Bethany Field Trip, The Upper Room, Haifa, Old City

Field Trips

Here is a summary of a 15-week semester for the students.  They take classes on the Old Testament, New Testament, Arabic, Hebrew and Near East studies. Every week they normally have a bus trip (or a walk) to a nearby location that was discussed in their classes.  They also spend 10 days living in the Galilee area to see historic sites and once a semester they travel to Jordan and either Greece, Turkey or Egypt. A few weeks ago, I was able to go on their bus trip to Bethany, Bethpage and the Mount of Olives.  Here are some pictures of that trip:

Mount of Olives devotional.

Lazarus Tomb in Bethany

Monument in Bethpage to location Jesus mounted his colt to begin Triumphant Entry for Palm Sunday

Church in Bethpage

The Upper Room

Every Semester, there is a very special evening where the students reenact the events of the Last Super.  It includes beautiful choir music, narrators, actors and a special set.

Haifa Visit

On one of our days off, we were able to visit Haifa which is on the coast a two-hour drive north of Jerusalem. It is a beautiful city with steep hills that go right down to the Mediterranean Sea.  It is one of the major port cities for all of Israel.  It is known for the site of a Bahai Temple that is a special place for their religion.  The grounds of the temple start at the top of the hill, the temple is halfway up, and the grounds continue to the bottom - an amazing place.

We went with the Lloyd's, who are another Service Couple here with us.  We were also able to visit the graves of two young missionaries who died from smallpox in the 1890's while serving their assignment in Haifa.  One of the missionaries is an ancestor of the Clark family that Leah grew up with in California.

The Old City

What a place the Old City is!  Today it is surrounded by a 2.5-mile wall that was built by Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th Century.  There are seven active gates into the city today - Lion, Dung, Zion, Jaffa, New, Damascus and Herod.  The Lion and Damascus gates are the closest to the Jerusalem Center.  Both are around a 30-minute walk.  The Old City is divided into four quarters - Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Armenian. There are places where stone roads from the Roman empire time are still visible.  Significant sites inside the walls are the Temple Mount, The Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall, the Via Dolorosa (the route that Jesus carried the cross to the Crucifixion), the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Cardo which was a main Roman road and now has many interesting shops.  Each quarter has its own personality and food.  There are many people who live inside the walls.  There are several small streets and alleys.  Our goal is to explore all of them during our time here.  It is a totally fun place to walk and enjoy the personality of the city.  I will conclude this post with several Old City pictures.

Western Wall, Jewish worshippers write prayers on small slips of paper, roll them up and insert into cracks in the wall.  Temple Mount is on top of the wall.  

The mound is different spices meticulously stacked.