My Aventure to Israel: Chapter 8: The Great Wide Somewhere

Sunday, April 22

I was in far better spirits on this morning than I was the previous. We ate breakfast (not as disappointing this time) and boarded the bus. Ron Cantor switched with Troy and was on our bus today; he told his testimony as we drove out of Tiberias and headed north. We were going to the Hula Valley Nature Reserve, a huge tract of land that was once a disgusting, malaria filled swamp, and now is a sprawling, thriving land inhabited with thousands of species of animals and fish. It's also a great place for the bird watchers, as over 500 million migrating birds pass through this valley every year.  

After the bus parked, we all walked through the park entrance and gathered at the beginning of a paved path, just past a small building that housed the gift shop. When Roman joined us and made sure our Whisperers were working, we started down the path. To the left was a river, in which many of us were spotting muskrats, turtles and fish swimming around; further on we also spotted ducks. Roman paused near another path, a long wooden walkway that lead out over a nearby body of water and would take us in a loop that would come back around; farther down were this loop path would meet the main one, was a 2-3 story wooden lookout tower.

"If anyone wants to go ahead and climb the tower to lookout, can do that now if they want." Roman said.

I and a few others, including Haley, entered the tower and climbed the stairs to the top. The top floor of the tower was built with a walkway that went in a circle so you could see for miles in every direction.

It was so beautiful, I hardly know how to describe it. Except maybe...

Have you ever seen Beauty and the Beast? Especially that scene were Belle is tired of her dull, provincial life, so she runs through a field towards a beautiful mountain view whilst singing, "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell, and for once it might be grand, to have someone, understand, I want so much more than they've got planned." Well, I can tell you that that song was definitely an anthem for me as I looked our at this breathtaking view. Just look at the comparison!

We descended the tower, then began walking the wooden walkway; not only did it lead us over water, but we were surrounded on both sides by tall plant life, and more than once I would hear the planks creek and would start to think of that decrepit rope bridge from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (but that's just an exaggeration though).

(Walking along the wood bridge walkway. The two people in front were a mother and daughter that were in my group, they had been on my flight coming to Israel and I soon became friends with them; they were so sweet!)

(Both sides of the walkway cleared up as the path now lead out over the lake.)

(The water is inhabited by DOZENS of catfish! I'm not the kind of person who likes fishing, but I wanted to make an exception that day.)

The groups from both buses were pretty mixed up now and I realized I was further behind than I thought, so I picked up my pace, looking out at the lake every now and then to look at the ducks that swam around peacefully (fun fact: Israel has Mallards [my favorite kind] just like we do in the States!). I met up with Mendy Knight, who told me that Jews don't eat catfish (no wonder the ones swimming around looked so big in size and number) because they're not kosher on two points: one, they're bottom feeders. Two, they don't have scales, which is an important factor in knowing if a fish is kosher or not.

The wooden boardwalk ended in the paved path back on land near the lookout tower just as Roman had said, and we started walking back. 

(If you look hard at that spot on the surface of the water, you'll see a muskrat.)

(Another muskrat, right in the middle of the picture, just above the grass.)

On the way, I caught up with Troy. When he asked how I was doing I said I was great and having an amazing time! I thanked him for his kind words yesterday, when he thought I was brave for coming on my own. I also told him of the miracle God worked in helping me pay for this trip.

"That's great!" He said.

We were almost back to the entrance and gift shop, when I heard Roman talking in my ear about getting back on the bus, but first, Haley and I ducked into the gift shop to see what they had. Pastor Troy followed. We didn't find anything of interest nor did we really have time before we suddenly heard Roman say:

"...And I think a see a few of our group in the gift shop. I shall go in and get them," He said. "Here I come like the Roman army." He joked.

I started laughing. "No!" I said dramatically to Haley as he entered the gift shop and announced that the buses were loading. We went outside and walked back to the red bus. 

