I couldn't believe that it was our last day in Israel! Thankfully, we were be able to enjoy the day without having to think about an exam!
This morning, we ran to Jaffa Gate for breakfast in the Old City. We found fresh fruit juice and pita. Delicious!
As a Taylor group, we then went to church at Jerusalem Assembly. It was about a 30 minute walk, south towards Bethlehem. The church was up 5 flights of stairs. This church was a lot different from the first one I had gone to! The pastor was a Messianic Jew, and he spoke in Hebrew while another man translated for him. One of the things I enjoyed most about this church was the worship. Two of the songs we sang were "How Great Thou Art" and "In Christ Alone." The awesome thing about this was that people were singing in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. It was neat to hear the congregation of believers worshiping together in three different languages. The church service also ended up being 2 and 1/2 hours long! The Pastor's message was very applicable to what we had been learning during our time in Israel, which was really cool. Another neat part about this church was that the Pastor opened up the room for prayer requests, and people were openly sharing in front of the entire congregation.
Our next stop for the day after lunch was the Garden Tomb. We walked through the streets of the Old City...some that we had never been on before in the Muslim quarter. These were so crowded! I also saw some things that I wish I hadn't...like giant carcasses of meat. Hmm. We then walked out through Damascus Gate. This was the most crowded gate I had ever seen. As always, it was fun to be amongst the culture!
After leaving the Old City, we had a short walk to the Garden Tomb. The Garden Tomb is another plausible site for the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. This was a free-admission site that was run by British Evangelical Christians. We ended up getting our own personal tour from Richard, the director of the Garden Tomb Site! It was definitely a lot different than I had expected. There were lots of trees and flowers everywhere. When we went inside the tomb itself, there was a small room on the left - an area where people would have gone to mourn. On the right side of the tomb was the
place where Jesus' body would have been. This site was
definitely very aesthetically appealing and more of what you might expect to see, unlike the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Who really knows where the exact place is...it really doesn't matter that much because He is Risen!
After our group all had a chance to look into the tomb, Richard reserved a spot for us to take communion in the garden. Together as a group, we read from the Bible the story of the last supper, Jesus' crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and his ascension into Heaven. We also sang a few songs together as a group. I really valued this time together. It was also just neat to be among the Taylor group and see how close we had come together over the past three weeks.
After walking around the city some more and taking pictures, we went to dinner at "The Gate" which is the place I had been before. This time I tried the schnitzel. Delicious! Then we got some gelato in the New City. By then, it was about 9:00, and we went to a coffee shop in the New City. It was fun just to ha
ng out and talk, as if we were locals. Ha..not really. Before we knew it, we were packing our bags! Around midnight, I finished packing. I took one last picture of our view from the roof.
For the next three hours, a small
group of us decided to stay up and play games. Lots of fun! Then we made our last walk
with all our suitcases down past the Old City Wall at 3:00 AM. The sound of the wheels on the rock reminded me of that first night when we arrived, and I was so amazed by the Old City Wall. It seemed like yesterday. I can't believe it though that I was in Israel for 3 weeks!
It took us 24 hours total to make it back to the States. Lots and lots of security to go through, especially in London. We landed around 7:00 in Chicago (3:00 A.M in Israel!) Everything went well.
It's great to be home, but I definitely miss the people and the land of Israel! I am currently in front of 2,000 pictures on my computer - I don't even know how to begin organizing everything! It will be a project, that's for sure!
Thank you again for all your prayers!! Be on the look out for one more post - more or less a summary of all that God has shown me on this trip!
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