Cottage Grove 2008

Some of our friends have given us a hard time for not updating our blog this year. Well, I figured it was time to give in to peer pressure. In preparation for all of my Africa pictures that I hope to be putting on the blog, I decided to put some of our Cottage Grove 2008 pictures on the blog. Here are a few of the fun pics...

Liam and Ashli helping Kelly unpack.

Anthony and Beckie enjoying the sun. What a great couple!

Chad and Amy hanging out with Madi Ritchie. They are a huge blessing.

We were glad to have the Welters hanging out as well. I jokingly called Jon the activities desk because of all the fun toys he bought... kayaks, bikes, golf clubs. They are a good couple to have around :o)

Chris and Liam Ritchie taking it easy in the hammock.

Jim taking it easy in his camping easy chair.

Micah taking it easy on dry land and...

taking it easy in the water.

The Welters brought a pinata for the kiddos and they had a blast. Here is Chris helping Ashli get a good swing.

What a bunch of pretty ladies :o)

Our 1st Snowboarding Adventure

Kelly and I have wanted to learn how to snowboard for the last couple of years. Unfortunately, we never had the inclination to drive up to the mountain and learn on our own. This year, we were able to find a bunch of good deals on snowboard gear. Thanks to some Christmas presents that we received, we were able to head up to the mountain with our own gear. Our friends Colsey and Jonathan invited us to go with them and so we headed up together. We are always up for a new adventure!

Well, after a day of multiple runs, hundreds of falls, and a wrong turn onto a black diamond course, Kel and I kind of figured out how to snowboard. We had a great time with our friends and can hardly wait until our next time up!

Israel Day 12 - The Pool of Bethesda, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Garden Tomb

We started out our last day in Israel entering by the Sheep's Gate and going to the Pool of Bethesda. This was the place where Jesus healed the man who could not walk in John 5. It was an amazingly beautiful dig. I had never pictured it as anything like what it is. Take a look for yourself:

Just imagine the people who needed healing climbing down the stairs into the water to have their infirmities healed. What a picture! There is a church right next to the pool that is called the Church of St. Anne. It is a church to honor the mother of Mary. While I am not big into ornate churches, this church was amazingly simple and beautiful.

While we were in the church, I totally felt the presence of the Lord. Not really because of anything to do with the church itself but rather with what was happening inside. When we walked in, there was a church group singing worship hymns. We sat down and were able to sing a few songs acapella in the amazing acoustics of the church. Another group then came in and started singing the tune of amazing grace with the word Shalom (Hebrew for peace) incorporated into the song. It was truly beautiful and it made me realize more than ever that we are all one body (the church) made up of many parts. Different Christian denominations may not all worship in exactly the same way, but we all worship the same Messiah.

We then walked through the streets of Old Jerusalem to the place marked by the Catholic Church as the beginning of the Via Delorosa or the street which the Catholic Church believes is the street Christ carried His cross down on the way to His crucifixion.

This was in the Muslim Quarter and you can see that the city is nowhere near as well as preserved as in the Jewish Quarter.

As part of our tour down the Via Delorosa, we were able to observe a stone that was actually from the Praetorium where Christ would have been scourged.

The Roman soldiers would have used the games on this stone to gamble much like Russian Roulette. They would have done this to blow off steam. When Caesar found out that these games were resulting in the death of soldiers, he decreed that they could no longer gamble with their own lives but rather the prisoners. Our guide told us that this game could have contributed to the way Jesus was abused during His scourging.

We then continued on to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This is the traditional location of Christ's crucifixion that is held by a wide number of scholars and the Catholic Church. We got a short history lesson on the top of the church and then went down to the entrance.

The church was founded by Constantine's mother upon her visit to Jerusalem to establish holy sites. The problem with that story is that she was supposedly told of the location by a Jewish guide. At the time of her visit though, Jews were not allowed in Jerusalem. Oh well.....

