The Start of a Pilgrimage

At SFO ready and excited to take off!

One week after Emily and I returned from our whirlwind DC/NY trip, our family of four joined 37 additional people to take an incredible pilgrimage into the Holy Land.. not Disneyland, but Jesus' land: Israel.

Tel Aviv Airport at 3:30AM.. Apparently it's hoppin' at all hours of the day and night!

THE STATS
16 Days
3 Countries
8 Flights
5 Hotels
69 Locations
41 Pilgrims
4 Tour guides
1 Emergency dentist visit
1 Temporarily 'lost' member
3 Pickpocket Attempts
2 New friends serving on medical missions
1 Birthday (Scott Wong)
10 hrs/day average touring sites
2 incredible hosts - Pastor & Marti Williams

After we came back we...

Sorted through 4,000+ pictures and hours of video

Created a 28 minute video slideshow and

a 11'x14' 111-page digital album filled with 784 pictures which took

over 80 hours of labor on the computer!

It would take a ton of blog posts for me to cover what we saw and learned, so if you are REALLY interested in hearing about our trip, we'll gladly show you our video and album.

But for this blog, I will try to give you a snippet of what we experienced.

First off, my answer to "How was the trip?" is always:
If you have a relationship with Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you should go to the Holy Land. If you are in ministry and are called to work for Jesus as your profession, you must go to the Holy Land. You have to, have to, have to, I say. The Bible truly comes to life: you understand and see Jesus for real.

Before we arrived in Israel, we had a 7-hour layover in Zurich, Switzerland.

Lovely city

We got a quick day tour of the city. Almost every car is a Mercedes, Audi, BMW, or Porsche (per my husband's observations). We visited the river front and Fraumunster Church: the choir of the abbey includes 5 stained glass windows designed by artist Marc Chagall.

Not a good meal for those who are lactose-intolerant like many Asians I know, including my husband and daughter

Afterwards we ate a traditional Swiss fondue dinner:  a pot of cheese, boiled potatoes, bread, and small salad. We were still hungry afterwards!

In Israel, our tour began before sunrise at Jaffa (Joppa). Jaffa is one of the world's oldest ports, where Jonah set sail for Tarshish (Jonah 1:3-4). King Solomon received materials at this port to build the first temple.

We saw the sun rise!

Then we went to Caesarea Martima which was the largest man-made harbor when it was built in the 1st century by Herod the Great.

An inscription on limestone shows that Pontius Pilate ruled from here.

 In this city Peter baptized the first Gentile who became a Christian: Cornelius, a Roman centurion (Acts 10). Paul spent time here, both as a visitor, in Philip's home (Acts 8), and as a prisoner (Acts 23-26). Excavations uncovered streets, civic buildings, temples, sewage system, amphitheater, hippodrome, and baths.

Behind us is the Mediterranean Sea.

Next was the site of the ancient Battle of Megiddo. It is also prophesied to be the site of Armageddon: the final battle between Jesus and Satan.

Armageddon, as it was written in Revelation 16,  right behind Hannah in the beautiful lush valley of milk & honey

Near the summit of Mt Carmel, a statue commemorates the site of Elijah's contest with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). Here we enjoyed a panoramic view overlooking the Plain of Jezreel.

Below are the ruins underneath the Church of Cana: believed to be the location of the wedding where Jesus changed water into wine (John 2).

We went to the Mount of Beatitudes, where we descended the mountainside where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), heading towards the Sea of Galilee.

While walking down it was easy to imagine the thousands of people on the mountainside listening to Jesus preach.

We ended up at this cove on the northern shore of Sea of Galilee which is where Jesus called his disciples to follow him. Here our group sang "On Holy Ground".

All of us in the Sea of Galilee

And yes.. there were lots of fish!

Capernaum was Jesus' home during his ministry (Matthew 4). Here Jesus performed many miracles, including healing a demon possesed man (Mark 1), and raising from the dead, the daughter of Jairus (Luke 8). A church has been built over Peter's house, where Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law (Mark 1).

This was part of Peter's home.

NEXT UP: Peering into a village during Jesus' time, the Syrian border and someone gets baptized in the Jordan River!