My Adventure to Israel: Prologue: The Long Exhausting Journey

I'm back everyone! 

God has shown me a lot this past week; I've really had the adventure of a lifetime and I'm sad that it had to end so soon. But that's why I'm writing about it now; so that you might share in my joy.

Because I have so much to tell, I've decided to publish a multi-part serial of sorts so that each post won't end up being as long as say, War & Peace... Or Les Mis.

On our tour of Israel's sights, my group visited several places each day, so I won't be chronicling this journey day by day either. I will instead cover one site at a time in chronological order, so keep checking in regularly!

Let's begin:

I'll spare you the long and exhausting details of the journey there, so here's a quick summery:

It started on April 19 at DFW Airport, where I met the group I was to travel with (several groups flew out at different times because the entire tour group was nearly 90 people in all). We had a 9:55 p.m. departure time, followed by a 10 hour flight to London Heathrow Airport. After about a 3 hour layover, we hoped on another plane with a 4-5 hour flight to the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.

Long story short, we arrived, exhausted, but excited, at about 11:30 p.m. on April 20.

After being issued an Entry Visa and getting our luggage, we made our way out of the central airport building into the arrivals hall where we met our designated tour guide, Roman, who spoke with a Russian accent (more on him later). We then boarded our bus around 1 a.m. and were informed to get as much rest on the bus as possible because we had a 2 hour drive ahead of us.... And a 6:30 a.m. wake up call later that morning so as to be on time for our first tour of the day.

"Great!" I remember thinking, not feeling as brave or adventurous, but rather, tired and wanting to be back home in my comfortable bed. I began to wonder if I would be able to survive this trip at all. Even though I was going with people I knew, I just couldn't help but tear up feeling like I was all alone and farther away from home and everything I'd ever known in all my life...

"I have so much to show you." I heard Him say and decided right then to instead think of all the things He'd planned for me to experience that coming week.

"You'll get plenty of rest," I reassured myself, feeling better as I laid my head against the window of our bus as the empty Israeli highway passed by in a blur along with streetlights and distant landscapes.

Me, on our first flight out of DFW (Ignore the Indian dude in the background).

A 'welcome' sight for tired eyes after nearly 20 hours of travel.

Me and my roomie, Haley, sitting on the bus about to head to our hotel in Tiberias.