July 25, 2008

July 24-25, 2008

Posted in Uncategorized at 3:17 pm by nazarethyouthventure

Shabbat Shalom! It is our last Friday here in Israel and we are in Jerusalem for it. But let me start with what we did yesterday. Yesterday was a sad day for most of us because we had to say good-bye to our host families. My family was really great and I am going to stay in contact with them and hope to see them soon. Once we were all there, we headed for the checkpoint to get out of Palestine and enter Israel. It took us about an hour to get through the checkpoint. Even though this sounds long for us, some people wait there all day and they still never get through. I couldn’t imagine doing this day after day and getting denied each and every time. I learned from our experience in Palestine how hard their lives really are every day. Most Americans don’t know what is going on in Palestine because all the media shows us is the bad things Palestine is doing to Israel and all the good things Israel is doing to Palestine. The media is very biased and I can’t wait to share the stories of the Palestinians that we met during our stay there.

Once we got through the checkpoint, we took a bus to Damascus gate, one of the openings to the old city of Jerusalem where we are staying. We checked into our hotel, Ecce Homo. This means “behold the man” and it is near the site of where Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to death. There are ruins underneath our beds of this site. 

After lunch, we took the public bus for about 40 minutes to Yad Vashem, a Holocaust Remembrance Museum. This was very moving even though I have been to a lot of museums and seen horrid scenes from the Holocaust before. There is no entrance fee and it is based solely on donations. There were pictures, words, movies, and sculptures here. It was a lot to take in, but I think that my favorite part was the end where they have a Hall of Names of those who died during the Holocaust. Along with their names, they have a mini-biography about each person. The room is filled with binders of them and it says that they are still looking for more names and they won’t stop until they are all remembered. I really enjoyed this because this part of history really interests me.

Our last stop of the day was West Jerusalem. Here we were able to go on our own to just walk around. It was a very relaxing way to end our day. 

Today was a very busy day. We visited many religious sites. To begin our day we walked the entire Via Delorosa, which means the Way of Suffering/Sorrows. We stopped at each station and took pictures along with the reading that is associated with it from the Bible. I really enjoyed it because we have sung the song at my church before and it was moving to actually walk where Jesus walked to His death. The last stop was Jesus’ tomb and there was a huge line to get into it, so nobody was able to see the actual spot. But nobody actually knows if these are the actual spots where the different stations happened, so I didn’t really mind not being able to see it.

Our next stop was the Upper Room where they believe the Last Supper took place. There wasn’t anything special here to remember this spot, so that was kind of disappointing to me. It was just a big empty room. Since we had been walking awhile, we were able to have two hours to go eat on our own and relax which was nice. Me and a few other girls sat in the shade under a tree outside of the walls of Jerusalem. It was very relaxing and it gave us time to take in everything that we had seen.

After lunch, we went to the Garden Tomb. This is where they believe that Jesus was buried as well as the other spot at the Holy Sepulchre. I want to believe that Jesus was buried here because of the facts that our guide told us. There were three main reasons: 1. Jesus was buried in a garden, 2. Jesus was buried outside of a gate and 3. Jesus was crucified outside of the city and buried near there. There was also a hill with what looks like a skull face in it. This spot would be Golgotha or the Place of the Skull. There were many other reasons why Jesus was probably buried here, but aren’t facts. This Garden was beautiful and very peaceful compared to downtown Jerusalem. I think Jesus would have liked it here.

Next was the Garden of Gesthemene. It was also beautiful. There was a church here signifying where Jesus was praying the night before He died and where He was arrested. Then outside the church was the Garden with some olive trees that were probably there when Jesus was there. Olive trees live a very long time. We couldn’t walk through the garden, so we just had to look at it through the gates. This is a place that means a lot to me because every year at my church we do what is called the Watch every Maundy Thursday during Holy Week. We make our own garden with flowers and candles and we stay up all night until the early morning. This signifies when Jesus asked His disciples to stay up with Him and pray the night before He died, but they all fall asleep. So it was very important to me to see the real Garden where Jesus prayed.

Our last stop of the day was the Mount of Olives which is right above the Garden of Gesthemene. From here we could see most of Jerusalem. There are probably thousands, if not more, of Jews buried along the Mount of Olives. This is because it is directly across from the Golden Gate where they believe that the Messiah is going to come and make them rise from the dead.

This is it for today, except that we are going to the Wailing Wall to see the Jews praying on their Sabbath. But that will be after dinner.

Hope you are enjoying the blogs and pictures.

Jillian Lewis

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