Tour of the Old City

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Thank you for praying for me today. I could not have withstood the physical challenges of today's study tour without your prayers. We literally walked the entire Old City of Jerusalem. Imagine at 1.5 square mile of land with 37,000 residents and thousands of visitors. Up hill, down hill, up steps, down steps. People everywhere and this is not the busiest time of the year.

We started our day with a visit to the Western Wall through the Dung Gate and walked up to the Temple Mount to see the Dome of the Rock, the Moslum mosque which Christian can not enter. We were allowed to be on the grounds there and near another mosque that is nearby. From the Temple Mount one can look over to the Town of Bethany where Jesus started his Palm Sunday trip...two miles through the Golden Gate to the Temple. We made our way to St. Stephen's Gate which commemorates the place where the first Christian Martyr was stoned to death.

Then we visited the Church of St. Anne, the spot where supposedly Mary was born. We sang in the church which was magnificent because everything echos seven times. Next to the church is the Pool of Bethesda, where Jesus healed the man who said he had been unable to get into the waters.

For me the most moving part of the day was to follow Jesus' footsteps along the Via Dolorosa (The Way of Sorrow), the three-quarter mile walk carrying the cross to Golgotha (Calvary). After Lunch in the old city we continued to see the Cardo and Broad Wall en route to Mt. Zion: Dormition Abbey (Roman Catholic) and Cenacle / Cenaculum (The Upper Room) and the Tomb of King David. We stopped at the place where Peter denied Jesus—Peter in Galicanto. There I got some wonder pictures of Jerusalem neighborhoods on the hillsides.

Back on the bus we went back to Mt Olive to see the Ascension Chapel the very place Jesus ascended to heaven. Across the street is the Pater Noster Church (The Lord's Prayer) where the prayer is written in 120 languages in beautiful mosaics.



Back to the hotel for dinner and much needed rest. Praise the Lord for a great day!

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