Feel the Wind

Hey everyone!

Today was yet another day filled to the brim with more adventures in Israel!

We started off the day by going to Chorazin which held the ruins of an old village from the time of Jesus. We read lots of scripture and expanded on our understanding of Jewish culture. The village we were in was tiny and really illustrated how essential community was to the people of the time and how important it still is to God.

Afterwards we headed over to the Mount of Beatitudes! The place is actually called Areamos Topos and is an amazing view over the Sea of Galilee. It was believed that Jesus taught the famous words from Mark 5-7 from around this region. We reflected on how important it is to not only hear the Word but to obey it.

Just a few minutes down the road we visited a place called Tabgha which was a pebbly beach just below the Mount of Beatitudes. Many awesome works of Jesus happened here, some of them being Jesus feeding the five thousand and reinstating Peter. This place reminded and encouraged us of how Jesus is all about second chances.

Things just got even more real as we rode in our bus to Capernaum where Peter was from and so many significant moments in the Bible occurred. The realness and imagery of being in this place helped us understand the words of Jesus even more from verses such as Matthew 17:24, Matthew 18:1-6 and Luke 7:1-10.

We grabbed some fantastic Falafel pita sandwiches and Magnum bars for lunch and took a break from the rising heat and humidity that had increased throughout the day.

For the last half of our day we took a drive through Tiberius and enjoyed a brisk hike up to the top of Mount Arbel. While we were up there Rich explained how this might have been a place where Jesus would have gone early in the morning to get away and spend time with the Father. We were all struck by the beautiful view. It was awesome to get away from all the bustle to meditate on the Word and feel the wind blow through our hair and blow our hats off.

The grand finale of the day was finishing it off with a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee! We had all been waiting excitedly for this and was everything we hoped. Before we hopped on the boat we checkout a boat that was excavated from the bottom of the Sea that dated back to the time of Jesus. We were giddy with joy on the boat, thinking how this was the place that Jesus calmed the sea and called His disciples to follow Him.  Dathan taught on the story of Peter and Jesus out on the lake and how this would apply to our lives today. We had a time of reflection, and then threw rocks that we had gathered on the beaches of Tabgha as a symbol of letting certain things we needed to hand over to the Lord. We quickly changed gears and Ronen led us in some traditional Jewish songs and dances which was the absolute best way to end the day.

It was another fantastic day packed with places where Jesus actually was living life and ultimately we got to know even more about who Jesus really is!

Mucho Shalom,
Amanda