Nina's Notes - February 3-4 I'm sorry for the posts that have had nothing in them. The words on the blog are in Hebrew so I have to try and remember which "word" was the magic one that ge ts this posted. Sorry for the false starts. Didn't write yesterday as it was quite busy and by the time dinner was over at 8:00 I was ready for bed! We did several things that day including going to Megiddo, Caesarea Maritima, and then we drove to Jerusalem, quickly unloaded our suitcases and got ready for a shabbat service at a local synagogue, came back after synagogue and had dinner. Talk about sensory overload! We started the day in Megiddo which is a hill called a "tell". Archaeologists excavate them and attempt to separate the layers and reconstruct the cities that lie covered below. The city of Megiddo emerged as the result of this sort of excavation. They told us there are 28 layers in this tell. I found the water system in this ancient city most fascinating. Outside the city is a spring. As the tell grew higher over the years it was harder to access it so they built a deep shaft inside the city walls and connected to the spring with a horizontal tunnel. This allowed them to be able to have water in the city even when they were under siege. There were stairs that wrapped around the vertical shaft so they could have access to the water. Those have been replaced with steps which we were able to descend - all 183 of them - to get to the bottom and walk through the tunnel to see the spring. Of course what comes down has to go up - but it was only 80 steps to the top outside the tunnel. Thank goodness! Next we went to Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean Sea. This is a huge city that has and continues to be excavated. We saw a theater built by Herod the Great that seated 4,000 spectators and an amphitheater which served as a race track. We were also able to see different parts of the exterior walls. Some were built in the Byzantine era,some by the Romans and some by the Crusaders. We ate sandwiches on the rocks of the Mediterranean Sea before heading to the bus again for our journey to Jerusalem. Once we got to our destination we had a short time before we headed to meet Debbie Friedman who is a founding member of the synagogue we attended. She met with us for about 45 minutes explaining about their synagogue and going through the service we were about to attend so we would understand what was happening. She was the one giving the sermon that evening. It was wonderful to worship with the Jews who live in this community. We learned that all Jews walk to their synagogue so they worship very close to where they live. After the service we headed back to the hotel for dinner and then to bed. A very long but wonderful day. Saturday - Another very busy day which began with us delivering the books that we brought with us to the Lutheran school. We met Ellie who is serving there and she had arranged with one of our leaders for each of us to bring a duffel bag full of books to the children at the school. Instead of bringing two suitcases for the trip we elected to bring one plus the duffel bag of books. We delivered 600 pounds of books to the school today! Ellie said the children were so excited to be able to receive that many books at one time. Next we saw the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Basilica of the Agony, and we saw the Stations of the Cross as we walked the Via Dolorosa. The 10th- the 14th Stations are inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which houses Golgotha and the tomb. It was an emotional day and a day of surprises. The Via Dolorosa is a busy market street where vendors are constantly calling at you to look at their wares. It was crowded with tourists and other pilgrims. I would imagine it would have been as busy when Jesus carried the cross that day. It was such a play between being attracted and called to by the people and things of this world, and then wanting to focus on what truly happened on this narrow, yet busy street. I imagined it in a very different way than what it was, but realized the challenge is still the same. Separating the presence of the Holy from the distractions of daily living. I have a lot left to think and pray about from this day.