Sunday, February 10, 2013


Sunday February 10, 2013

Tour Day #3 & Work Day #3

Today we will go to Caesarea Philippi, and the water falls on the Banias River.

Jane talked to us about Caesarea Philippi which was a Roman city built by one of the sons of Herod the Great, Philip.  This city was built on the site of a Greek temple dedicated to the god Pan.  This was built around a large cave that was the source of the water for one of the rivers that make up the headwaters of the River Jordan.  These rivers come from a spring that is fed from snow melt and rain water from Mount Hermon.  It was really running while were there and was the most water that I had ever seen in it.  The river was named Panias, again after Pan.  As time marched on, and the Ottoman Turks were in control of the land, the name was changed to Banias, since this ethnic group has no P in their alphabet, and they cannot pronounce a P.

Dan lead us in a devotional explaining that this is the location where Jesus brought his disciples, and asked them “who do people say that I am?”.  Peter answered correctly and Jesus said, “Upon this statement My Church will be built.”  The question then is how are we fulfilling the statement that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah)?

We left Caesarea Philippi, and went to the Banias river park and hiked along the River down to the waterfall.  It was amazing.  Everything was lush and green.

Dan talked about how just as the river was creating a great noise, how were we creating a noise for Jesus?

Back in the vans we grabbed a quick lunch, and on to Quirat Shemona.
Quirat Shemona is an Israeli city that is just a few miles from the Lebanon border.  In the Lebanon conflict of 2006, Hezbollah fired around 4000 rockets into Israel.  1020 landed in Quirat Shemona.  We have 4 bomb shelters to work on.  3 of them have water inside the basement, so we will only be painting the outside as we wait for the city utility company to pump out the shelters.  We started on the first shelter, and were able to paint the outsider, and clean the toilets and the entry area.  Tomorrow we will tackle the other three.

Tonight our friend Danny Lachmi has invited our group over for schwarma and falafel. Oh my goodness we had so much food but it was wonderful. Danny’s wife Rachael,  Rachel’s cousin Rachel and her husband, Ariel were there also and helped with the meal. We had a great time visiting. Tom and I always take gifts to Danny’s 4 kids and Danny had asked us to bring 2 iphones for his wife and daughter and we gave his daughter Omer, hers in her gift we brought her and she was so excited! I posted a picture below. Omer has severe allergies so she has to keep a phone with her at all times.

Please pray for tired muscles and strength as we work tomorrow and opportunities to visit with the local people. I got to visit with a young man today that is a guard at a prison. He was very curious why we were there working.






























1 comment:

  1. Wow, looks like you guys are doing a great job.

    ReplyDelete