Tuesday, March 13

8:46 p.m. Israel time

A little about my schedule...we start the day at 6 a.m. For those of you who know the kind of schedule I maintain when I'm home...I want you to quit laughing right now! Breakfast is at 6:30 and we hit the road by 7:15.

We tour till about 5:30 p.m. Refresh our selves in our respective rooms for about 45 minutes {where I take a desperate 20 minute cat nap}, then we meet for reflections and prayer. What that means is that we talk about our impressions of the day. Each one has an opportunity to speak, but no one challenges the other or criticises. No pressure. Just a safe place to tell of the feelings and thoughts of all that the day brings up. We close in prayer, thankful for safety as we travel, protection for our loved ones back home and God's help to be a positive influence with those we come in contact with each day.

Dinner is a sumptuous buffet served at 7 p.m. Eating and continuing to make new friends and share our lives with each other can take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. After that, I try to hit the computer to update you and then head to bed, knowing that I will wake up around 2 in the morning, unable to sleep for at least an hour or two. When I do finally fall asleep. 6 a.m. comes awfully early.

Today the weather changed our plans a bit. Instead of hiking Mount Arbel and some of the sites around Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee, we drove for about 90 minutes to Gamla. (which is Hebrew for camel) When you see the picture (provided I can upload it,) you will see why it's named Gamla. The landscape looks just like a camel's hump.

To get to our next stop, we drove through the Golan Heights. I had my nose pressed to the bus window. I can't seem to get enough of the scenery. We stopped at one point to see that Syria is only a stones throw away. Suddenly reports on CNN take on a whole new meaning. There is a huge military presence in the Golan, as you might imagine. And while it wasn't as obvious as I thought it would be, we still saw groups of Israeli soldiers on maneuvers in military tanks.

However, I must tell you that I have never felt safer. We heard that 18 people were killed in the Gaza Strip Monday night, but there is no sense of tension in the air, at least in the places where we are traveling.

Finally we arrived at Ceasarea Philippi. It was in this region that Jesus asked the disciples who they thought He was and Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ. (Mark 8:27-38)

We had a fabulous lunch and then went to Tel Dan, an archelogical dig. Tel Dan is mentioned in the book of 1 Kings 11:1-18, 26-13:34.

And I just ran out of energy....

I am so sorry, but I've tried a couple times to post pictures and this computer connection is just too slow.

Karen, the people here come in all sizes. I will post pictures if ever I can. But I think the olive oil balances out the veggies, if you know what I mean.