^{Saturday February 16, 2013}

Jerusalem

If today’s blog has an Aussie flair to it, it is because it was written by our Australian team member Trevor Kershaw! And for those of you who know Trevor I figured it was going to be A LOT longer than this so I know he must have cut it back!

It is always a privilege to walk the land of Israel; even more so on the morning of Shabbat when there is peace and quite thus giving you time to reflect on the reason for being here and to sense His presence and leading.

On this very chilly morning we left Abraham's Hostel at 8:45 am for one purpose to quench our bad habits or more to the point we stumbled across Aroma’s Café… sad as it is we ALL engaged in and made it our mission to purchase a cappuccino before continuing our trek to meet with Jane our tour guide which made us some what late for the start of our tour.

The purpose of our walk was to visit several areas in and around the old city of Jerusalem. In the mean time Jane had found a comfortable place to wait under cover by the Jaffa Gate until we arrived due to the rain and the wind chill.  (Someone could have told me it was going to rain.)

On arriving at the Jaffa (Yaffo) Gate we all made sure that there was no sign or evidence on our mustaches of why we were late. Jane spent time talking about David’s tower just inside the Jaffa gate reminding us that it had nothing to do with David’s period.

We then headed off to The Holy Sepulchre via David street and on the way we passed St John.s where she told us that this is where St John medical services initiated and spread around the world.

We then visited the site of the Holy Sepulchre only to be disappointed, we all felt the site was made into a shrine and one of the focal points was the all Seeing Eye. For me that was enough.

We then headed of to the Garden of Gethsemane walking through the Moslem quarters existing via the Lions Gate down the hill and across to the garden where there are these giant olive trees said to date back to the period of 70AD or there about.

We then walked back up the steep assent to the Lions gate and stopped at a place called Ecce Homo Basilica and in the basement there is an area said to be the place where they placed the crown of thorns upon the head of Jesus…

The last thing we did for the day was to visit the Garden Tomb where we spent time reflecting and worshiping our Lord before making the up hill trek back to the Hostel.

(This is Terry taking over again)

We had our nightly Bible study in a room off the “gathering room and kitchen” and when I walked in I thought we were back in the 70’s! Yes all THOSE memories came flooding in! This hostel has been very interesting part of our trip!