Category: Israel Study Trip

After weeks of preparation, the long anticipated day has arrived! Those of us from Pennsylvania met at Swatara Church and loaded all our luggage into the back of the Andrew’s van. After prayer, we started our eastward trek.

Our first flight took us to Boston, where we met the rest of our group from that flew from Ohio.

Our flight to Tel Aviv was delayed, but we finally found our seats and settled in for our long night ahead. Next stop – Israel!!!

Our fall tour is planned for October 27 to November 8. Watch this page for updates when we’re in the Land!

We ended our tour last fall with an evening visit to the Joppa Seaport. Modern day Jaffa is named after the Joppa of Bible times. We weren’t able to find a ship bound for Tarshish. But we don’t want to repeat Jonah’s mistakes, anyway.

If you’d like to participate in a tour of the Holy Land, consider our fall 2022 trip. The dates are October 27 to November 8. We plan to fly from Newark. We keep the group size small for a better experience. The price is $4,190 per person double occupancy.

From James K. Nolt

God: “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness” (Psalm 48:1). Visiting sites in Israel is a good opportunity to worship God, who chose this place to perform unique acts. It is also a time to mourn how His people rejected Him. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, . . . how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37).

Stones: Big stones, little stones, square stones, round stones. We saw stones “from Dan even to Beersheba.” Stones to build walls, to build pavements, and to build idols and temples. Empire builders destroyed the stones that others had arranged, and then they built other structures, which in turn others destroyed. After they had crossed the Jordan River, God told Joshua to build a stone memorial, so their children would ask, “What mean these stones?” (Joshua 4:21). As we viewed many ruins, we likewise pondered this question.

The ruins of Capernaum remind us of Jesus’ lament, “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day” (Matthew 11:23). Abraham, in contrast, “looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:10).

People: Stones help us understand the past and how it shaped our lives, but contacts with living people are more memorable. People memories begin with the fine group of thirteen fellow travelers. How many times we counted, “1, 2, 3, . . . 13.” This reminded me of the dozens of times I counted students on school trips to be sure everyone was there.

There were some negative experiences, such as aggressive salesmen shoving their wares into our hands and demanding that we give an offer, but the majority were positive. And some were superlative, such as a supper in Bethlehem with Palestinian Christians (and singing “How Great Thou Art” in four languages; see Nov. 11 report), and evening Sabbath worship and supper with a Jewish family two evenings later. The modest dress of conservative Jewish women was commendable.

Not only were we watching people, but people were watching us. “Are you Amish?” “Are you Mennonite?” We heard these questions various times or overheard people discussing us. We hope we gave a good Christian witness.

Singing: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). We can worship God anywhere, but it was a blessing to sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and other songs about Christ’s Birth in Bethlehem; to sing “Tis Midnight” and “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed,” etc. about His suffering and death in the Garden of Gethsemane; and to sing “Lift Your Glad Voices,” “Up from the Grave,” and “Alive Forevermore,” etc. as we visited a possible site of the Resurrection. What shall we sing in Nazareth? Is there any song that uniquely fits there? Yes. “I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene.” As we looked across the Kidron Valley at the Eastern Gate, we sang, “I will meet you in the morning, just inside the Eastern Gate . . .”

The Jewish family demonstrated that singing is an important part of their Sabbath routine by their songs at the beginning and end of their meal. Later after we visitors had sung the first two stanzas of “How Great Thou Art,” extolling our Creator God, they welcomed us to sing a distinctly Christian stanza. On the last day, Sunday, our guide sang “Our Father” (the Lord’s Prayer) for us in Arabic.

Home Again, November 15

With mixed feelings we boarded the B-787 late Sunday evening for our approximately 11 ½ hour flight from Tel-Aviv. We landed in Newark, New Jersey, shortly after 4:00 AM, grateful for a safe and enjoyable trip.

Later that morning, Sarah and I attended the funeral of her uncle. And so, the routines of life and death continue, at home and abroad. A mountaintop experience should renew us for the challenges before us, encourage us to be good Christian stewards of life’s opportunities, and help prepare us for death. Thank you, God, for the blessing of this trip; may You be honored in all things!

Weary travelers on the Newark shuttle bus

We ate breakfast & left the Grand Court Hotel & Jerusalem around 10am.

