Day 1 in Israel

It's been on my heart to visit Israel, to walk the paths that Jesus had taken and have personal revelations of His love for me in the holy land and this year, I finally made the trip. :) We went with a tour group and we met up at Changi Airport for a briefing and prayer session first before we all dispersed to do our own things prior to embarkation. We transited at Bangkok and we had to go through strict security control (loads of questioning from El Al's staff) before we could finally board the plane that would take us to Israel. We were supposed to be boarding at about 10pm++ but by the time we boarded it was way past midnight and I fell asleep in my seat even before the plane took off. After 11+hours, we finally arrived!


The first thing we did was to get some food in our tummies, and we did so at Caesarea Maritima, our first stop of the day. Oh yes, I feel that we have been blessed with the best tour guide and bus driver for this trip. Coincidentally, both the tour guide and bus driver are named Avi. :) Throughout the whole trip, we were constantly bombarded with tons of biblical, historical and geographical knowledge regarding Israel by our tour guide (and he really knows his stuff) while our bus driver had been expertly navigating the narrow roads on the mountains (sometimes with another bus coming from the other direction!) and taking care of members who are unable to go on the trails. He's not supposed to do that, but he went the extra mile. Anyway, I'll stop side-tracking!


View from the cafe where we had our breakfast Caesarea Maritima is where Peter preached the gospel to Cornelius' household and they were among the first Gentile believers. It is also the place where apostle Paul was imprisoned for 2 years before he was taken to Rome to stand trial.


Walking part the hippodome where horseraces, events and games are held in this arena.


Ruins


We also saw the remains of an ancient theatre where performances were put up for the pleasure of the citizens. Pastor Prince had also preached there previously! :)


The aqueduct that brings water into the city. Next stop, Mount Carmel!


At Mount Carmel. Pictures don't do the place justice.

Israel was engaged in idolatry and Elijah proposes a test of the powers of Baal and God. Two altars were built, one for God and the other for Baal and to see which god will answer by fire. Mount Carmel is where Elijah called down fire and God consumed the sacrifice (and even the altar!), defeating the Baal prophets. Next, we proceeded to Megiddo. Megiddo is an ancient fortress/city and it is also identified as Armageddon in the book of Revelation, the site of the world's last great battle.


We came across an altar, where they would conduct sacrifices on.


This is a public granary where people use one stairway down and another up to deposit their grains.


There's also an underground water system and it's pretty cool. 183 stairs down and walking through the 80m tunnel (where it's really cooling underground), the people of the day could get access to the spring located outside the city without being seen by enemies outside the city walls. Last but not least, we went to Mount of Precipice, where the Gospel of Luke shared that Jesus was rejected by His fellow Nazarenes after He had preached in the synagogue and they wanted to throw him over the cliff.


View from Mount of Precipice. On the way to our hotel in Tiberias back, we passed by Nazareth (which is now occupied by mostly Muslims) and Cana. The thing about tour trips is that we end the day quite early at about 6pm so we would get enough rest for the next day's activities since we had to get up early. :) Will blog more again!