Walking in the Holy Land

I have been in Israel for 4 days and still cannot believe I am here. We are living on a Moshav along with many other people and groups, it is are located about 9 miles outside of Jerusalem. The land here reminds me, in some ways, of Colorado, it is very green and mountainous. Most of the cities are built on top of these hills/mountains, due to the topography. The food here has been an experience, fish is served at every meal,I had the best humus that I have ever had and breakfast is quickly becoming my favorite meal of the day! 

We have been on two field trips since arriving and both were amazing! We got to go into Jerusalem and spent the day touring the Old City. When we entered Jerusalem it was nothing like I had imagined, it was much more modernized and more like the United States than I had pictured. Once we began drawing closer to the Old City it began to look more like what I had imagined although it still held many surprises and differences. Just as I had been told the Bible began to come alive to me as soon as we stood on top of a building and gazed at the Mount of Olives, Temple Mount and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a possible site for the place of Crucifixion and burial place of Christ, this was not at all what I was expecting because they have built a church over these places but after climbing up the stairs to the place of crucifixion and down many flights of stairs to the bottom of the building I realized this was really a hill. It was amazing to me to be able to stand in the place were Christ paid for our sins and also where He defeated sin and death. We were able to walk along the top of the city walls and made our way down to the Temple Mount and the Western (Wailing) Wall. This place was most amazing to me because we know for sure that this is where the Temple had stood, it was amazing to be standing just outside of where the glory of God had once been, I cannot even express the feeling or atmosphere. Throughout the day we walked through 3 of the 4 quarters and got the feeling for how different each of them live although they are right next to each other. Genesis 12 and Psalm 122 now hold whole new meanings to me after this day in the city! While this is just a little taste of all that I have experienced in these past few days and look forward to sharing much more with you.