Day Two

Day two in Jerusalem and now starting to settle in a little more. We woke up early and decided we would find a fun place to have our quiet time. Jazz and Renee and I jetted around until we found a place we thought was fitting and we stumbled across the Church of The Holy Seplicur (one of the places they think Jesus was buried). It was crazy - can’t wait to show you pictures. After quiet time, which was epic. I was reading though the gospels and it is so much more alive when you can go, oh I’ve been there!

From quiet time it was breakfast and off to the Garden Tomb. There we went into the tomb where they think he also could have been buried. It was honestly too much for me to take in all at once. I’m not even sure I fully grasp all that I have seen. We saw the top of skull mt. (where they think Jesus was crucified). Again with the whole not being able to process the reality of this all. Also it’s hard to see these places turned into a tourist trap, or like the place they assume he was crucified is littered with power lines and below it is a bus station. We went back into the garden and had a team communion. It was so good to just sit and pray and take communion together as a team in remembrance of not where we were but what had happened. No matter if it was in this exact spot, what matters is the fact it happened and what all of that really means. After we had our time of communion we walked up the Mt. of Olives. A storm had moved in and it was crazy windy but we walked to the top of that thing! We walked through the gardens at the bottom Garden of Gethsemane. Yup that’s right we were there. Where they believe is the place he sweat blood and prayed. After being completely blown away by our surroundings we went to process everything at this little teashop on the side of the mountain. Then it was time to go back through the lion’s gate and off to walk the Via Del Arosa. That is the path that Jesus walked on the way to be crucified. Along the way there are marks of the times he fell and he story of his torture. It was hard to really believe that I walked the path he walked but again whether it was those exact roads or not, it is more of the action than the location. But it definitely has a knew impact having seen the roads, the rocks, the crowds, the hills, the difficulty I had walking it with slippers and a backpack - let alone sandals and a cross. Again it was off to find a tea place to process and relax, we did - it was a fancy place and we felt like kings. The bathroom was a rating of about a 6.8 (yup we rate bathrooms!). It became a team game on this trip.. for many reasons.. Than after tea we decided to get lost in the old city. Being in the old city of Jerusalem still is rocking my world thinking about. We walked to the wailing wall. A wall where people go to pray and the Jews in the world believe that where ever they pray they go to the wall first than up to heaven. It’s an odd mix between Letters to Juliet and a prayer place. There are letters stuck in all the cracks of the wall and as we stand there to pray, there stands the man sweeping up all of the written prayers into a rubbish bin. That night the fireworks went off over the Dome of the Rock. The night was blustery, cold and wonderful. We wandered around, had dinner and found ourselves at the synagogue in the Jewish quarter. We were not aloud to go in because we were girls and at that time only men could enter, so we continued our wandering. On our trip walking around we me this guy Jason. We ended up walking around the city for two hours with him as he told us all about everything we passed. It was pretty cool. More than pretty cool - we were all amazed by his wealth of knowledge and his willingness to tour us around the entire city. As we were walking and talking, getting to know each other, telling him our story and why we were there, sharing Jesus with him and just loving on him we met up with this other guy - Adbul. He was from London and heard us speaking English and ran to our side. He joined us on our trek and ended up seeing him a few more days after that. We walked around each quarter of the city. While we were walking we found this cave that was used the night before for Hanukkah that was lit up completely with candles - it was beautiful. Once we were finished with the tour we went home and crashed. What a day!