Our Last Day

We didn’t not have a lot sights to see or places to stop at on our last day, but the ones we did stop at were deeply meaningful. We began today by visiting the Holocaust Museum. Throughout this trip our guide (Ronen) has said that in order to understand Israel you must understand two evens: Masada and the Holocaust. With that it mind it only seemed appropriate to end our time here by giving this historical event space to impact us. I think we have all fallen a little bit in love with Israel and the people here, so this was a deeply emotional experience for each of us and has left us with a lot process and think about.

After a short opportunity for us to refine our haggling skills at the market, we made our way to the Museum of Jerusalem. The first place we stopped was at the huge model of ancient Israel – at the time of approximately 66 AD. This gave us a great chance to see what all the places we visited would have looked like around the time of Jesus. It was a very satisfying after trying to picture a lot of these places in our mind yesterday. Our final stop was the Shrine to the Script. This is an area of the museum devoted completely to the Dead Sea Scrolls. The highlight of this area was that we actually got to see first hand a portion of a scroll containing the book of Isaiah. I think our biggest take-away from seeing this is just the unbelievable devotion and commitment this group had toward God’s Word. I think that is something we all feel convicted to develop in our lives.

After dinner we met for the last time to debrief all the different ways the God has moved in our lives during this trip. I was blown away by the number of different ways the God has revealed Himself to us, challenged us, and encouraged us this week. We are all walking away convicted by the devotion to God we have seen all around us, drawn closer to Christ having felt like we connected with his humanity in a powerful way, more willing to trust God’s sovereignty over our life, and more passionate to read the Bible. I look forward to your students sharing what they have learned and encouraging you in your faith. Thank you for your prayers over this trip. It truly has been amazing.

See you tomorrow