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  • “Go and do likewise.”

    Disclaimer: today’s post is going to be a little different. Not my usual sharing with regard to our recent travel to Israel. Yes, there are references made here to our travel, but this week, this is what has been on my heart to share. Luke 10:25-37 (NIV translation)The Parable of the Good SamaritanOn one occasion…

  • Anxious heart

    Today we are preparing to leave Israel. In my last post, I backtracked to a tour we had done pre-covid, pre-separation from our group and guides. It was nice to just be surrounded again by the experience of Israel and all it offers the mind, heart, and soul. I will be doing several more posts…

  • Messiah and Messiahs

    I did not know that during Jesus’ time, there had been many claiming to be the Messiah and each one was captured, tortured, and murdered in various horrific ways. The Romans were very good at death. It makes so much sense to me now that Jesus often told His followers to tell no one of…

  • Afflicted and Unclean

    You may have wondered why there haven’t been any new posts. This is my third attempt. Just getting from the bed to the bathroom and back from the bathroom to the bed has felt challenging. That’s when I new something was wrong. What you see pictured above is the equivalent of The Red Cross in…

  • The Wilderness

    Our teachers called today “Freedom and Devotion – The Judean Wilderness”. Wild – er – nessWilderness – a noun meaning “an unsettled and uncultivated tract of land left in its natural state”. Related words are wasteland, barren, desert, backcountry…and when you get to the desert, you know you are there – you feel the heat…

  • An Olive Branch

    We started our day at the Church of All Nations, also known as Church of the Agony. In the mosaic on the front of the church, agony is depicted in Jesus’ face, representative of the Lucan text of Jesus’ praying in the garden before entering the city of Jerusalem for the final time. Of course…

  • Whose line is it anyways?

    On this site, you have the Western Wall, the holiest place for our Jewish brothers and sisters; the Haram Al Sharif – Muslims consider the entire Temple Mount platform to be the forecourt of the Al Aqsa Mosque which commemorates Mohammed’s miraculous Night Journey (where he meets Allah) and in the same location, Herod’s Royal…

  • Safety Pants

    Our theme of the day on Wednesday was “embodiment and Incarnation Bethlehem and the messiness of faith”. One of the many stories that resonated with me was shared by our guide in Bethlehem (I will need to clarify the spelling of his name before sharing it here). We know that the Persian conquest of Jerusalem…

  • “You are not a spectator, you are a co-creator”

    As we left the airport, weary travelers indeed – traveling since early Monday morning and now it was Tuesday around 11am Israel time – we boarded a bus that took us into the heart of the city of Tel Aviv (literally meaning old and new – Wikipedia says “Aviv is Hebrew for ‘spring’, symbolizing renewal,…

  • Hurry up and wait!

    Our flight to JFK leaves MSP at 6:45 tomorrow morning, June 27. At JFK, we will meet with our CLAL Stand and See Fellowship and board the flight headed for Israel. Israel…just Wow! I can hardly believe it. In fact, it still feels unreal to us. Waking up this morning, I felt a jolt –…

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