Our group touched down safely in Amarillo at 1:00 this afternoon, glad to be home, grateful for the blessings of the trip to Israel, forever transformed by our time together in the Holy Land. It’s been more than 40-hours since any of us were in a bed — sleeping on a plane is worse than terrible. And I’m doing my best right now to stay awake until 10:00 or so tonight in order to get my body and brain back on Texas time.

I’m so grateful to Bill Humble, Ted and Becky Liles, Anton Farah, and everybody at Fowler Tours in Dallas and Guiding Star in Jerusalem for putting together such an outstanding trip. Every part of every day was smooth, really smooth. We got to visit sites and see things that most American tourists don’t. And I believe we were all transformed by God’s Spirit. Our Father revealed himself to us in extraordinary ways in Israel. And we’re all closer to him and much closer to one another for having experienced it together.

I’m planning on doing it again in three years. Start saving your money now for 2017.

Shalom,

Allan

We have had a really unforgettable time here in the Holy Land, but I’m ready to get home. I’m ready to see my beautiful wife and my three terrific daughters; I’m ready to pull my clothes each morning out of a closet and not a suitcase; I’m ready to watch TV in English; and I’m ready to eat a huge juicy cheeseburger with everything on it and fried jalapeno rings from Blue Sky!

We spent our last full day of hard core sight-seeing at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, the Burnt House of the Katros, Nehemiah’s wall, the Herodian Quarter, the Shrine of the Book to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Israel Museum.

We’re sleeping late in the morning, doing some shopping on Jaffa Street until lunch, walking to the Garden Tomb (not the real one; the traditional one), and finishing our sight-seeing tomorrow afternoon at the Valley of Elah, the sight of David’s great victory over Goliath. After that, it’s our farewell dinner and then to the Ben Gurion airport for an 11:00 pm overnight flight out of Israel.

After a couple of changeovers in Newark and Houston, we’re landing at Rick Husband in Amarillo at 1:04 Saturday afternoon. As surely as the Lord lives, I’ll be eating that cheeseburger by 1:45.

Shalom!

Allan

We spent much of today in the Palestinian-controlled areas of Hebron and Bethlehem in order to visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs, which is now a massive Muslim mosque, and the Church of the Annunciation, the historical birthplace of our Lord. These are two places most tour groups to Israel never have a chance to even consider. But because our great guide, Anton, and our wonderful driver, Muhammad, are both Arab, we’re able to go back and forth through the checkpoints without any troubles at all.

The famed Cave at Machpelah where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are buried along with their wives and children, has proven to be a place of violence and turmoil through history, not a resting place of peace. Herod built massive walls around the cave to preserve it for Christian worshipers, Crusaders built a huge church inside and on top of those walls, which the Muslims in turn transformed into a mosque. There are large covered shrines inside the mosque which mark the tombs of the patriarchs, but not everybody can get to all of them. Muslims can access the tombs to Isaac and Rebecca, Jews can get to the tombs of Jacob and Leah, and everybody can see the tomb of Abraham. But it’s a mess. Muslims control 80-percent of the total building and the Jews have 20-percent. Ten days a year the Muslims can have 100-percent access and the Jews get a different ten days every year. So, it’s strange, really. This is not really a place of worship at all, but a place to exert power and control, a place to remind everyone who’s in charge — who are the winners and losers — and who’s running this thing. And it’s not God. Our God is not like this; our Lord is not interested in this. There were lots of people praying around us the whole time we were there this morning, but it doesn’t feel like a place of worship at all. There’s tension there. No peace. But it is where the father of our faith is buried. And so we put on the robes and scarves and took off our shoes to see it.

