A Passage to Israel (and Palestine)

Well, friends, I am home! I had the experience of a lifetime--3.5 months in Jordan, followed by two full weeks in Israel and Palestine. However, because of my internet situation, I was not always able to post everything I wanted, especially at the end. Therefore, I have had some requests to finish  things off--with more pictures! I hope everyone will indulge me with another couple of posts, in which I attach a few more---hopefully interesting!---photos of the Holy Land.

Our first day in Israel, we took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. It is smaller than I expected--much smaller than the Dead Sea, but still big enough to be a wild ride in a storm:) It was one of my favorite experiences there.

Would you have believed that this was the Middle East?

 The entire region (Jordan and Israel both)
experienced an unusual amount of rain that fall. I cursed it roundly in 2 languages while I was in Jordan (taxis become scarce when it rains in Jordan, and waiting on the street in the pouring rain for 20 minutes waiting for a taxi to get to school is مش كويس كتير) but we were rewarded with unprecedented, green loveliness and powerful waterfalls in northern Israel. This photo is from the land of Dan, near the headwaters of the Jordan River. We felt like we had stumbled into a Mediterranean paradise.

This crazy crew went geocaching in Israel. This is the geocache that we found on the Mount of the Precipice, where an angry crowd of Nazerenes tried to push Christ off after they rejected His teachings. "A prophet has no honor in His own country!" Also, we are looking down on the Jezreel Valley, where Barak and Deborah swept the opposing armies out of Israel in the Book of Judges, and Jael killed the commander by sticking a tent stake through his head.

Ever heard of a battle at a little place called Armageddon? This is the place!

One of my bucket list goals was to eat a falafel sandwich from a street vendor in Jerusalem...

When Christ says that a camel must go through the eye of a needle for a rich man to go to heaven, this is what He meant!

We met these darling girls at the Mt of Temptation outside Jericho. They were on a field trip from Ramallah, and they thought that 6 foot tall, Arabic-speaking, redheaded Lindsay was amazing!

When the Christian children get home from school, they take to the streets of Jerusalem!