One More Sleep

One more sleep until we take off to Egypt.  I am so very excited.  I haven't had a good night's sleep in a couple weeks.  So much to do.  I'm usually a last minute packer.  And when I say last minute, I mean last minute.  This time I am getting ready one day ahead.  I impress myself.

We fly out Sunday night at 8:30ish.  We have a small group this time.  Last time we were 42.  it was good, but I'm looking forward to a more intimate cadre of Jesus followers.  We are twelve. That seems like a good number to follow the footsteps of Jesus in Israel.  Twelve disciples, following, learning, growing, becoming -- like him.

The stone I am sitting on in the above photo is one of the places that we know Jesus would have walked on.  For almost two weeks the twelve of us will go to places where Jesus and his disciples would have walked.  We will learn some history.  We will become more familiar with our Bibles.  We will experience the geography of the land where Jesus was born, raised, crucified, and then victoriously resurrected, and ascended to heaven.  As we walk in those places we will meditate on Scripture.  We will, at times, be overcome by emotion with the thought that our Lord and Saviour walked in the very same places.

Reading our Bibles will never be the same.  The topography of the land will jump off the page at us.  When we read about Jesus healing the man at the pool of Bethesda in John 5:1-18 we will imagine him in the very place that we experienced.  When we read about Jesus asking his disciples what the word on the street is about him in Matthew16:13-20, and then asks them who they say he is and Peter rightly answers that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, we will picture the place at Caesarea Philippi.  We will see the great rock wall that Jesus likely alluded to when he called Peter "The Rock".

This will be my third trip to The Land.  I am more excited than ever.  I know what to expect this time, but I am also expecting Jesus to speak to me in a new way.  I am going to drink in the teaching of Eitan, our tour guide.  I am going fall more in love with Jesus.

Please pray for our group.  You can click on this link and follow the place where we will be each day.  I will be trying to blog on a daily basis again so that you feel like you are there with us.  Pray for safety.  Pray that our hearts would be open to how the Spirit of Jesus wants to speak to us.

Pray for me as I will be spending a few extra days to connect with the Hebrew family that I stayed with last time I was in Israel.  I will stay with the Freiman family for four days.  I am looking forward to having more deep conversations about real life things.

Thanks for walking with me on my journey.

Pastor Jeff