Israel Day 1 - Travel

Hi Everybody! Well, we made it back safe and sound. Sorry we weren't able to update the blog while we were gone.....too much to talk about and not enough speedy network connections in the hotels to keep up.

So as we take a look back at our trip through our pictures, we will update the blog in chronological order so you can follow along on our adventures. The trip was more amazing than we can even put into words or pictures but we will try our best to give you a glimpse :o)

We had an amazing group of 47 people that we toured with. They were all wonderful traveling companions and we were so blessed to fellowship with all of them. Here we are getting ready to fly out of PDX airport. We are on the left....

After a 4 hour flight to Atlanta, a 3 1/2 hour layover in Atlanta (enjoying some TGIF fried cooking), and then a 13 hour flight to Tel Aviv, we disembarked in the wonderful country of Israel. Here is Kelly and one of our friends, Colsey, getting their picture taken at the passport stations. About 5 seconds after this, we were told by the security guards that it was not ok to take pictures in this area.....oops.

The area the airport is in is called Lod, right outside Tel Aviv. It was also known in New Testament times as Lydda. It was here that Peter healed the man named Aeneas of palsy (Acts 9). Right next to Lydda was the city of Joppa. Here Peter raised Tabitha back to life (Acts 9) and was given the vision to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ not only to Jews but also to Gentiles (Acts 10). Needless to say we were all excited to be there.

We went directly from the airport to the hotel in Tel Aviv called the "Dan Panorama" overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and the skyline of the city. Here are some views out of our room that night.

After checking in to the room, eating an amazing dinner, and getting reunited with our friend Tad (our missionary Pastor living in Vanuatu who flew in to tour with us) we decided to go out for a nice evening walk. We walked along the Mediterranean Sea and stopped to get some frozen yogurt. Here is a picture of us outside the shop...

On our walk back to the hotel we saw a monument to a number of young people who were killed at a discotheque that was bombed on June 1, 2001. It was a sad reminder of the violence that occurs in Israel on a regular basis.

The beauty of the boardwalk helped us to focus on the exciting day to come. We decided to play around with the camera as our friends Jon and Stacey walked through a cool part of the boardwalk.