Day of Rest and Work

Today was most certainly a day of rest and work. We began with a good breakfast and a great devotional on service and allowing others to serve you from Scott. We were surprised when the bus pulled up to the docks! We went into the boat and began our journey across the Sea of Galilee. Once we were in the middle, we had a great discussion retelling the stories of Jesus on the Sea of Galilee and discussing Jesus' great love for us and belief in us as He calls us out of the boat.

From there, we saw the first century, Galilean fishing boat. It was incredible to see something like that and visualize Jesus and His disciples in it. We then did some shopping, much to Scott's disappointment!

From the museum where they held the Galilean boat, we left for the Jordan river. Scott taught how we can't be sipping Jesus but must be completely immersed in Him, dripping wet in Him. We then went to the river and baptized or remembered the baptism of some of our team. One of the great blessings for Scott and me was that Edna from Haiti and Janie from Brazil came running up asking if we would baptize them! Edna was looking for Protestants to baptize her, and Janie was the only Christian in her group and wanted to be baptized! It was a blessing to make those dreams a reality and see both of these ladies' great love for our King.

That was the "rest" part. From the Jordan, we headed up to Beth She'an. We started in the back and crossed two ancient gates as we climbed up a large hill. Once we crested the hill, we saw that those gates led to a Roman city of the Decapolis with markets, a gymnasium, an auditorium, and other buildings and areas specific to Roman cities. Our lesson was to understand how Hellenistic this culture was and compare it to our not so different American culture. Our call as Christians is to be a light in these dark places, so we are faced with the question, "how will we be a light to our culture?"

By Brian Gunter