We are now in Galilee!!

Yesterday, we had a much needed sort of down day from the 10-12 miles of mountain hiking we have been doing everyday (we only walked about 8 miles on 2 mountain trails!!) Beware, this will be a bit long, because I was feeling lazy yesterday, so this is a shortened version of the past 2 days.

Our day started off with a trip to the caves at Qumran, where the dead sea scrolls were found, and learned about the Essenes.

We then headed to the dead sea, and treated ourselves to what people pay a lot of money to experience at spas: a Dead Sea Clay Exfoliating Treatment. Our Cost: Totally Free!! (Well, included in the price we already paid for the trip, anyway.)

We then headed off to our next stop, Jericho: I'm sure most of us are all familiar with a story that happened here, which, true to the style of teaching our leaders have followed so far, we did not talk about at all. Rather, we read the story of the Good Samaritan from an Eastern perspective, which is a story that may have been a reference to the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. 

We finished the day at Mt Arbel, which could very well be the mountain that Jesus retreated to for prayer and quite, since, from the top, you can see almost all of Galilee. Because they didn't want us to have such an easy day, our leaders/rabbis took us down the mountain on this trail (yes, we had to climb down the cliff we are standing at the top of in this picture.) 

Side Note: Our hotel has beachfront property on the Sea of Galilee, so we got to go swimming in the Sea last night, too!! Probably not very often that someone can say they went swimming in the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee all in one day!!

This morning, a few of us got up early to watch the sun rise over the Sea of Galilee our first morning staying on the shores the Sea of Galilee. We even woke Bethany up before the sun and took her with us so she could watch the sun rise over the Sea of Galilee on her birthday!! It was amazing!! To think that this view is the same one that Jesus saw when He was living here in Galilee (minus the modern docks in the foreground, probably) was awesome to experience!!

After breakfast, we went back to the 12 miles of hiking up and down mountains schedule of the trip after our easy day on Monday. We started at Gamla, a Zealot stronghold that was conquered around 66 A.D. To tell the truth, with the humidity on this 100 degree day, I almost wished I was back in the desert hiking across the wadis there!

Here we learned about the Synagogue, and heard a story told in a Rabbinic way that completely changed my outlook on that story, and brought tears to my eyes (I'm going to leave it at that, you can ask Bethany or I about the Synagogue @ Gamla when we get back, and we can tell you about it, or share the story when we give our presentation of the trip after we arrive home.)

After Gamla, we went to the ancient city of Susita and heard another story within the context of the biblical story, culture, and geography that, once again, completely changed my view of that story (We can tell you about that one as well when we get home.)

Our last stop on the teaching part of the day was Beth She'am. This is an archealogical find of an amazing, elaborate, beautiful city that was there during the time of Jesus, and reflects the worldview of that time: That man is the center of everything; this was expressed through arts, entertainment, sports, media, etc.

One thing that struck me about this site as I was walking around and through it, and what we talked about here was that this city was huge and beautiful, and fully dedicated to glorifying man and human skill and talent. After all of the work that was put into building this city and using it as a place to showcase mankind, it was destroyed by an earthquake around 400 A.D. All that we try to accomplish on our own power, without God is like this city, it may be pretty or cool, or uplifting for a time, but in the end, will be not much more than rubble in a pile, under some dirt.

Who would you rather have build your kingdom? Those who built this city? Or The One who knit you together in your mother's womb, and knew you in the secret place, who knew all the days ordained for you before one of them came to be?

To cap off the day, we got a chance to go out on the Sea of Galilee in a replica of a boat that was used for fishing in the first century. It was really fun!