We also saw the expert pottery and glass artisans in Hebron at their workshops. We also toured the impressive Herodian palace complex on top of the mountain just south of Jerusalem. We visited the Oak of Mamre where God told Abraham that he would have a son. We met Shipley Cando, the grandson of the shoemaker Cando who discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, at his shop in Bethlehem and saw priceless antiquities of pottery and oil lamps and glass bottles that date from Abraham’s time in Israel to the time of our Lord and through the Roman periods. Bill Humble and this Cando family have been dear friends for 50 years and today was the first time Shipley had ever met Bill’s daughter, Becky, who’s on our trip. Needless to say, the meeting was emotional and we were all blessed to experience it with them.

The last thing we did today was visit the Church of Annunciation in Bethlehem, the historical site of the birth of Christ Jesus. Like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jesus may not have been birthed by Mary on the exact spot of stone marked by the silver star inside the shrine of this church, but you can bet it happened somewhere inside the walls. There’s too much history and it goes back too far to be wrong. Emperor Hadrian tore down a Christian shrine to the birth of Jesus on this spot less than ninety years after the resurrection in a vain attempt to kill Christianity and replaced it with a temple to Venus. Constantine tore down that temple in 325 AD to build the Christian church over the spot. And today it is the only Christian church built by Constantine that was never destroyed. Most of this building, inside and out, top to bottom, dates from the early 4th century and can be confidently classified as the legitimate historical site of the birth of Jesus.

And it was good today to be in that spot. To imagine belonging to the community of Christians — those first two or three generations —  who had gathered there over the years to worship and pray. It was good to remember that, as a follower of Jesus, I belong to something so much bigger than me, so much older than my church denomination, so much more meaningful than Christianity in my country or my tribe or my family. It is eternal. It is truth. Our God chose to enter into an intimate relationship with us, to come to this earth in the form of a vulnerable baby boy, to live with us, to work with us, to eat and drink with us, to suffer with us, and to bear our sins for us. God chose to do that for us. And he chose to do it right here in this specific square block of Bethlehem. In the fourth century, Jerome and Cyril of Jerusalem wrote that this place was a wooded forest. Today it’s covered by a 1,700 year old church. And today we were there.

I pray things are going well in Amarillo, Texas. I’m really starting to miss home. But I’m really glad that I’m here.

Shalom,

Allan

The group arrived in Jerusalem late this afternoon wearing sandals and shorts after hiking in the Judean Desert for most of the day to be greeted by a blast of super cold air and a strong north wind. It was just enough — well, honestly, the massive dinner buffet also helped — to get us ready for our last three days of sight seeing here in the Holy City.

We started today at Masada, Herod’s desert palace and fortress at the top of a plateau mountain just east of the Dead Sea. This is Israel’s “Alamo” where 967 Israelis holed up after the Roman Empire crushed Jerusalem and burned the temple in 70 A.D. It took three years, but the Roman army finally built a siege ramp on the west side of the mountain, marched to the top, set fire to the walls, and stormed the fortress, only to discover that every family inside had decided the night before to commit suicide rather than become slaves of the Romans. A sacred sight, for sure. Instead of riding the cable cars down, thirteen of us made the decision to descend the mountain by the ancient Serpent Path, a winding, rocky, steep, narrow trail that, up until the time of the siege, was the only way to get up and down Masada. When the strenuous hour-long hike was over, most of us still felt it was a good idea.

After Masada we visited En Gedi, the beautiful and surprising oasis in the desert where David and his 600 men hid from King Saul. It was in one of the more than three thousand caves of En Gedi where David moved to cut off the corner of Saul’s robe instead of take the life of the Lord’s anointed. There are dozens of running streams and pools and several waterfalls that take a lot of hiking and climbing to get to. But the payoff is worth it.

After En Gedi we spent about fifteen minutes at Qumran, the sight of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls before a huge rain shower blew in. And then we found the camels.

The camels were on a grassy area on the highway just north of the Dead Sea. Three teenage boys were selling short rides on the camels for five dollars each and when we asked our driver, Muhammad, to stop, he did. And just about every one of us did it.

