So I haven’t blogged in ages, but I’ve been doing plenty of mulling in preparation to blog!
As you may know already, on November 20th myself and 11 others from the Church of Scotland flew out to the Holy Land for an 8 day pilgrimage. As well as myself, the merry band consisted of: Steve Mallon, Jen Zeilinski, Fiona Fidgin (Fidge), Jane McCarthy, Andi Michie, Jonnie Clipston, Rachel Hutcheson, Nicola Whyte, Linda Pollock , Suzi Farrant and Graham Allison. It was a great group to be a part of and we shared many awesome moments!
Now, this blog post is just a brief introduction to my thoughts from this pilgrimage. We experienced far too much to get it all down in one post, it might take quite a few, so bear with me!
We spent the first half of the week staying at the The Scots Hotel in Tiberias and the second half of the week at the St Andrews Guest House in Jerusalem. I have to say, so many of the places and the things we saw blew my mind, I still can’t quite belive I was there!
I will be adding some photos to my blog post on the pilgrimage, but if you’re on facebook, you could check out the full, comprehensive selection there, as well as a couple of videos!
A brief rundown of the trip goes like this:
Thursday 20th: Leave Glasgow early morning and arrive in Tel Aviv early evening, then bus to Tiberias.
Friday 21st: Bus to Nazareth, see some awesome places from the precipice, visit replica 1st century farm, visit 2 of the churches in Nazareth.
Saturday 22nd: Hope to attend a messianic Jew service of worship, visit to an unrecognized village, visit to a Church where one of the groups churches was hoping to link with (Suzi’s church in Linlithgow).
Sunday 23rd: Sail on Lake Galilee, visit the Capernaum, Visit St Peter’s Primacy and visit the Mount of the beatitudes.
Monday 24th: Drive from Tiberias, through the Jordan valley, to Qumran, then go for a “swim” in the dead sea, then on to Jerusalem. In the afternoon we visited Bethlehem and the Wi’am centre there.
Tuesday 25th: Visit the Yad Vashem (Jewish holocaust memorial museum) in morning, visit Tabeetha school in Joppa in the afternoon.
Wednesday 26th: All day; discover Jerusalem; including walking the stations of the cross, going to gethsemane and the wailing wall.
Thursday 27th: Attempt visit to the UN in Jerusalem, then free time.
Friday 28th: Fly home…
thats the trip in a nutshell. I’ll be coming back to look at specific aspects of the trip more closely over the next few days.
peace out
Chris
