I am still alive. This hotel doesn’t offer internet from my computer. Only from a common computer @ $2.00/15 min.

The trip is going well and I am learning much. I think more questions are being generated than answers but I suppose that is good. :-/

We spent the last few days around Galiliee and will be making our way up to Jerusalem tomorrow. The hikes have been good and I havn’t had too many problems. I think there are some advantages to being young.

15 minutes are up,

I have been uploading pictures for some of the other people on the trip. Here they are:

http://www.endofnow.com/israel/david/
http://www.endofnow.com/israel/rachel/
http://www.endofnow.com/israel/zondervan/

I don’t think I have time to upload my pictures — they aren’t that good. I will try to upload them later.

That was a short night. Shouldn’t have got on the computer.

Here’s a couple of pictures of the dead sea taken a few moments ago.

This post is going to be short as I am ready for bed. It was a long but good day.

The day started with Beth Shmesh and included exploring an ancient Cisturn at Beth Schemesh. We visited a hill over looking the valley where David fought Goliath and explored a cave system. We got to go down to where is it likely David chose his 5 smooth stones. We visited the Tel of Lachish as well. We are staying at a hotel on the Dead Sea. We went swiming after dinner. It was dark but, WOW!!! I have heard people describe floating in the sea but there is nothing that it compares to!

Here are the pictures of the day: http://endofnow.com/israel/friday-25/

I woke when my alarm sounded at 3:50am. I made it to Calvary on time, unfortunately the bus didn’t. A miscommunication with the bus company resulted in some last minutes calls to scramble a bus. We were on the road with a 40 minute delay. The late departure and heavy traffic put us dangerously close to being to late.

The El Al security wasn’t too bad. Each person was interviewed by young Israeli nationals before receiving a boarding passes. My questions were pretty basic. They asked who the leader was and asked me to point him out. His back was to me and he was across the lobby so I wasn’t able to find him. I was afraid that would set off alarms but it didn’t. The interviewer went over to him and asked if he knew me. He did, that was done. He proceeded to ask questions about who packed my baggage, where was it stored, and such. I got through in a few minutes. They did feel the need to search my baggage. Nothing to exciting…. He let me continue.

The flight was long.. We stopped in Newark, NJ for some additional passengers. We spent 15 hours on the plane plus the 3 hours on a bus to an airport. It was a long day and night. I slept for maybe an hour.

I had some interesting conversations on the plane. My neighbor to the left was a middle aged secular Jew. She was born and raised in Israel but moved to Denver when she was 22. We talked about such things as life in Israel, orthodox Jews, her family history ( her father was an accountant in Iraq before moving to Israel), and a little about what being a Jew today looks like. We talked about more but I only have so much time to type.

We got into Tel Aviv at 8:30. By about 9:30 we got through customs and had our bags and boarded a bus. The first stop was Tel Gezer. We hiked through an olive tree field and hiked up a hill. The hill was Tel Gezer

After Tel Gezer we drove from the Shephelah to the Judah Mountains. We stopped and looked at a small Palestinian garden or Gad in Hebrew. As you can see in the pictures it isn’t what we think of as a garden. It is terraced into the side of the mountain. It is a mixture of fig trees, grape vines and olive trees.

We went back to the hotel by about 4:30 It was hard to stay awake until the 6:30 dinner and I went to bed shortly after that.

Here are the pictures

Just seven hours until I will wake to the beep, beeep, beeeeep of my alarm clock. I will rise from bed careful not to wake my roommates and prepare for a *little* trip — to Israel. The journey begins with a bus ride from Calvary Church to Chicago at 5:00am. At 10:30am we will fly El Al #28 to Tel Aviv. There is one stop– somewhere…

Being the geek that I am–I will bring my computer and digital camera. When I have internet access I will post photos and entries. Not sure how often it will be. Hopefully the laptop will survive. It begins the trip with a slightly broken hinge (I’m blaming Jeff)… Dell CompleteCare insurance will take care of it when I return.

The trip is with Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Kent Dobson is leading the tour which is based on the Ray VanderLaan “That the World May Know” tours. We will be staying in hotels in the evening and hiking during the day. We are to expect 8-10 miles of hiking per day and advised to walk 2-4 miles per day in preparation. I didn’t.

Here is the schedule. I will return April 4, 2005.