We visited an area in Bethlehem with a view of the the hillsides that shepherds have watch their flocks for millenia. We took an hour to read from Luke 2, give time reflect on experiences in the last week, sing & pray.

Afterwards Elias gave a tour of a nearby Shepherd’s cave house. He noted that the NT “inn” is a mistranslation of “upper guest room” and what NT is saying is that Joseph’s relatives all already had their guest rooms full.

We ate lunch of falafel (which included a server getting dramatically cut by glass) and then headed to the Church of the Nativity.

Perhaps more accurately, the churches of the Nativity as it houses Greek Orthodox, Armenian & Catholic areas. It has some nice mosaics on the floor & of course the grotto (cave) where Jesus was born & the “stable” nearby.

As we left we noted the wall between the Palestinian & Israeli sections of Bethlehem that was built after the last intifada. It had interesting graffiti by the famous Banksy celebrating a future time when unity & peace can be the norm.

From Bethlehem we traveled north west, through the Coastal Plains (where God made the sun to stand still for Joshua while he fought the Caananites) to Joppa. The temperature was noticeably warmer here—just perfect for an evening stroll. Our guide Sufian noted that Joppa, or Jaffa, was named after Noah’s son Japheth. Joppa is the “port of Jerusalem” since it wasn’t a port city. This is one reason there is a Joppa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Joppa is where Jonah tried to escape God’s call to the pagan Assyrians. Joppa is also the sight where Peter called pagans “unclean” when God was calling them to be part of His Kingdom. (Acts 10) Peter’s vision at Simon the Tanner’s house changed the course of history. Thankfully Peter responded a bit more enthusiastically than Jonah & Peter’s story doesn’t end with him pouting.

We had turkey & veal shawarma for dinner courtesy of Isa. Shawarma is meat cut off a spit and put in a pita like a sandwich.

First thing in the morning of Shabbat (Saturday) we noticed some changes in our routine at the Grand Court Hotel. Guests could use “Shabbat mode” elevators to avoid pressing a button and “breaking a circuit.” We also noticed no scrambled eggs, the toaster was missing and the coffee machines were covered with a cloth.

Our first activity was walking from Bethany (aka Bet’Haini) to Jerusalem, roughly the path that Jesus took on his triumphal entry. It was steep but not overly hard to walk.

The olive tree garden where traditional site of Gethsemane is located is part way down the Mount of Olives. Gethsemene means “the place of an olive press”. At the present there are no longer that many olive trees around but we were glad for these gardens preserved for relaxing & mediating on Jesus’ struggle to follow the Father’s will.

Our next stop was the Israel Museum. We needed a Covid Green Pass to enter. We focused on the 2nd Temple era model of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea scrolls display. The model of Jerusalem helped me settle in my mind where the City of David was in relation to the Old City.

It was interesting to see the display of actual Dead Sea scrolls.  Some of them looked like they could have been written yesterday.

We had falafel at a small shop for lunch.

We visited the traditional sight of the Upper Room & David’s Tomb. David’s Tomb is a Jewish sight which required Jewish protocol which included “No Sleeping”.

We strolled through the market at Damascus Gate. Some bought some souvenirs they weren’t sure they wanted.

After supper we did some strolling on Ben Yehuda Street area. Some of us satisfied our fast food craving.

By Lester K. Burkholder

(Due to technical difficulties, we weren’t able to post this article earlier when we were at Masada)

A highlight today was ascending the 375 foot high earthen ramp to the top of Masada built by 15,000 Jewish  slaves in 73 AD. Masada is an ancient fortress  built on a 1300 foot high butte  on the eastern edge of the Judean desert and overlooking the Dead Sea.

Jerusalem had fallen to the Romans and Masada was the last Jewish stronghold. On top was the Sicarii remnant of the Jewish nation under siege by the Roman army. They realized that their enslaved Jewish brothers were being forced to build the ramp which, when built, would be their downfall. 

According to Josephus,on April 15, 73AD the Roman troops entered the fortress in full armor.  They found an eerie silence. The 960 residents of Masada had committed mass suicide. Only two women and five children, who had hidden themselve in the cisterns, were found alive.

What happens in Israel is important to Christianity. The Temple era was over, and from its roots the new shoot of Christianity would flourish.