Day 5 – Thursday 27th March

Tel Aviv to Galilee

There are over 75 people on the tour, so we have two buses. We are in the Orange bus with Dan as the Bus Captain. Chuck and Nancy alternate each day in our bus or the Blue bus. We also have Jane Benari, our Israeli Tour Guide. She is very interesting and informative. She has been guiding tours for many years, and her wealth of knowledge about both Israel today and what occurred where in the Bible, is incredible.

Our first stop was Caesarea. In the ancient theatre there, Chuck spoke about Peter coming to Cornelius from Joppa.

Herod's Palace was brought to life for us by Jane. This is an unlikely place for a port but Herod built one anyway. An earthquake destroyed the wharf within one hundred years of its construction, and Paul had left from Caesarea when he went to Rome, where he was imprisoned, and eventually, killed. Ginny asked me how far Rome is, and I said, “Far”. She said that Glenn had told her the same thing. It is not the sort of information that lingers in the brain, even if I had ever been told the distance.

We then went to Mt Carmel, where Elijah defeated 350 prophets of Baal when he challenged them to call down fire. He told the Israelites that if Baal be God to follow him, but if Jehovah be God to follow Him. The other prophets were not able to have fire from heaven consume their sacrifice, but God heard Elijah's prayer, and fire consumed his sacrifice, even after he had it doused with water three times. The view from the top of the mountain is incredible.

We had lunch at a Druze village. It was felafel. The tahini sauce was very strong and I didn't like it. The Druze are Arabs who broke away from Islam over 1,000 years ago. No one, except the Druze, know exactly what they believe. They are loyal to whichever country they live in and Druze men in Israel complete National Service in the IDF as do the Jews.

We travelled to Meggido – Har Meggido or Armageddon, where the enemies of Israel will gather some time in the future, and Jesus will return to defeat the forces of the Anti-Christ. We did a lot of walking up to the top of the Tel, and then we climbed down into the tunnel that was dug to bring water inside the town from the spring outside.

Nazareth is now a large town of predominantly Muslims. There are some Christian Arabs living in the town, but they have much fewer children than do Muslims, so they are not as numerous as previously. We went up to Mt Precipice, which is believed to be the site from where the Jews tried to throw Jesus when they considered He had blasphemed.

It was truly awesome to look out on the land in which Jesus grew up, and to see the same views He did. It was very moving to consider the promises God has made to us, as evidenced in the gift of His Son. We had a wonderful time of worship, and then Chuck spoke about Jesus's boyhood.

We drove to Tiberias to the Gai Beach Hotel, which is situated on the Sea of Galilee. This is actually a fresh water lake. It is really beautiful here.

It seems very odd to us that tea and coffee is not included with the evening meal, but can be purchased later from the bar in the foyer of the hotel. We had a drink and Ginny emailed James. Wi-fi access is free in the foyer.