Advertisement
Published: January 27th 2011
Photo 6
Fresh orange Juice Today started our with a great breakfast at our hotel. The most interesting thing at breafast was the orange juice...check out the picture of the juicer...totally automatic....fresh oranges in the hopper and when you pulled the handle for juice you watched the oranges fall, get sliced in half, sent on to juicers to the left and right, pressed, the pulp and seeds separated and your juice into the glass....pretty neat.
It was then off to the Sea of Galilee which is right behind our hotel. We went to a museum which house a boat that was discovered and excavated in 1986 which is similar to the boat Jesus or the disciples would have used and is two thousand years old. Two brothers were walking along the beach after a severe drought and found some ancient nails…then they saw something sticking out of the ground….they contacted an archaeologist and uncovered this boat. Now it seems as if all of this was a very simple operation but there is nothing farther from the truth. The boat had to be hand excavated and had to be continually watered to keep it wet so it wouldn’t dry out and turn to dust.
Photo 7
Sunrise from our hotel overlooing the sea of Galilee To move it the used spray foam and encapsulated it...even digging underneath it section by section to cover the bottom. In order to move it a canal was dug to the sea and it was floated on the Sea of Galilee for the first time in 2000 years. It is an incredible find and gives more credibility to the stories of Jesus and the fishermen.
Interestingly enough the boat was made of twelve kinds of wood….does this symbolize the 12 tribes of Israel? And whose boat is it….was it used by the disciples or by Jesus himself? That is the question that may never be answered.
In the museum the had various items for sale but the one that caught my attention was the shofar (ram’s horn)…especially after one of the workers played it…because it is a museum he wouldn’t play it again unless we went outside…several people tried to get a sound out of it….but believe me if you can play a trumpet…you can play a shofar…I was able to get 5 different pitches out of the two I played….the museum guy was pretty impressed.
Following our visit to the museum we boarded
a boat for a ride out into the Sea of Galilee. Much to our surprise over the loudspeaker came the strains of our National Anthem… Larry Richie stood up and the rest of us followed suit and we joined in singing The Star Spangled Banner…..as the ship mate raised an American Flag….and of course I bawled….what a touching moment! Then we had morning devotions and sang several Christian songs.
We learned so much from the ship hostess. It is within a 20-kilometer triangle formed by the three ancient cities of Bethsaida, Chorazin and Capernaum is where 70-80% of Jesus’ miracles took place. We were able to see the pass between two mountains that Jesus stoo when traveling from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee.
Next we went to the Mount of Beautitudes and had that scripture from Matthew 5:1-17 read to us. It was easy to imagine if we had been here 2000 years ago we would have heard Jesus himself deliver those words. . There is a beautiful mosaic in the Church at Tagbha depicting the loaves and fishes where Jesus feed the loaves and fishes to the crowds (one of the two multiplications) The
Photo 3
Carving in stone of Ark of the Covenant next church was the Church of Peter’s Primacy where Jesus appeared for the third time to the disciples and prepared them breakfast. We also waled down to the Sea of Galilee and many of us pick up stones from the water to bring home.
We then visited the village of Capernaum where Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law. They have excavated that village and it was so interesting to view the remains there.
We left there to go to lunch. Many of us had what is know as St. Peter’s Fish….tilapia grilled with the head, tail and fins still in tact. It was very good although I like someone to fillet my fish and get ride of the bones.
From there we went to the River Jordan to re-affirm out baptism. What a joy!! It was a wonderful experience for the 20 of us that were re-affirmed and for those of our group that were spectators….though I must admit that the water was very cold. One lady in our group is 92 and another is 84 and neither of them complained about the cold.
We are now back at our hotel, had dinner and
Photo 4
Ruins at Capernaum are preparing for bed at tomorrow is an early day. I am totally overwhelmed by the experiences I have had thus far and so are many in our group. Our host is excellent and has been schooled in preparation to be a tour host. He is Jewish and said that studying the Christian religion has been enlightening for him and I must say he has helped to make this a wonderful experience.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 26; dbt: 0.043s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ann Holmes
non-member comment
Thank You for this blog, Becky!
I am the older sister of Betsy Richie. I have been very curious about Larry's trip and, so, will enjoy reading your blog, seeing Larry's fashionable outfits, and hearing about what he has to eat (he loves leftovers). Larry actually made a mistake in your blog address but I figured it out and will send the correction to Betsy, et al. I think it is wonderful you all are doing this trip. I have already learned quite a bit from your blog entries (seriously) and will continue to read them as your trip progresses.