Day 01 - Crossroads of the World

Well team… we made it to Israel! We started our travel day bright and early at 5:30 for our bus ride down to Miami. Luckily, some members of our group prepared a delicious breakfast for us as well as some travel goodies to help along the way. (Thanks, Patti and Sharon!) We were also incredibly thankful for our prayer team back home, as several of our elders showed up to pray over us before beginning our journey.

After a smooth trip, we breezed through customs and grabbed a quick bite before heading to our gate. Our plane departed on time and we caught a few zzz’s before hitting the ground running for our first day in the Holy Land.  

Today, we visited 3 sites around the city of Tel Aviv: Gezer, Bet Shemesh, and Azekah.

Gezer

One of the first things we learned about Gezer is how important it was geographically to the region. Based in the “Shephaleh” or “low-lying” foothills, Gezer had a vantage point over the whole region and guarded the valley of Aijalon against invading tribes. Gezer was also the crossroads of one of the main trade routes on the Mediterranean coastline, which put Israel in a position to connect with peoples from all over the world as they moved through the area. Pastor Ralph reminded us how we are to live up to our name and be the “CrossRoads” that people connect with today.

Bet Shemesh

Our second stop was in the Valley of Soreq, where we were able to look out over the town where Samson would have lived. Pastor Ralph reminded us of the rules that Samson would have had to follow as a Nazarite; one of the most infamous of course, which was to never cut his hair. He then asked us “How do you let culture cut your hair?” One of the most interesting things to us was learning that Samson would not have been a muscular, tall guy like media suggests! Yehuda, our tour guide, verified that most men living in that time would have been only 4’11-5’2!

Azekah

Our last stop of the day was the site at which David defeated Goliath. Azekah is an ancient tel (a mound that civilizations kept building on top of) that overlooks the Elah Valley, which is where the Israelite and Phillistine armies would have camped and Goliath would have challenged Saul to battle.

It was so incredible to see the locations of these stories from the Bible and realize that they happened exactly where you are standing! All of us cannot wait to see what God has in store for us to discover throughout the rest of the week. Stay tuned!