The church is run by four different sects of the Orthodox Christian Church. They can't agree on anything including whose responsibility it is to move a ladder. The ladder has been there for 100 years because of that lack of cooperation. Each of these sects controls a portion of the church. It was quite the site. By the way, the church has some of the smallest doors I have ever seen :o)

We walked down to the entrance and amazingly enough, even with the hordes of people around, we got a picture of the entrance without a soul in it.

You can see on the bottom of the right-hand pillar that it is amazingly shiny. As we walked in, I found out why. The "devout" who come to the church rub their hands on the pillar and kiss it as though the church itself were something to worship. There was one cool thing about the pillar though...there were carvings all over it that were in the shape of crosses. This is one of our favorite pictures:

Immediately upon entering, we were shocked by the number of people, the amount of relics and the trappings of a "religious" devotion to material objects. Right at the entry way, there was a stone that the Catholic Church believes is the stone on which they dressed the dead body of Jesus. People were rubbing their faces on it, kissing it, and rubbing necklaces and relics on it.

Needless to say we did not stay long. To be completely honest, it kind of made us feel uncomfortable. We left with this weird feeling of emptiness. While I am sure there were lots of people who were there with right hearts, it felt as though there were people there who were so stuck in the "religion" that they couldn't spend time in relationship with the center of the religion...Jesus Christ.

We took a little time to gather ourselves by having lunch atop a cool little cafe. A group of us then went to the Jaffa Gate and took a short tour of the wall. For a few bucks, we were able to walk up on top of the wall and walk part way around the city.

After lunch, we met back up with the rest of the group. Some of the members of our group had lunch with a Palestinian man who accepted the Lord and started an underground church. He was found out and other Palestinians attempted to take his life by shooting up his car. He survived and has since been working underground to spread the Word. Pretty amazing!

We walked as a group through the Muslim Quarter. The streets there are only wide enough for a couple of people at most. Pretty much everyone in our group was uncomfortable. You could feel people trying to pick pocket you. I was ok because I could see over everyone. People in the Middle East are definitely the opposite of tall. All these teenage Muslim girls kept coming up next to me and giggling with their friends because they were so amazed at my height. It was pretty funny. You can see how dark and dreary the streets are though and everyone was happy to emerge out of the mass of humanity.

We crossed over the street and through more pick pocketers to get to the Garden Tomb. This is a tomb that was discovered in the late 1800's by English archaeologists. This is the other location that some Christians and scholars believe Christ may have been crucified and buried. We were met by a tour guide named Ken. This small Englishman was a total blessing. Everything he said had the gospel written all over it. He took us to overlook the rock of Golgotha. Many of us felt (I may hazard a guess that our whole group felt this way too) that this was definitely "The place of the skull". Here are some reasons after you look at the picture:

• First, it looks like a skull. There are two indents for eyes and a cave for a mouth. The inset picture shows a view from straight in front of the rock.
• Second, it was at the north side of the city. Levitical law states that the sacrifice needed to take place at the north of the city. Since Christ was our ultimate sacrifice, this would make perfect sense.
• Third, this was the place associated with death. In the early days of the city, this was the rock quarry to build the city. When the rock proved useless, they made it a place to stone criminals.
• Finally, in the gospels, it states that they took Jesus "out" to crucify Him which could mean that they took Him out of the city.

Regardless if this was the actual place though, we were not there for historical reasons or site seeing but to worship the Lord by remembering His sacrifice.

Our tour guide gave us a few more points of historical fact that makes many people believe that this is the true garden of Joseph of Arimathea. First, they know historically that this was a garden or grove. Second, they know that the garden was owned by a rich family. They know this because they uncovered two items. First, they found that there was a wine press. Second, they found the largest cistern in Jerusalem (seen in the picture the tour guide is holding).

