Friday, July 23, 2010

Beth Shean, Church of Nain, and the Mount of Transfiguration

It was another awesome, and very long, field trip in Galilee!
Our first stop was Beth Shean, which was probably the coolest set of ruins we have visited yet!
Beth Shean is an ancient, very well preserved, roman city that we had a great time exploring.



Grace demonstrated ancient amphitheater's amazing acoustics 
Roman bath- they actually had heated swimming pools!

We stopped for lunch and swimming at Gan Hashalousha and no I am not making that name up!
Gan Hashalousha is a natural swimming pool, with clear blue water, and beautiful surroundings.
The water felt heavenly but there was just one problem-
the water was full of fish that loved to come up and nibble the dead skin off your toes!
It did not hurt at all, but it felt super weird and I was just not a huge fan of the whole idea of being eaten by a fish haha.
So I made sure to kick my feet really fast so they couldn't get me :)


After drying off we went to the Church of Nain, which is a very quaint and simple church that turned out to be my favorite stop of the day.
This church marks the place where Christ came and raised the Widow's son, 
one of my favorite miracles in the New Testament. 
Brother Brown taught us how Christ walked nearly 30 miles in the middle of the night through rough terrain to reach this woman and rescue her from her despair. 
This is an amazing example of Christ's love for the individual and his willingness to help each of us, and the spirit was so strong in this little church.







Our last stop was Mount Tabor-the traditional site for the Mount of Transfiguration. 
We had to battle it out for the busses with masses of asian tourists to get up the hill, but it was so worth it!
The church, and mountain itself, were beautiful and it was incredible to be at the site for such an important event.











Our long naps on the bus ride back to the kibbutz gave us the needed boost of energy for the world cup final! Soccer really is the the world's sport and the gathering to watch the game was HUGE!
There were actually some Dutch people there at the kibbutz who watched the game with us and it was so much fun to watch how into the game they were, decked out in their neon orange.
It was great to cheer on the Dutch (I was thinking of you the whole time Rob) 
and even though we lost, it was an awesome, memorable evening :)

1 comment:

  1. Hey don't forget your uncle went to Spain! It was a hoot sitting next to Robert during the game and i was such a gracious winner! :) I love reliving Em and my experience through your blog. Keep up the good work!
    Bret

    ReplyDelete