Day Three of the Holy Land, Tuesday 17th February 2009

The Mount of Olives.

The first port of call in the third day of being in the Holy Land was the majestic Mount of Olives, time and time again I had heard so so much about this place through the faith that I have in Christ Jesus, and now I was actually physically going to be there!! The Mount of Olives church recognizes two events of Jesus’ ministry, the Teaching of the Lords prayer, and his ascension into heaven after his resurrection. The church is quite beautify done up with the Lord ’s Prayer in every language around the area and I even found the Maori (New Zealand’s language) so it became a great picture moment also there is a small cave where it is believed . Afterward but still on the mount, we drove down to the main lookout point on the mount quite near all the Israeli graves (waiting for the messiah) to see an amazing view of the Old Jerusalem city, I had seen this before through media and pics, but truly seeing it with my own kiwi eyes 100% confirmed that people really need to see this great old city in it full view.

St Peter in Gallicantu.

Our next planned journey was to see the church of St Peter in Gallicantu. But I have been quick to find that out in this old city the Israeli authorities’ do what they please, and they blocked of the road on both sides to gaining access to the church as there was something Jewish meeting going on nearly the Western Wall. We will be back the next day…

Bethlehem.

With that change of plans, we gained more time in Bethlehem, which was the next stop. But before I write about all these wonderful things that are is this amazing city, I cannot start with that, I have to and as a must write about this ugly, stupid and sad story of the people (God’s people) trapped behind the walls that surround this Holy city, the state of Israel have a massive hold and grip on this city, a city that is suppose to have such a joy to it, is a city that has massive unemployment and poverty, and you can see this struggle in reality as you walk thou is streets. The wall creates this prison for the people that live inside and for the people that need to get into the city each day, but I have to say there is some stunning art work done on it, but this city will be forever in my heart; especially the Christians that are slowly being pushed out. Please pray and support them with me.

The Shepherd Fields

This first stop in this town was the Shepherds fields; this is where the Shepherds themselves were given the first news about Jesus’ birth in the town, the cave is still there and our mass for that day was said inside. An amazing sense of reality sunk in for me as I experienced a fraction of what life must have been like for them, and why God choose them to be those special people who were last in everything, to be first in the public in meeting the messiah.

Afternoon Walk around Bethlehem.

We had most of the afternoon off to adventure around Bethlehem, we went and visited a place called Mary’s Milk grotto, this was an interesting place to visit, they say this was one of the caves where the Holy Family stayed in Bethlehem and Mary’s breast milk is said to have dropped into the ground and created the walls of the cave to be a pure white. With some of the group walked around some of the market streets where I brought a large Palestinian flag, funny enough it was the shop keepers own flag as he didn’t have any of his own, I had a good time debating the price and got to know him a but and what the city is like at the moment, even more weirder is that he had two American Palestinian friends that where visiting outside the shop and they knew everything about cricket even the names of all the New Zealand cricketers and what they are like!! Very random. Then a couple of us went out and adventured to find the place called King David’s Wells, this place is noted in 2 Sam 23: 15 -17, now it wasn’t easy to find it and we had to ask the locals a couple of time, as not many knew as well, but after some effort in searching, mission accomplished! It was within a Catholic funded community sports center.

The Day's Last Thought.

The most scary thing to happen to me so far in this trip, was not being anywhere new or being with new people in this land or even any security fears being here, but it was a boy I met in Bethlehem today, now when us guys are boys, we like to have toy guns and we like to act out shooting, I did (and so did Peter Kay – British comedian) and this boy too had a toy gun in his hand and as we came around a street corner, he noted us and looked at us and you would think he would act out shooting at us, but he didn’t, he put the toy gun to his own head and acted out shooting himself … now that’s scary.

Now could that boy being telling us something I don’t know, I thought I might like to share this with you.