Eye opening day!

Sorry...still no pictures - but don't give up, I'll figure it out soon!

This morning, after our now "usual" Israeli buffet breakfast - including a cook to order egg stand – (sunny side up for me please!) we boarded the air-conditioned busses for our trip to the West Coast of Israel, the Mediterranean.

As we travel down Highway 1, the main road connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv we see many farms and forests along the way - many of these trees were planted by LeSEA Ministries in honor of Dr Sumrall who founded LeSEA Tours more than 40 years ago! How awesome is that? In November our tour members get the privilege to continue the tradition and plant a tree personally – we've been doing that in November for about 12 years now!

From an overlook, we can see the ancient port city of Jaffa, a place where shipping both in Jesus time as well as the Crusaders was very important and we then headed up the coast, right along the Mediterranean Sea. Many high tech companies are located here such as Microsoft, HP, Intel and more, it's amazing to see the prosperity of this great, yet small nation.

Very soon we arrive at Caesarea, once the capital of the Roman Empire! The ruins are incredible to see with the amphitheatre, the racing track, the foundations for the homes and governors headquarters, truly it was amazing how this was all built thousands of years ago. Today, Caesarea is home to multi million dollar homes that line the only 18 hole golf course in the country! (Yeah, I could live here.) What a contrast of the Roman times and today.

Next stop... Mt. Carmel, where the prophet Elijah called down fire from Heaven to prove the awesome power of a living God. The view from the lookout is of the valley of Armageddon- where the final battle will take place. It's amazing and again with those goose bumps!! Every army that every fought Israel came thru this valley...and the Bible is clear what will take place in the future here...

After Megiddo and a thorough tour of that 'tel' with its great history... we went to Nazareth where we can see the place where Jesus lived as a child and grew up with Mary and Joseph. In Christ's day, there were only about 400 people living in the village, today it is a bustling city of over 70,000!

It was a long day – but so wonderful. What a blessing just to see how God has His hand on this great nation. We are back at our hotel for a wonderful evening of much needed rest.

Tomorrow, once again, the city of Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel!