Well, we made it home safe and sound! Thanks for all your prayers and interest. I’m working through the 1900 pics I shot and will post a gallery when I’ve gone through them all and edited them as needed.
Overall, it was a really great trip. I’m so grateful to have been able to go to such great places.
We’re in Paris now, if but for a few minutes. So far it looks like our return flight is on schedule and not impacted by the events here Friday night. Lord willing, we’ll arrive back in ATL at 2:40ET and home soon after that.
There won’t be a moment to rest, though, as I have to be on an 8AM flight Monday morning to Phoenix. Today will be lots of laundry, packing, and catching up with the kids.
I won’t be back from Phoenix until next Monday morning. 🙁
But this has been a good trip. A very good trip.
Sorry there hasn’t been time or energy to go through the hundreds of pictures I’ve shot. Here are a few mostly unprocessed shots of some of the main spots we’ve visited. Of course when this is all over I’ll go through all of the pics and post a real gallery of the best shots.
We awoke this morning in Rome to the horrible stories of terror and carnage in Paris. Please pray for the injured and traumatized, and for that country. Their current culture and infrastructure doesn’t seem prepared to prevent or at least minimize the opportunity for such attacks.
Thankfully, we were not there. But we only barely weren’t, as we debated quite a bit before choosing finally to go to Rome instead of Paris since we had already been to Paris together before.
We made it to Rome! Wow, this place is jam packed with interesting stuff.
I hate to say this, but I got one hour of sleep last night in Tel Aviv before getting up at 2:00AM to fly here and can’t keep my eyes open to post. I’ll try to do something tomorrow, though there will be little time since we’re scheduled to go to the Vatican.
Wow! What a day!!! Petra was amazing!
Sorry, but I’m so tired I can hardly stay awake long enough to post this. Tomorrow (actually in less than three hours) we leave for the airport to go to Rome and if I’m not totally toast I’ll try to go through all of the pics from the last two days and post some here.
It will be very sad to leave Israel.
I just saw the news about two separate knife attacks in Jerusalem today. First of all, we didn’t die. Second of all, it’s amazing that the news of two non-fatal attacks 6k miles from the US made the news when you know there were probably 20x that many in Chicago, Atlanta, NYC, or LA in the last two weeks, and probably 10x those in some choice countries in Central and northern South America.
Odd that no one ever worries about me when there is a drive-by shooting or car-jacking back home in ATL. They’d be worrying a lot!
Do you think there’s a chance that the media are exaggerating anything they can find to manipulate the truth, push their own political agenda, and sell papers / ads? We all know they’d never do that.
BTW, one of the attacks was by two 12-13 year-old boys on a policeman. Just another reason for me to be concerned about all the boys that will be trying to court my girls. Glad I have more than knives to protect them. 🙂 And yes, girls, I know you are reading this.
Yesterday we went to Caesarea Philippi and Har Megiddo, and both were great. We stayed in a Kibbutz (Kibbutz Levi close to Tiberias).
Today we went to Capernaum and the areas around Lower Galilee. Then we went and toured the Golan Heights, and were within less than a km of Syria. And amazingly, we’re still alive.
I have to say that all of this has completely illuminated (and often, corrected) my understanding of the New (and Old) Testament stories. I truly think that visiting the Holy Land should be a standard part of seminary curriculum.
Sad that we only have one more day of the standard tour. Our guides and driver have been just wonderful!
We’re fine and had a great time today. Just have no internet. I’ll try again tonight.