· Temple Mount. Yes, we made it this time. The line was surprisingly short. We had views of the Western Wall and will
visit the area later. We were able to
see the “inside” of the Eastern Gate.
And the place where you can actually see bedrock of Mt. Moriah. We also ran into Dawn and Jeurgen Kleinholdt on the Temple Mount, a couple we know from the Garden. What a blessing that was for us to introduce them to our group.
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Western Wall
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Eastern Gate
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Dome of the Rock/Al Aqsa Mosque
· Lions Gate. We ascended from the Temple Mount on the NE
corner taking us to the Lions Gate area.
We enjoyed Bethesda and singing in the acoustically wonderful St. Anne’s
cathedral. We then worked our way up the
beginnings of the Via Dolorosa as far as the Austrian Hospice where we had
lunch. Always a nice place.
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Bethesda (sheep pools, St. Anne’s)
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Via Dolorosa (partial)
· Mount of Olives. Then it was out Damascus Gate to the Arab bus
station that sits in front of “the place of the skull” where we caught #275 for
a ride to the top of the Mt. of Olives. We only went to the primary viewing area and
then descended the steep route of the Triumphal Entry, from which we had great
views of the Eastern Gate, and which took us to the olive grove with the gnarly
trees next to the Church of All Nations.
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Route of the Triumphal Entry
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Jewish Cemetery
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Church of All Nations
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Gethsemane
· Kidron Valley. As we were leaving the Gethsemane area a
young Muslim man called out, “Hey, I know you from somewhere.” My first thought is this was the tactic of
one of the taxi drivers in the area (there are many) so responded kindly but
kept walking away. Cindy was more
curious. Turns out that back in 2012 we
had taken a day from the Garden Tomb and walked over to the Mt. of Olives, down
the Kidron Valley into the Valley of the Kings where we met 2 young boys who
wanted to show us some things, for money of course. We weren’t too interested, and then they invited
us to their house. Again, Cindy was
inclined to accept this offer. We ended
up in the home of a Muslim family, were shown wonderful hospitality and met
many others in the family. The guy who “knew
me from somewhere” was a brother to one of the kids whom we encountered and he
remembered. So now, today, “Ched”
invited us to the house again where they had a store with jewelry and olive
wood items and they blessed us with fresh squeezed pomegranate and orange juice
and tea. This amazing coincidence gave
us an opportunity to talk about Christ; we told Ched that when we have these
amazing coincidences, we tend to believe God is doing something. He was open as we talked about the proximity
of their home to the place that spoke so perfectly of Jesus our King and High
Priest. When we were finished we got a ride
to dinner at Azzaras Restaurant in East Jerusalem, our favorite place for
Palestinian food. There we had the
opportunity to pray for our waiter, that after 11 years of marriage he and his
wife might have a son.
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Christian Cemetery
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Valley of the Kings (Absalom built a monument to himself here; Abraham
worshiped God through the King-Priest Melchizedek here, Gen. 14).
· Eastern Gate
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Muslim Cemetery
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