Now we’re in Jerusalem for the final leg of what has been a truly wonderful experience. We’re still to see the places of our Lord’s birth, death, and resurrection; the sights of his miracles and his teachings; the temple mount where he worshiped and sang; the garden where he prayed and was betrayed. We’ve already done so much and experienced so many wonderful and unforgettable things. But, seriously, the best is still to come.

Shalom,

Allan

When I am traveling outside the United States, I don’t look for Dr Pepper. Do you? Even within the borders of the U. S., I don’t spend too much time looking for Dr Pepper outside of Texas and the four adjoining states. Certainly not, though, outside the country. And definitely not in Israel. I was in Israel for 15 days seven years ago and never once saw anything even resembling a Dr Pepper. So, yeah, it’s been kinda gross having to drink Diet Coke and — gasp! — even Pepsi Max over here. Nasty. But I’ve always figured that’s the price one pays for leaving the States. So, of course, I was more than a little surprised when Debbie walked up to me in the middle of the museum of the ancient fishing boat this afternoon with a couple of cold cans of that wonderful Waco brew. What?!? Where did you find that?!?! Oh, my word!!! We truly made a scene, no doubt. She found them in the museum gift shop. Incredible. She slipped hers into her purse and saved it until dinner (She stared at it first, on the table in front of her, for a good twenty minutes before she popped the top). Me? I came straight to my hotel room, put it in the tiny little refrigerator in my closet and am drinking it right now. Right now. Ah… nectar straight from heaven.

It has been another wonderful day over here, our last in this northern region of Galilee. Like yesterday it rained off and on most of the day, which flattened our hair in weird ways, but not our spirits.

Celia found a real bargain on a bottle of water and then wound up having to carry it around with her all day. Our van driver nearly turned our vehicle upside down while passing another car at a high rate of speed on a hairpin curve on the way up Mount Tabor. We watched a re-run of last night’s “Arab Idol” on TV while we ate lunch at the YMCA in Nazareth (now, how could I make that up?). And we’re all still having a difficult time with U.S. dollars and Israeli shekels.

Please note that in our hotel lobby, one of the elevators is labeled “Shabbat Elevator.” Shabbat is the Hebrew word for Sabbath. And every week, from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, this particular “Shabbat Elevator” runs on Shabbat mode. The elevator is programmed to stop at every single floor and open and close its door at every single floor, giving riders more than plenty of time to get on and off. All the buttons are disabled. You know why? Because one is not allowed to work on the Sabbath and, apparently, pushing a button on an elevator is work and so is prohibited. Pushing the button on an elevator?!? Yes, really. Work. So the other two elevators are mind-blowingly crowded and slow because nobody wants to get stuck on the Shabbat elevator which takes about six or seven minutes to go up six floors. Except Ted and Becky and me. Yeah, it was dark when we returned to our hotel tonight and we assumed all the elevators were now working in normal operating mode. Until it took us almost two minutes to get from the lobby to the first floor and another two minutes for the doors to open and close and get to the second floor. By that time, it was too late to get off, wait for another elevator, and start over. So we endured it. One… Floor…  At…  A…  Time.

The highlight of our day today, for me, was the excursion across the Sea of Galilee in the old fishing boat. It was just we twenty on the boat and we spent about an hour tooling around from Magdala to nearly Bethsaida and back on the waters where Jesus revealed his glory to his disciples so many times. We read together from Mark 6, we sang and prayed together, and reflected on the grace of our God who condescended to visit us where we live and work, to enter into community with us, and to bear our sins so we may be righteous in his site. On that very water — that same water where he called us, where he taught us, where he walked on the waves, where he calmed the sea, where he provided the fish. We were on that water today with our Lord. And it was something none of us will ever forget.

Tomorrow we head down to the desert. On the way we’ll visit the ancient cities of Beth Sha’an and Jericho, we’ll share a picnic lunch on the banks of the Jordan River, and then we’ll float and play late tomorrow afternoon in the Dead Sea.

Peace,

Allan