A Walk Through The Bible: Jerusalem to Galilee, Israel

Sunset on Tubha, Sea Of Galilee

The past two weeks we finished up our School Biblical Studies core course.  After a week with Ashley Smith, who walked us through the prophets and finished up the Old Testament. It was defiantly, once again a packed week but it was great to dig into the prophecies in relation to what is happening today in Israel. This past week we split into groups of fours and fives and traveled throughout Israel on a week of Image Mapping. We have begun this “Image Mapping” in the past few weeks that is recording the actual historical sites in relation to various verses in the bible. So this past week this was our assignment to go as many historical sites as we could, using our photography to walk through the bible visually.

              Bet' Shan . . . Where Saul and his sons where hung on the city walls after their death. 2 Samuel 31:8-10

            Our first three days we rented a car and headed up to the beautiful area of Galilee. After taking several wrong turns, the two-hour drive actually ended up taking us 7 hrs with a short stop at McDonalds. We stopped at the Arbel cliffs where historically many Jews died, jumping off the cliffs for fear of the Romans.  We settled in a quaint hostel in Nazareth. The next day we visited the Nazareth Village. Which is a reenactment of biblical times, after visiting it and dressing up in biblical clothes (Which I personally wasn’t a fan of), we volunteered with digging and cleaning.

Mt. Tabor  . . . Deborah commands army, Judges 4:14

            The next day we traveled all around the Sea of Galilee. Unfortunately it was raining quite a bit that day. But in the random spurts when it wasn’t raining we ran out of the car to document our surroundings. It was actually a really fun day seeing a place where Jesus spent much of his time and ministry. We traveled around the Sea of Galilee, up to the Mt. Of Beatitudes, and Capernaum.  We where able to view sunset on Tubha, this place was where Jesus called the disciples to be fishers of men. At this section of the Sea, there is a place where another stream flows into it and there are lots of minerals and hundreds of fish just gather in this certain place and never leave. The story makes much more sense now when Peter’ net became so full of fish.  (Luke 5:1-11)

Dead Sea at sunset. Near En Gedi where David hid from Saul. 1 Samuel 24:1

           

  After staying one more night in Nazareth we headed back to Jerusalem, then off to the Dead Sea. Here we spent the day reading some of the gospel of Mathew and taking photos where David spent a lot of time when he was hiding from Saul at En Gedi. We had a lot of fun taking sunset photos here as well. The last day of our travel week we visited the Dome Of The Rock where the Temple once stood. We visited with a prayer group of local believers that visit there once a week to pray. Overall the week was a good time getting out and seeing Israel where many parts of the bible took place.

            Dome Of The Rock. Now Muslim holy place, but also the place where Solomon built the temple. 1 Kings 6

We are now back in Cairo, Egypt. We will be here for about twelve days before heading off to Ethiopia. This week we are studying photography, and the different uses of light. We have a lot of projects but our teacher Wally Nell is really great and I am excited to learn a lot this week. This past week I accidentally took my hard drive with my laundry to the laundry matt  . . . an hour after I dropped it off I realized what I had done. When I ran back to get it they had already placed my hard drive in the washing machine for five minutes! I though I had lost all my photos, but It is now working! So that is a sure answer to prayer. But during our week of travel one of our teams got their car broken into and many items where stolen including two laptops and two cameras among other things.  Please pray for God’s provision of these items for my friends because in a photography school these are very difficult things to lose.  Thank you for your continued prayer! 

This Is History: Jerusalem, Israel

Graffiti on the dividing wall, Palestine and Israel.

These past few weeks have been spent in Jerusalem. Our hostel is right outside old city Jerusalem, right near the Damascus gate. Our first week here our teaching was on “The Heart Of An Artist.” Our teacher Mauricio stretched us incredibly with daily photography assignments that helped us see beyond what we would normally perceive going out and taking photos. Such as going out and taking 5 photos that show God’s love, believe it or not these assignments where very difficult. But it really helped me to have more direction and purpose to the photos that I take. This past week we went back to the bible. We covered Joshua to 2 Kings, as well as the Wisdom books, Job to Song of Songs. A lot of material was covered that is difficult to discern the overall things I have learned in this pact week of bible. I have been able to pick out one overall thing I feel God has been pressing on my heart to learn, and that is patience.

Folded prayers at the foot of the 'Western Wall.'

West Bank, view of wall from the road.

In 1 Samuel 13 there is a story of Saul as a young king, here Saul gets tired of waiting on God and takes things in his own hands. Before going to war against the Philistines Samuel, the prophet, gives him the word of God not to go into the battle until Samuel himself comes to give up offering to God. “He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter.” So Saul, afraid of losing his men and anxious to go into battle just gives up the offerings to God himself. Immediately after this, Samuel shows up. “You acted foolishly,” Samuel said “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.” So as a result of his disobedience to God, his bloodline would not remain in the line of kings. This story really spoke to me in a sense that there are often things I really desire or want to reach out for but God is asking me to wait. God is asking me to have patience, and trust him that his timing is perfect. If Saul would of waited just a little longer then Samuel would have showed up and the history of the Kings of Israel may have looked very different. So I am learning to wait patiently and trust in God’s perfect timing.



There is a lot of history here in Israel, for more than I am fully able to grasp. I was able to visit the Dead Sea, two places where Jesus possible lay among other things. This past weekend I was able to travel over to west bank the Palestine portion. To see the wall that divides the country between Palestinians and Israelis. My knowledge of the whole conflict is not as informed as it should be, but I know God has a heart for both peoples. This next week we will be digging into the prophets, which will be exciting. It will be our remainder week in Jerusalem. The following week we will be traveling throughout Israel and then returning to Egypt, it is not quite all clear what that week will look like. Your continued prayers are greatly appreciated.

More graffiti on dividing wall.

Women praying at 'Wailing Wall.'