My Adventure to Israel: Chapter 7: A Stormy Night in Tiberias

Sunday, April 22
Israel, unlike the fine state of Texas has only two seasons: wet and dry. At the moment they are in the dry season, or to put it more truthfully, a drought. Even though it had rained the day before, it hadn't been a heavy rain.
I woke up sometime around 3:30 in the morning. I was accustomed to the time, but I will still wake up for no reason, so I got up, went to the restroom, and when I came back in, Haley was awake saying it sounded like it was raining outside. I crossed the room to the glass door that let out on our tiny balcony and was completely surprised. It was a downpour! Lightening flashed and thunder rumbled; I opened the door and stepped onto the balcony (the balcony from the floor above me kept me dry).
The fresh smell of rain was all around me, I breathed it in as much as possible, trying to savor it and snapped a few photos:

(Tiberias at night)

"Hey, when I checked my phone, it said it was 3:33 AM." Haley said. You see, one of the many things I've learned from Pastor Troy, is that God loves to hide meaning in numbers. For example, the number 1 means unity, 2 means a faithful witness, and 3 means perfect completion. And if you see numbers in triplicate, like 111 or 222, it means it's the perfect completion of what that number means. Pastor Troy often quotes Jeremiah 33:3 whenever mentioning 333:

 ^"Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know."

I'm not going to tell you all the meanings of numbers in this post, only the part one of them played on that early, wet morning (but in case I've peeked your interest enough to start learning more on the meanings of numbers and the role God plays in them, I would suggest reading Troy's book, Numbers That Preach, it's got some good material). God wanted to show us something, and to some, it was just a big city, at night, with rain, thunder and lightening; but to me and Haley, it was a special God moment, bringing our attention to the time and to the miraculous rainfall that Israel so desperately needed.
I went back to the window to try and get a picture of one of the lightening flashes before going back to sleep. I wasn't sure what I was expecting to get, in my mind, I imagined taking one of those high quality pictures of a lightening strike, which isn't something you're gonna get when you own an iPhone 5c (don't worry, I upgraded when I got back to the States). But I did get this picture:

(Almost looks like day huh?)

Happy with the pictures I'd taken and the smell of rain still lingering, I got back in bed, snuggling under the covers and peacefully getting a couple more hours of sleep before the long, adventurous day ahead.

My Adventure to Israel: Chapter 6: The Encounter

Saturday, April 21

Until 2006, archaeologists didn't know where the Biblical town of Magdala was. Magdala, as you might recall, was the hometown of Mary Magdalene, a follower of Jesus and from whom was said seven demons were cast out by Him.

This was our last site of the day. When we first entered, we were on a large, concrete patio sheltered by a Ramada jutting out from the roof of a building. Tables with souvenirs filled about half the space, while café tables, chairs and a couple of ice cream coolers filled the other half. There were two rooms in the building with more souvenirs, one having a drink cooler. While Roman made arrangements for someone on the staff at Magdala to lead the tour (Magdala is Catholic owned with a chapel on the site; some of the priests that are there give tours and it was one of the Fathers that guided our tour that afternoon), we all raided the gift shop! I probably looked at each of the three areas twice before I finally headed for the register (I like to have time to browse and make up my mind). By then I was pretty much the last person, I could hear Roman hand his mic over the priest and the tour beginning, but at this point, I was tired and decided I would catch up with them when I was finished shopping. After all I could still hear everything over the Whisperer, so I didn't need to be there, right?

"Are you going to join the group?" Roman asked, approaching just as I was standing at the register.

"Yeah, in just minute, I promise." I replied, feeling hurried, but hoping to reassure him. When I make promises, no matter how big or small, I always do my best to keep them.

To this day, I don't regret shopping at Magdala, but I do regret not hearing all that the priest (sorry I forgot his name) had to say at first, but I am happy with the parts I did get to hear:

I hurried down several steps to the first part of the tour: the ruins of a huge synagogue sheltered by a wooden Ramada lay there, with beautiful mosaic tiles decorating the far end where the rabbi would have stood.

 (The Magdala synagogue)

(The mosaic floor)

The priest pointed out that in the center of this rectangular mosaic floor design was a circle:

(This circle design was Egyptian in origin, and was a symbol of resurrection and new birth.)