Then there is the tomb. We were able to walk up to and inside the tomb. It has a track for a rolling stone and two places to lay the dead. Two, you might ask? Yes, the tomb has two places to lay the dead on the right side of the tomb. Only one was used though. The reason they know that is because back in the time of Jesus, they would carve a basic rectangle into the rock. Then, when the person would die, they would carve out the necessary rock in the area where their feet would go, making it the right length for the body. In this tomb, only one of the two burial beds has this portion removed.

As you leave the tomb, there is a sign on the door that states "He is not here, He is risen." We left tomb and were able to have a communion service in the garden. We worshiped the Lord and remembered His sacrifice. He died for us while we were yet sinners so that we would not have to face the penalty for our own rebellion against God, and thus, we will be with Him for eternity. Regardless of the location of the site, we ended the trip knowing that the Lord had blessed our journey and as Brett summed it up, we walked away with three things:

• Substantiation of our faith
• The fact that Christ was the intercessor for sinners
• And anticipation for the future, that we will ever be with the Lord because....
  

HE IS NOT HERE, FOR HE IS RISEN!

Israel Day 11 - Mt. of Olives, Garden of Gethsemane, Yad Veshem, and the Valley of Elah

Our second day in Jerusalem started on the Mt. of Olives. We worshiped outside the church that traditionally marks the place where Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 13). It was a great place to worship the Lord, overlooking the city.

One of the most amazing things to see, believe it or not, was the number of graves surrounding the city. The Jews bury their people in the ground but the head stones are these large empty boxes. There were thousands and thousands of them. They all face the temple mount with their feet so that when the resurrection occurs, they are facing the temple.

We then began our walk down the Palm Sunday road into Jerusalem. This would have been the same road that Christ walked down with His disciples into Jerusalem.

From this road, we could see down into the East Gate directly. The thought crossed my mind that this will be the view that Christ has when He returns. Awesome!

As we went down the road, we came to the Garden of Gethsemane. We got a chance to take time in prayer and worship among the olive trees there. Back in Christ's day, the gardens spoken of were olive groves, citrus groves, or vineyards. The olive groves that exist there today, can't be aged as they don't have rings within their trunk but they are believed to be over 1000 years old. This brings whole new meaning to the gospels when I read about Christ in the garden.

We then boarded the bus and left the city to go to Yad Veshem. This is the holocaust museum dedicated to the 6 million Jews massacred during World War II. What an amazingly somber moment. I emerged with a new sense that while God's people have suffered possibly more than any other people group in history, God will truly never leave them nor forsake them. This was proven the moment we stepped out of Yad Veshem and emerged onto the grounds of the state of Israel, the Land that God has given back to the Israelites.

We got back on the bus and drove to Bet Shemesh. There is an interesting story about the arc that happened here in 1 Samuel 6. It was amazing to add places and pictures to the stories we have always read. That was probably the best part of our trip. It made the Bible truly come alive in a way it never had before.

We then moved on to the Valley of Elah. This was the scene of the fight between David and Goliath, the Israelites and the Philistines. As you view the pictures below, imagine the Israelites up on the hill listening to the giant Goliath yelling up at them and David, going through the creek bed picking up five smooth stones. We could almost imagine the armies on either side of us. What a story!

We finished the night off with a short tour of the King David Hotel. It was interesting to see the history on the walls with all the pictures of the treaties signed and the members of state that have stayed there. This one building's history is intertwined with the history of Israel.

The next day would be our last day in Israel, so we headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

Israel Day 10 - The Temple Mount, Hezekiah's Tunnel, and the Wailing Wall

e awoke in the morning at the David Citadel Hotel right outside the old city. We drove up right outside the wall at the southwest corner of the temple mount. On our way in, we walked over some recently made construction bridges over two archaeological digs that they are conducting in Jerusalem. As we walked over one of these bridges, we got our first view of the wailing wall. This is the one exposed area of the western wall to which the Jews have access where they can pray for the rebuilding of their temple.

