Jerusalem

The unexposed part of the wailing wall from underground.

Mika, Kathleen, me.

"You are standing at the point closest to the site of the Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount."

Friday morning Kathleen, 4 other MIT students, and I boarded the train to Jerusalem, and made it to the Old City. We first went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a beautiful church, and one of the places Jesus may have been crucified. Kathleen and I then went on an underground tour of the Western Wall. Since Muslims have control of the temple mount, the Western Wall of the temple is the closest the Jews can get to the mount, thus it was one of the most sacred places in all of Jerusalem for them. Only a few hundred feet of it are actually exposed, but Kathleen and I were able to walk along the entire thing through an underground tunnel on the tour. It was pretty crazy to think that we were so close to the Holy of Holies, the only place where God's Presence used to be, the place that only a Priest could enter on one day of the year. It was also incredible to see the passion that the Jewish people had as they stood at the wall, and read their prayers aloud.

The wailing wall.

After the tour, we went to the Garden Tomb, one of the sites they think Jesus body was laid. We met and joined a Nigerian group that was passing through (God is too good at knowing what I need and when). It was a beautiful garden, and really cool to see the Bible come alive before me.

Because it was Friday afternoon, the city (and country) was starting to shut down for Shabbat, which starts at sunset (they blow a horn throughout the city when it starts and stops). So Kathleen and I grabbed some food from a supermarket, and headed for our hostel. The wonderful - well kept, clean, and full or other young people. They had a whole hang out room with food, music, pool tables, places to read, and more, so we spent most of the time there. Kathleen and I had a grand dinner together from our grocery shopping - bread, peanut butter, a banana and pomegranate, and digestives.

The group that came together to explore for the day - David, Jeff, Carlos, Sheila, me, Simon, and David.

Garden of Gethsemane.

On Shabbat, everything is closed; Jerusalem almost seems abandoned. All of public transportation shuts down, so your basically stuck wherever you are until Shabbat ends. One of our friends even asked a man to take a picture of our group, and the man replied that he couldn't because it was Shabbat. Kathleen and I decided to go to a Christian-Jewish church service in the Old City, because a few students who were staying at the hostel that we had met the night before invited us to it. It was neat to see Jewish people who had become Christian worshiping Jesus right near the place He had the Last Supper. The students we had met were from Germany and Switzerland, so it was cool to read a scripture aloud in English, while they read in German, and the pastor read in Hebrew. We met a lot of people at the church after the service, including a son and father who wanted to show us around the city. They brought us to an Arab restaurant to get one of their famous dishes that Kathleen had tried to get me to try the day before - melted cheese with a honey-sugar layer on top. It was way too much cheese for me, and way too sweet, but worth the experience.

Sugar-cheese thing.

We then went to the Mount of Olives, and visited the Garden of Gethsemane. This was the most powerful place to be in for me, because there was no question that Jesus was there on his last night, and because at that place is where our salvation started. I found a place to be alone and pray, and read Luke 22, praying the same prayer Jesus did ("not my will Father, but yours, be done"). We walked up the mount further, until we were able to see all of the Old City as the sunset over it, and the end of Shabbat horn blew.

Kathleen and I spent the rest of the night at the hostel (until the buses started running again to take us home), with our new German/Switzerland friends David, David, and Simon. Hanging out with them throughout the day was so great - they brought so much joy and laughter. Like I learned in Kenya, it really doesn't matter where you are or what your doing; the thing that matters most is the people you are with. Since I've been to Israel I've been praying that God would bring amazing people into my path that I can learn from, and he did just that in Jerusalem. One of the David's was constantly proclaiming God's greatness, and embodied a joy that I've been trying to embody myself these past few days.