| Dear
Christian Believer,
God bless you abundantly through our
Lord Jesus Christ.
I can hardly believe it! It's already
May 21st and I'm just now getting ready to write the June
Newsletter. Usually by now we are ready to send it to
the printers.
Recently we returned from the Bible
Lands trip, WOW what an incredible time of fellowship,
learning, and rejoicing as we walked in the steps of Jesus
Christ and saw many of the same things he saw as he lived
and ministered in his homeland areas.
There were 16 of us and another couple
from Arizona joined our tour group to make it a group
of 18. Because of the conflict between Israel and the
Palestinians plus the continuous news media coverage that
goes on daily tourism has greatly fallen off. There is
definitely unrest in the area, but it is very targeted
and tour buses are not on the list of targets. Both sides
are hurting because tourism fills the pockets of both
the Jews and the Palestinians. Instead of 30 buses per
day touring the area, there are only 1-3 buses per day.
That means a lot of dollars are not reaching their pockets.
Never did we ever feel endangered during our travel throughout
Israel and the Palestinian controlled areas. We were able
to see everything we wanted to see on our tour. All 18
of us agreed that EVERY Christian believer should make
a trip to the Bible lands at least once and experience
the sights and the land of Jesus Christ and prophets of
old.
We spent 4 nights in Jerusalem and 3
nights in Tiberias and went to the familiar places we
have read about for years in the gospels and other records
of the Bible. We visited "old Jerusalem", a
spectacular model city of Jerusalem (which displayed how
the city and temple area looked in Jesus day), Bethlehem,
Bethany, the Mt. of Olives, Garden of Gethsemane, the
Kedron Valley, Cana, Nazareth, Tiberias, Sea of Galilee,
the location of the Sermon on the Mount, Caesarea, Mt.
Carmel, the Valley of Armegaddon, the Dead Sea, Qunran
(the site of the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls), and
Masada, plus ruins of other cities such as Bet She'an,
and Megiddo.
We had our Sunday Fellowship at the
Jordan River and did Holy Communion at the Garden of the
Tomb. We went to tile Pool of Bethesda, Herod's Antonia
Fortress, the Upper Room, the House of Caiaphas, Jericho,
Capernaum, the Tabgha fishes and the loaves feeding in
Luke 9:10-17, the place of Peter's calling to serve, "feed
my sheep", and many other places of Biblical interest.
Jon Nessle did spot teachings almost
everywhere we went and I taught a couple of times myself.
These teaching times were priceless because they gave
us history and background in the scriptures of the areas
we visited. We are already thinking about future trips
and how we could make changes that would make our time
in Israel even more profitable to believers that would
choose to come. Our next trip could possibly be in 2003,
we'll see. Most of us that will read this letter have
had the doctrine of God's Word taught to us for years,
we've read it and even shared it with others, but to be
able to see and walk in the places we only had read about
will increase our appreciation and love of our Lord Jesus
Christ and for the truth of God's Word. The pictures of
your mind concerning the Word will become very clear and
very real. Acts 4:20 "For we cannot but speak
the things that we have SEEN and heard," now has
more meaning.
Loving always, In Christ.
John
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