We walked up onto the greater temple mount and stopped at one of the many "mosques" that have been built on the temple mount. Now you may be saying, "Why did you stop at a mosque?" Well this mosque was nothing more than a foundation of stones with an altar on it. These altars show the way to pray towards Mecca. The Muslims have built these all over the temple mount to make them "sacred sites" that non-Muslims can not walk on. In other words, they are making a power play for land.

As you walk around, you realize that there is the larger temple mount which was built around the original temple mount. This area was built by Herod the Great. There are beautiful olive groves all around this area. We walked past the area where Christ was scourged. The praetorium does not exist anymore but this picture is of a building that is over that area.

We then walked up the steps to the main temple mount. This is the place where both Solomon's temple and Herod's temple were built. It is also the place from which Christ will reign during the Millennial kingdom. Here is a picture of one of the sets of steps leading up to that mount.

As we walked on the temple mount, our breath was taken away. Not because of anything that was on the mount but rather the fact that you could almost feel the spiritual heaviness. As our guide said, this is the scrimmage line between the forces of good and evil. This section of land is truly the Lord's and because of that fact, there has been a battle throughout eternity for it. Here is the history of this small hill before you view the pictures...

• Abraham took Isaac to offer him to the Lord on Mt. Moriah in the book of Genesis.
  
• Roughly 10th century BC, King David conquers Jerusalem and purchases the threshing floor of Araunah in order to offer sacrifice to God as seen in 2 Samuel 24.
  
• 10 century BC, Solomon, David's son builds the first temple on top of the temple mount by building four walls and filling them in with dirt and rock on the top of the summit of Mt. Moriah.
  
• 586 BC, the temple is destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians.
• 516 BC, after 70 years of exile, Nehemiah, Ezra, and Zerubbabel, returned from Babylon to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and eventually the temple. This temple was by no means comparable to the beautiful work of Solomon's temple.
• In 19 BC, Herod the Great began work on the extension of the temple mount and the building of a greater extension on the second temple.
• In 70 AD, after the death of Christ, a Roman General named Titus destroyed Jerusalem as well as pulling apart every brick of the temple as prophesied by Christ.
• 132 AD, Hadrian built a temple to Jupiter over the site of the temple.
• 4th Century AD, Byzantine Christians destroyed the temple to Jupiter and then built a church in an effort of replacement theology.
• 638 AD, Khalid Omar conquers the city and the temple mount without much of a fight. Omar built a shrine to cover the site of Solomon's temple as the Muslims believe that Solomon was a prophet. He hired priestly families to run the shrine.
  
• In 691, the Dome of the Rock was completed and has switched ownership between many different hands between then and now.
• In the 1920s, Haj Amin Al-Husayni, Yasser Arafat's uncle, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, started stating that Jerusalem was the third holiest site of Islam even though the Koran never once uses the name of Jerusalem, perpetuating the lie that is still used to this day in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

Rabbinic tradition maintains that the rock on which Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac is the same one on which the arc of the covenant was placed. Archaeologists have found staircases below the Dome of the Rock that would have lead up to the Holy of Holies in the original temple. They also found a rectangular shape incised into the rock in the center of the dome that was used for the arc to sit comfortably without tipping over. Until Yasser Arafat's uncle's claim in the 20th century that this was the place from which Muhammad ascended to heaven, Islam had never maintained that this site had anything to do with Muhammad.

The picture below is of the Dome of the Spirits or Dome of the Tablets. This is believed to be the bedrock on which stood the Holy of Holies from Herod's Temple. It is also believed that this could be the place where the Antichrist will try and build his temple (the 4th temple building) and also where the Lord will establish His temple (the 5th temple building) during the Millennial kingdom. Both of these temples are believed to be here because you can look down from the Mt. of Olives where the Lord will set His foot when He returns (Zech. 14) and He will then walk down the mount, through the East Gate (Ezek. 44:13), and into the temple to establish His kingdom.

Here is a picture of the East Gate. The Arabs have placed a cemetery in front of it from the outside because rabbinic tradition holds that good Jews can not walk through a cemetery because of the proximity to dead bodies. They have also sealed it up from the inside as you can see below.

