Israel Day 2: Sea of Galilee

We're all really looking forward to today! We're stayin on Tiberius, off of the Sea of Galilee! We get to take a cruise on the sea, which should be awesome. Once again, I will be taking notes throughout the day, then posting them at the end of the day.
Here we go!

-Old Galilee Ship-
Our first stop, we went to a museum that was built for the purpose of displaying a 2000 year old Galilean ship! It was really cool to see something that was used in or around Jesus' time. Also, the gift shop was great!










-The Church of the Beatitudes and surrounding area-
Words I would use to describe The Church of the Beatitudes:

Serene
Peaceful
Green
Flowers
Palm Trees

We had a brief church service led by a team member. We read The Beatitudes, then talked about the area and church. Tim gave part of his testimony about coming to Israel, and many on our team cried. It is an amazing place to sit, think, process, write, and feel Papa's tangible love. It's amazing to be reading the Bible, then look around and see it come alive.

This is where Jesus walked, spoke, and healed. How cool is that?













-Caesarea Phillipi-
Well folks, it's official. We've been to the Gates of Hell. In Matthew 16 Jesus changes Simon's name to Peter, says that on this rock Jesus will build his church, then continues to say the Gates of Hell will not be able to stand against it. Many people don't realize that Jesus and Peter were in Caesarea Phillipi when this conversation went down, and that the "Gates of Hell" was the name of the temple of Pan, a pagan half man half goat god. It's said that the people who worshipped Pan did incredibly disgusting things with goats to show their devotion.



Here is where Jesus spoke about the foundations of our church and promised that the Gates of Hell could do nothing to hinder it. Today those "gates" are no more then ruins. And we, the people of the church Jesus spoke of, get to take pictures and read about these ruins.









-Lunch-
For lunch we ate at a Druze villiage and had a wonderful meal of falafal, flat bread, hummus, goat cheese, and more. Turkish style coffee topped off the meal with fresh baklava. Such an amazing meal.



-Capernaum-
After lunch we went to Capernaum! This is an incredibly beautiful area that holds Peter's house, and a beautiful semi-restored synagog! Although our visit here was short due to it almost being closing time when we got there, it was really cool to see the ruins and read about Capernaum while there.



-Sea of Galilee boat ride-
Many in our group had been looking forward to the boat ride with great anticipation. The Sea of Galilee is really a huge freshwater lake, and is crowned with green all around.
Our boat was fairly large. My dad, Dennis, did the teaching (members of our group have been teaching in each spot of interest.) He really shared his heart and was real; it's awesome to see our geoup's bonds growing stronger.
The sunset on the boat was beautiful!
The ride lasted about 40 minutes, and ended with the ship driver/DJ playing worship music. It was so cool, and slightly surreal, to worship on the Sea of Galilee while watching the sun go down.









Tonight Shalom, Sara, Hannah, and I are hitting the town!

Amazing day, so incredible to see the sight Galilee has to offer.

Colin