A Visit, a Church and Ariel

The first day of rain since April!
Celebration in Israel as the rains have come.
But it is cold!
Going from 33 degrees, sun, dry and desert to 20 degrees, very windy and raining was quite a shock.

Today we had an amazing unexpected blessing. Our tour driver who is an Arab, Israeli, Christian, invited our group to his home for tea. Apparently he has not done this before, but he has been wanting to have our tour guide to his home for many years. What we saw today was Middle Eastern hospitality.
In the middle of the city of Canna (spelling) The place where the wedding feast was held in Scripture...Boulos has 5 hectares of land with fruit tress of all kinds. That would be like saying he had 5 hectares of land right on Younge Street in Toronto!

Anna-Lee said she wanted to meet people. Well, she met lots of Israeli's today! So sweet.

Picking sweet lemons in Boulos' backyard.

One of Boulos' fig trees. He had us sample quite a variety..

 

This is one of Boulos' sons. He showed Granny a book written by his Great Grandfather who had come over from Macedonia. 1073 pages of his experience. It was this "fahter of my grandfather" who purchased this land that is now Boulos'.

Nazareth
Can anything good come from Nazareth is the question asked in Scripture. Well, yes. Jesus grew up there! 
We briefly went to the only Christian presence in Nazareth now. A Catholic church called Church of the Annunciation.
As it was a Sunday, service was going on with pipe organ, choir, and of course in Hebrew.
Anna-Lee found this part interesting.

Quite a beautiful sound.

Remember the Scripture where Jesus incites the elders and they want to push him off a cliff?

It is very high. Sorry for the reflection and rain drops. We had just exited a tunnel and then boom, there ti was.

History is everywhere in Israel and such a small part of it has been excavated.

Along the road we see ancient tombs. Nearby there would  have been a town.

We saw quite a bit of Arab sections of towns today. Some had signs up giving statements like God is one - he has no partner," or like "Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus - they are all the same." When we were walking to our restaurant, some that were selling out on the sidewalk would shout to us "Allah, Allah, Allah."

Tonight, at this very Jewish hotel in Ariel, we got a private tour of a life size replica 1:1 scale, of the temple. 

The Holy of Holies

  Well, that's about it for tonight. Tomorrow we load up again and head to our bus. But that should be for the last time before we head home. 

We have a lovely bus to ride around in.