle lived in.

We also visited the ruins at Gamla, Kursi and Bethsaida.

The group is all doing well and enjoying the trip. Greetings to all our families and friends at home!

Day 2

We went to Beth Shean a wonderfully preserved Roman and Byzantine city from the 1st throught the 4th century. On the nearby mound or tel were an excavated Canaanite city and also an Israelite city. Very cool! There was a theater, Roman baths and a long main street with shops on the side. Even found the ancient public restrooms!

Then we went to Nazareth Village which was a living museum showing us what life was like in the 1st century when Jesus lived there.

Israel Day 1

We are here in Tiberius. This is our first chance to get on the internet.

We arrived in Tel Aviv at 7 am on March 19. We headed strait to Caesarea Maritima, a port on the coast built by Herod the Great. This is where Paul was held prisoner for 2 years before he sailed for Rome. This was also the port where Paul sailed on all his missionary voyages.

We then proceded to Megiddo and saw some great ruins from BC times. There was a big cistern that we were able climb down into...a bit scary for us who are afraid of heights!

Dinner pictures

Dinner in Newark with the tour group

Newark, New Jersey

We have successfully arrived in New Jersey. Everything went smoothly and most of us have checked into the Days Hotel Newark. Dave and Terrance are expected to arrive soon. We will gather for a group dinner in the restaurant and we are all very excited to leave for Israel tomorrow. I feel like a real tour director, as I was given all the room keys and the list and got to hand them all out! (This is only because I was the one to do the group booking). We will get a picture at dinner and post later this evening.

Heading to Israel

After planning this trip for over a year, we will be leaving for Israel in two days! We are so excited! Having never blogged before, we decided to try this out for our trip. We will see how often we can get to a computer, which will determine how often we can update. We also hope that the computers in Israel will have the Roman alphabet on them, if not we are in BIG trouble.

You all have my big brother, Philip, to thank for this blogging. I think he is used to following the niece and nephew blogs. So we will give this a try.

I am going to add a random image just to figure it out! This is Don, Dave, Tim and Terrance looking over the map of Jerusalem.