Shalom

Greetings from the Lord's country, Israel! I have been here for 2 days now but it feels like closer to a week.  Our leaders have packed an incredible amount of activity into each day but have punctuated all of it with aptly placed breaks so that it is not overwhelming. Tonight I have a bit of free time alone with my friend wifi and I have been longing to update this blog which is long overdue for some new travel tales!

Getting here was more unpleasant than I had expected. The flights were long but largely uneventful. The second flight from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv however was nausea inducing for me because of turbulence and exhaustion and I was thrilled when we finally landed and were re-introduced to solid ground again! I was sitting next to a girl on my first flight from Philadelphia to Frankfurt.  Neither of us spoke much until we landed in Frankfurt.  At that point I asked whether she was continuing to Tel Aviv or staying in Frankfurt and when she replied that she was continuing on, we discovered that we were actually part of the same tour group!  We were randomly seated next to each other on the second flight as well and are now roommates for the entire trip (also "random").   There are 5 of us young, single females on the trip and I am thrilled to have others my own age to spend time with!  

After a day (or more?) of traveling, our group (43 in total), arrived in Tel Aviv at 3:30 in the afternoon. Needless to say, the last thing on my mind was sight seeing at that point.  I just wanted to take a shower, brush my teeth, and go to bed.  However our leaders, who had already been in the country for a week or more, were ready to go and they whisked us onto our tour bus and away to our first tourist site!

The bus stopped in the port city of Jaffa and we enjoyed a walk around a bustling town with shops and people enjoying their Saturday evening.  Our official destination was Simon the Tanner's house in the middle of the old city of Jaffa.  His house is important because he allowed Simon, who was also called Peter, to stay with him.  While Peter was staying there he received a vision from God who told him that the good news of the Gospel was to be for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews.  This is truly good news for those of us saints who are not Jewish because it means we also are chosen by God and can equally partake in the salvation that God offers!  (More in Acts chapter 10 on the details of this story but that's the gist of it...)  It was so appropriate to start our journey here, at the literal doorstep of the place where the Christian message was offered and extended to us all.  It is here that the Gospel became truly all-inclusive.

Eventually we got back on the bus and drove to our hotel for the night.  The leaders encouraged us to force ourselves to stay awake until at least 9 so that we would be able to sleep through the night.  I slept very well last night!  Except for one dream during which I sat up and grabbed my roommate's leg and mumbled some unintelligible words and surely scared her half to death, I did not wake up once.

The food here has been lavish and delicious!  I have been very careful to avoid pineapples but I learned today that of all the produce this country grows for itself (which is practically everything you could imagine), they do not grow their own peanuts or their own pineapples.  Thank you God!

Our leader, who has lived in Israel for close to 20 years, specifically mentioned the fruit and said that Israel does not do much cooking or eating of it at all.  I think this is the right place for me, then. Despite this news, I am still avoiding anything fruity and yellow just to be safe.

I will write again as soon as I can but tonight I need to shower and sleep so that I can be ready to go for tomorrow.  I heard we are going on a Jeep tour first thing!!! (And anybody with a driver's license from the US is allowed to drive!)  Wish me luck ;)