After visiting the Mount of the Precipice, we visited a replica, working, first century farm in the middle of Nazareth. It was quite interesting, as we were being taken round by the guide he would explain how parts of the farm worked into the parables that Jesus taught. it really brought a whole new angle to the parables when we saw what the kind of farm Jesus referred to would have looked like. Below is a picture of the threshing floor at the farm, for some reason I’d always pictured it looking similar to the malting floor in a traditional Whisky Distillery.

After being served lunch at the farm, we visited some Churches in Nazareth: The Basilica of the Annunciation, St Josephs and the Greek Orthodox church of the Annunciation. all 3 Churches were awesome to visit. I have long come to the conclusion that i don’t really care how historically accurate the locations of all the Churches connected to Biblical characters/events are. To get anal about that would serve only to take away from the experience of God that so many people have in them. but lets not get into that quite yet….
Basilica of the Annunciation. This was visible quite clearly from the precipice. It’s a huge Church, quite impressive to look at. As its name suggests, It is named for the event of the Angels announcing to Mary that she was to give birth to Jesus. In the courtyard, there are many pictures of the Madonna and Child, each individualised to a different country, below is a picture of my favourite one, from Croatia. Inside the Church, there is another Church! This second Church, known as the grotto, is believed by many to be the original childhood home of Mary, mother of Jesus…..The Basilica is the site where Roman Catholics believe the annunciation took place, we also visited the Greek Orthdox Church where they claim the same event took place. Excavations on the grotto are still taking place, it was quite cool to watch archaeologists at work for a short period…



After the Basilica, it was on to St Josephs Church, which, as you may have guessed, was built for Joseph, “Father” of Jesus. Again, this was an incredible place to visit, complete with a green lit cavern that is reputed to be Joesphs workshop. What was interesting to find out was that, although we typically describe and think of Joseph as a carpenter, it is thought to be more likely that he was the 1st century equivalent of a construction worker/handyman. Able to turn his hand to most things involving stone or wood work. Which comes back to us in many of Jesus comments about wood/stone in his teachings.
After St Josephs, we went to to the other Church of the Annunciation, the Greek Orthodox site. This wasn’t as huge a Church, but still impressive nonetheless. As a Greek Orthodox Church, it had an impressive Iconostasis at the front (picture below) and also had a small chapel built over a spring that iscalled “Mary’s Well”. Guess why? Miss Whyte was given a row by one of the caretakers of the Church when she crossed her legs, we were then informed this is an insult in Arab cultures!

Once we returned to the hotel, we enjoyed an amzing dinner and then headed to the bar to chill and chat about the day. In the bar over the next few days, a small group of us, Jonnie, myself, Nicola, Rachel and Suzi became quite freindly with some of the bar staff. One in particular stands out: Lavi, a fantastic guy, always up for banter and introduced me to Arak, a fine liquer that is quite tasty!


So thats a “brief” account of the first day in Israel. An easy day to write about, in that all we did was visit sights, it was a Biblical history day, whereas some other days had a much more humanitarian/political aspect to them…….
Hope you enjyed reading this and that you’re up for some more over the next few days, I’ve a lot to write about about the trip!!!

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