Instead, we had a pleasant trip to Indianapolis, a reasonable layover in Newark with a nice lunch, and a pleasant overnight trip to Tel Aviv. There was some turbulence, but while it wasn't a great sleep, still there was some sleeping. We got to see a pretty sunrise as we flew over Greece. The flight seemed to be largely Christian pilgrims from Tennessee and a number of practicing Jews. We got to witness several of the men and some of the women doing their morning prayers, and it was a
reminder that we were not in Lafayette and that there are some traditions that have survived the centuries.
As we were approaching the gate at Newark, we ran into one of our fellow Israel travelers from 2012, Brian. It was good to spend several minutes chatting and catching up.
After landing in Tel Aviv and collecting our luggage, we waited with Brian before meeting up with tour organizer, Ron, and Ryan, one of the other travelers in this year's group. Our bus driver from the first trip, Kamal, took us in a van the 50 minutes or so it takes to get from the airport to our hotel in Jerusalem. We got our rooms and met up with 7 others who had already arrived for a 25-minute walk to the Jaffa Gate in the Old City and had lunch at the Christ Church Coffee Shop. Joyce and I took our time coming back to the hotel, and met up again with Mike on the way back.
We took some free time in the afternoon to nap to fill in the gaps from the plane ride and to get organized and ready for our touring.
At 7, we gathered in the main dining room and got reacquainted with the fabulous Olive Tree dinner buffet. There were lots of salads with a Mediterranean flair, at least 6 different meat choices, several appetizer type items, breads, and a colorful array of desserts. We were glad to meet several of the new travelers who had arrived late in the day, including Sue, Dave, Grace and Tom from our first trip. It was also good to be with folks who thought that the amount of dessert you take should fill the size of plate you take to the table.
As is the custom, we met at 8 to review the day together and to preview the next day. Most of our group had arrived, so we did introductions, and found several had been on previous trips, and all were excited to be learning even more about how God is at work by seeing the places that his work is recorded in scripture. Mike gave us an overview of the concept of hesed, and Dave, our tour guide, gave us the insight that while he is used to giving tours that have a daily concept to convey, doing a whole tour on a concept was a new ballgame, but one that he was excited to share. Mike ended the evening by reading a prayer from Walter Brueggemann's book, "Awed to Heaven; Rooted on Earth', and closing by singing "Great is Thy Faithfulness.'
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