Israel: Saturday, June 26th

Saturday morning, we drove through the Valley of Megiddo on our way to the Jordan River and Capernaum.

The Jordan River was much different than I originally expected. Unlike many of the Holy sites we visited, this site was very Americanized. Our group walked down to the waterside and stepped in. The Jordan River is where Jesus was baptized by John in Matthew 3.

After leaving the Jordan, we headed to Capernaum. The city of Capernaum is found in several places throughout the New Testament. It is the site of Peter's home, where Jesus called the disciples (Matthew 4:18-22), and where Jesus performed many miracles, such as driving out the evil spirit (Mark 1: 21-28) and healing the paralytic (Mark 2:1-12.) Many of the remnants of the original city still stand, leaving a good tool for visualizing what it might have been like.

The Catholic church built a church on the site of Peter's home, though they did it in a very unique way. Instead of building the church in place of the remains, they build it over the remains so that people could see how the home was structured. You can see the church above the stones in the picture below.

Our next stop was the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.

That afternoon, part of our group swam in the Sea of Galilee while the rest helped our friends with their car.

While we were waiting for the swimmers to meet us at the vans, I took the liberty of teaching some of the girls the Hoedown Throwdown (Thanks Rebecca!)

That night for dinner, we headed to a local Lebanese restaurant. The choices were chicken, lamb sausage, and fish. Little did we know that it was whole fish... with the eyeballs. We finished the meal with coffee, though it is SO much stronger than the coffee here. Lisa and I decided to try it. You can see our reactions below.

That night, we checked into the Beit Bracha, which was a bed and breakfast style hotel owned by believers. The back deck overlooked the Sea of Galilee and was the most magnificent thing I have ever seen.

We watched the moon rise over the water and sang worship songs together as a group. It was incredible to sing praises to our Savior looking at the place He walked and did much of His ministry. That is probably my favorite memory from the trip- I wish I could go back right now just to experience that again.