Monday, April 13, 2009

Israel trip

Ok, it has been WAY TOO LONG since I last updated my blog... ojojoj... Crazy how time flyes! Well, lots has happened these last 8 months... but there is no way I can give a fair view back on all that has taken place... maybe I can try to make a short summary some time... but now I can at least share a bit of the amazing Trip we did to Israel! There were 5 of us that went, Andrus, Helen, Meelike, Sigurd and I. In other words 3 estonians, 1 norwegian, and 1 finn... :-) Two of our dear friends, Tom and Julia, are living in Jerusalem where they are going in Bibleschool. So Andrus, Helen and Meelike stayed at their place. Also there is an amazing norwegian woman, Sigrid, who is living there as well, so us scandinavians stayed at her palce... :-) It was just such a great priviledge to be there and spend some time with them all. We surely felt so blessed!


We were there for about 8 days, 10 in all with travelling. In that time we got so see alot of things actually, even though tosee everything you could stay there forever! ;-) It was truly amazing to see the palces that one has only read about in the Bible before. But to actually have been there was so special. It so opens up the Bible in a whole new way. You can see and understand a bit more where Jesus walked and where all those stories took place. :-)


We spent about 3-4 days in Jerusalem. We saw alot there, walking around in the old town, some stops of the via dolorosa, the garden tomb, Gethsemane, we lived on mount of Olives, the market, visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, etc. Then we drove down to Eilat, swam both in the Dead and the Red Sea. We went to Qumran, where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, to Masada - one of king Herod´s palaces, and to the under water Aquarium in Eilat and so forth. Then we drove up to Galilee, drove by the Jordan river and drove around the lake of Galilee and stayed in Tiberias over night at a really nice hotel with view over the lake of Galilee... :-) So amazing... Then we drove up to the Golan hights and up to this village in the mountains... really cool!!! And then we visited Nazaerth where we went to the palces where the angel spoke to Mary and where Jesus grew up. We also had the priviledge to visit both a Church service in Hebrew, in Jerusalem, and Sigrid, Sigurd and I went to Bethlehem and there we attended an arabic Church service! So cool!!! :-) In Bethlehem we also visited one monastry in the desert, the Herodium - another one on king Herod´s palaces, the Shepard´s field- where the angels appeared to the shepards, and The Nativity Church where Jesus as born.