We then went from the temple mount, around the southwest corner to go visit the Southern steps.

These steps were at the Ahulda gates, the place where non-priestly Jews would enter in to the courts prior to going to the temple. The stairs were thin and thick, skinny and wide, to make you slow your pace to be more reverent. 2000 years ago, these steps were called the steps of the sermons where rabbis would teach. Right next to these steps are large baptismal baths. These are most likely the only baths in Jerusalem where they could have baptized the 3000 people who came to know Christ in Acts 2:41. Thus, we know that these steps where probably the place that the later part of Acts 2 took place.

There is a story that our guide told us that when Neil Armstrong, who is a Christian, visited the Southern steps, he asked his guide if they were assured that Jesus walked on these steps and he said yes. Neil Armstrong then said something along the lines of, "I am more excited to walk on these steps than I was to step on the moon." I don't know how true this story is but it's kind of a fun one :o)

In Matthew 24 Jesus spoke to his disciples about the fact that even though the temple was mighty and beautiful, not one stone of the temple would stand on another. In 70 AD, this became reality as the Romans, led by general Titus, burned the temple. In the process, all the gold in the temple melted into the cracks. The Roman soldiers then pulled apart every stone to get at the gold and cast them down to the ground. Below is a picture of those stones. The stone in the forefront is the corner stone by which the trumpeter would stand calling people to the temple for prayer. It is inscribed with the words "To the trumpeting place."

Our day didn't stop there. We moved on to the City of David which is a smaller part of Jerusalem right outside the city walls. There you can still see the Canaanite wall of the fortress which David conquered and then established his city. It is directly below that wall that you can go into Hezekiah's tunnel. This was a tunnel that supplied the city with water in time of siege. Below is a picture of Palestinian villages across the Kidron Valley from the city of David. The Palestinians have built all of these buildings on top of Jewish tombs that were carved in the rock. They sadly now use these tombs for trash dumps.

After an amazing day going through the old streets of Jerusalem, we got a chance to eat some Israeli pizza (awesome!) in one of the shops in the Jewish quarter. It was so cool we had to take a picture.

We took a brief rest back at the David Citadel Hotel where we stayed and then went back later that night to view an archaeological dig that has gone deep down under the existing city to view the original wall of the time of Solomon. It was an awesome tour. Then we got a chance to pray at the wailing wall.

The women and men are split so Kelly and I had to split up.

These are definitely some of our favorite pictures because they show the Jewish people crying out for God to rebuild the temple and give it back to them. I got a chance to pray next to some of these men and hear their "wailing". I took the chance to pray that they might know their Messiah, Jesus, and that through Him, they would come to a saving knowledge of the God that we both serve. Praise God for his grace that He will eventually restore the Jews so that Jew and Gentile believers can worship Christ for all eternity. (Romans 11)

Here is a cool photo. Kelly really wanted me to get a close up picture of this since both of us have always heard that people write down prayers and roll them up to place them in cracks of the wall. It turned out to be a great picture.

That night, a group of us wandered down to Ben Yehuda Street. This is a street named for Eliezer Ben Yehuda, a man instrumental in bringing Hebrew back as the spoken language of Israel. The street became known for being one of the busiest areas in Jerusalem as well as the bombings that happened during the second intifada in the 1990s. Kelly, a friend of ours named Jeremy, and I sat down for a while at a coffee shop at the end of the street and watched all the people. As we watched the people socializing and having fun we thought to ourselves how similar Jerusalem is to any other city. Then two all black street bikes came tearing around the corner with sirens on. On the bikes were two men all dressed in black with uzzis strapped to their sides. It was then that we realized there is a very real danger in Jerusalem.

The three of us sat and talked about the goodness and grace of the Lord over some coffee in the middle of Jerusalem for an hour or two. Definitely one of my favorite moments on our trip. If you ever get to Jerusalem, they have great coffee :o)