I had an amazing trip to Israel. I know I won't be able to capture it all in this one update, but I'll do my best.

Big picture: Israel with my dad and a few friends and about 40 of us total. Most were students from Evangel University. We went to as many biblical sites as possible in 18 days in Israel and Sinai.

My profound one sentence impression of the trip: Awesome, I'd do it again or recommend it for anyone. I grew to appreciate the flavor of Israel in a whole new way. I loved it. (ok, 3 sentences)

This is the view from our place in En Gev. The view is across the Sea of Galilee toward the city of Tiberias. We saw it a lot at night because every day we hit the road from breakfast until dinner.

I was amazed at how small the Sea of Galilee is. only 33 miles around. Yet it has bigger waves than our huge Flathead Lake here in Montana, which is several times bigger. We had one afternoon to swim in it and we also took a boat ride across.

Most of our first 5 days of the trip were spent around the Sea of Galilee or North of it in places like Dan and Caesarea Philipi

We then drove down to Eilat, at the very southern tip of Israel on the Read Sea. On the way we stopped at Masada, Ein Gev, did a Dead Sea swim...
...swimming in the Dead Sea is the most amazing thing. You can feel the buoyancy as you walk in. you can float with all four limbs sticking out in the air. Just weird, but cool.

We did a day trip down to Egypt so we could hike up Mt Sinai. Actually we took camels up about 2/3 of the way. The top is amazing. Here is a picture of my dad and I. We were proud to have made it up there. We spent some time with our whole group on top and had a bible study. We did this often in key places along the trip. It is so awesome to be able to learn about a place while you are sitting there. Our guides were amazing as they walked us through the Bible and the Holy Land at the same time.

In Eilat we had some time to snorkel in the Red Sea (this was one of our rare afternoons off, when we weren't traveling and studying). We also went to Timneh to see the copper mines of ancient Egypt, and we toured a scale replica of the tabernacle!

Then we drove up north and went through Hebron. We were able to go to many places in the West Bank that were under Palestinian control. Thanks to our guides having lots of good connections. We saw Nabilus, Shechem, Bethlehem, Jericho, and Hebron.

Here is a picture of me and dad on the edge of a few hundred foot cliff that drops off into Machtesh Ramon.

Now we are in the Jerusalem area. Here is a picture of most of our group, on the southern steps of the temple mount. It was so amazing to be able to sit here and realize that Jesus taught in this very place with a view of the City of David to the South, a view of Mt of Olives to the East. So surreal to be there.

We went all over Jerusalem. Below is another pic of our group having a bible study in the "upper room" where Jesus and his disciples had the last supper. It was so cool to just look around and take in the reality of all of these places. We often talked about how some of it sort of becomes cartoonish because we heard the stories so often. But every place you read about in the Bible is real! The people, the trees, the smells...it really happened.
We stopped by one of the few tombs still in existence that resembles the tomb of Jesus. This picture shows the stone that rolls away. This was a pretty small one, and I actually climbed in the tomb and closed myself in... but don't worry, I got out.

We followed a lot of Jesus' steps around Jerusalem, particularly of his last week before his death and resurrection. Here is an Olive tree that is about 1500 years old from the garden of Gethsemane. Like many things on this trip, it just wasn't what I had pictured in my head.

Then we went to the Holy Sepulcher church. This is believed to be the tomb where Christ was buried. I must admit that I loved the history of the place, and what it represents, but I didn't really like how every holy site in Israel had a church built over it. But still, it was so amazing to just be there and realize that this is where it happened...WOW.

We ended by going to the Garden Tomb. This another site where some think Christ was buried. This was a beautiful garden that actually had tour guides to walk you through and it was the first time in all of Israel that we were actually presented with the Gospel Message. It was a great place to take some time and just appreciate God and who he is and what he's done.

So my short summary from Israel is to report to you that it is real. Those places you read about really exist. It is amazing to realize how geographically accurate the Bible is. It's fun to walk through these amazing places where Elijah, Moses, David, Jesus, Paul all walked. It was an amazing trip that I'll never forget.