Ramparts Walk, November 4, 2019

The Ramparts Walk is walking up at the top of the wall surrounding the Old City.  We saw this Palestinian birthday party going on and it was fun!  We enjoyed seeing the city below us as we walked along, plus we could see the many buildings and homes within the Old City.

Trip to BeerSheva, November 9, 2019

On November 9th, after church and a potluck lunch that we set up and cleaned up, we drove to Beer Sheva to visit Anna, a 70 year old member of the branch who lives in a nursing home and is blind and nearly deaf.  We first picked up Tanya, who speaks Russian, and she communicated with Anna for us.  Lee played church songs on the piano, we read scriptures, and Lee gave Anna a blessing.

Next, we drove to another city to visit Julia and for Lee to give her a blessing before her major surgery the next week.  We had a great time visiting--Julia is a member of 6 months, but very stalwart and faithful.  The next week there was rocket fire between the Gaza Strip and Tel Avivi and Beer Sheva, so her surgery was cancelled until the next week.  In all, we spent 8 hours on this visit and 5 of them were driving.  We were pretty exhausted by the time we got home, but we were so pleased that we could be of service.  We were able to go because the students were in Greece, so we didn't have choir practice on the Sabbath.

The next week at church we celebrated Liviu's birthday and he seemed quite pleased. 

The Davidson Archeological Park, November 25, 2019

After several very busy weeks, we had time to visit the Davidson Archeological Park, which has  2nd Temple stones and ruins, Mikvehs (for ritual purity) and stairs leading up to an arch/gate where Jesus would have entered the Temple.

On the 23rd we also drove to Galilee to meet the students, who have been there for a week, to have a choir practice for the Christmas Concert.  The keyboard was horrible, but it was good to practice!  We spent one night and went on a field trip with the students.  We went to the Golan Heights, the ancient city  of Gamla, where the Romans eventually beat the Jews, who had held out for quite a long time.

A 2000 year old synagogue can still be seen and explored, and there is a  walking path to the pinnacle of the mountain (seen behind us).  The state of Israel feels that it was a great accomplishment to win this land back in the 1967 war and plan to never let it get out of Israel's lands again.  You can learn more and see more pictures at this website:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-2000-year-old-synagogue-at-gamla-the-oldest-yet-found-in-israel/

Next, we went Kurzi, where the story of the devils going into pigs and then the pigs running off the hill occurs (see Matthew 8, Mark 5, Luke 8) There is a chapel there and a Byzantine church (ruins).  Dr. Judd said that the east side of the Galilee was inhabited by Gentiles, of the Decopolis areas, and that they did eat pork.  He also posited that perhaps the devils got into the swine, and ran down  to their death, so that the people would reject Jesus.

 Byzantine church

 Baptismal font

Chapel commemorating where pigs had evil spirits go into them.