Next we walked over to the ruins of one of the neighborhoods close to the synagogue. The picture directly below shows one of the small markets where fishermen would sell fish. How did they keep them fresh? See the square-like hole in the bottom right hand corner? It was an in-ground that would be filled with water and the fish would be kept in it until they were sold.

(Another fish tank in the Magdala market)

(Magdala neighborhood and market)

We then walked a little ways to the Duc In Altum (Latin for 'the deep'), a building which houses about seven different chapels and honors the women of the New Testament and Jesus' ministry when he was alive. The priest told us that the acoustics were perfect in the atrium, so we sang Amazing Grace as we entered. It sounded amazing! But you're a musical theatre fan like me, I would have belted out "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera, or "Never Enough" from The Greatest Showman.

The atrium, known as the Women's Atrium, had eight pillars circling the perimeter, with a small fountain in the middle. Seven of the eight pillars had the names of important New Testament women engraved in gold lettering. The eighth remained blank, so that you could imagine the name of the woman, or women in your life that are close to you and helped you in your walk of faith. I already had one name in mind...

There were four small chapels, two on either side of the atrium, and one large one straight ahead when you walked in the door. The four chapels had handmade mosaic murals depicting key moments in Jesus' ministry:

 (Jesus raising Jairus' daughter from the dead. To the right was our guide.)

(The next pictures of the other three chapels courtesy of Google. I didn't take pictures them because I had almost no space on my phone.)

(Jesus walking on water.)

(Jesus calling the disciples.)

(Jesus driving out Mary Magdalene's seven demons. Look at her real close and you can see them.)

The priest then lead us into the large middle chapel, also known as The Boat Chapel:

As you can see in the picture above, an actual boat had been built and was placed in front of the huge window at the end. This window looks out on the Sea of Galilee, so that whenever you looked down the center aisle, the boat appeared to be sailing the Sea. Also, notice the individual paintings of the 12 disciples on either side along the walls. Each disciple has his name written in gold above his head, a halo, is holding a scroll and some kind of scepter/lance, and is looking straight ahead. All except one. You see, the priest explained that since the Duc In Altum was built in honor of Jesus' ministry before His crucifixion, all of His disciples, including Judas are painted along the walls, but the artist left a distinct difference between the Betrayer and the other 11:

 Above are two examples: Bartholomew and Andrew, with all the traits I just listed. And below stands Judas: No name written in gold, no halo around his head, holding a money bag, and looking to the side:

The priest went on to say that whenever the artist had finished, one of the other priests had come in to see the completed products and decided on bringing his dog along. That dog ran straight up to the Judas painting and started to attack it!

"And you can still see the scratch marks where the dog attacked the painting," The priest said. 

He was right. Look at the zoomed in picture below:

The priest then lead us to the last chapel, and my 3rd God Coincidence. We went down some stairs off to the left of the Women's Atrium, and entered a room to our right known as the Encounter Chapel. As soon as I entered, I my eye was immediately drawn to the mural on the back wall: 

   

(This painting depicts the exact moment the hemorrhaging woman touched Jesus' garment hem.)

"When the artist finished painting this," The priest said. "She was asked why no ones face is shown. And she answered it was because that woman would have been a social outcast, she would have been looked down upon and kept her head down. For twelve years that would have been her perspective."

The priest ended our tour there, so we thanked him and headed back to where we began. On the way, I caught up with friend of mine, Miss Virginia, who knew me from church and my grandparents. She's such a sweet, gentle lady, and a great woman of God. As we neared the gift shop, she expressed that she still needed to shop for souvenirs, so I helped her pick out a few things and even got a couple extra things myself (In case you're wondering, I had gotten a few bracelets, a honey wand made from pure olive wood, a few postcards, and a bottle of olive oil for my brother [he's an amazing chef by the way]).

Tired, and ready for some dinner and a shower (Roman warned us against showering until after we ate, saying a shower relaxes you more), we all got back on the bus and drove back to the hotel; and I was left with dozens of new memories and information buzzing in my head of all we had done today, especially this last image which gave me yet another bit of hope that I too would encounter Jesus this way...