When blood can't buy freedom...

We're now in Jerusalem. We have been since last night. Yesterday was a long day and I was unable to post here. Before arriving in Jerusalem we stopped by the Mediterranean sea, saw where Paul was put on trial, where Pontius Pilot would have sat in the theater, etc. No doubt the sea was the most amazing part about it. The view was absolutely breath taking.

On our way to Jerusalem our tour guide, Peach, gave us the 411 on the city and that we were now leaving the more Western part of the country for the Middle Eastern part of the country. He said to not go anywhere alone, don't trust many people, especially those who want to take you away from the group. He also said it was no longer safe for us to go out alone at night to roam the city like we had in Tiberius.

It was the Sabbath when we arrived and the festivities were going strong! People were singing and dancing everywhere. The food here is so amazing, I've loved every moment of it. The only thing I have not tried so far was beef tongue. No thanks. So far my favorite food is the meat loaf with grape leaves.

Today (Saturday) was completely different than anything we had experienced thus far. We went to Mt. Olive and did the Palm Sunday walk. Street vendors were asking us to buy their postcards and posters, none of which I purchased. We then ventured down into Gethsemane to the Church of All Nations. This was the spot where Jesus prayed in the garden before being arrested. The church was beautiful and humbling as we saw the arrest of our Lord depicted through pictures and the reading of Scripture.

I knelt at the altar in the Church of All Nations and had a very humbling experience. Though I've accepted my calling to be a pastor, I've not always taken it seriously. I've been persecuted by friends and family for making the choice to follow God and that has weighed heavily on me. I dedicated myself fully to God. Even Jesus did not want to fulfill His purpose of dying, yet He did so willingly.

Later in the day we ventured to Bethlehem which is in Palestine. I don't know what to say right now. Pray for peace. Pray for the Christians being persecuted in Bethlehem. I was photographing some graffiti near the boarder and that caused a ruckus. The guard threw a fit and instead of allowing our bus to just flow threw the gate we all had to unload and go threw the check point, pass ports in hand. Our tour guide, George (Peach cannot go into Palestine because he is a Jew), said it was not my fault, but his associate that was with us said it was and that the guards there are very touchy.

Locals asked where we were from and there was a negative response that we were American. Not towards us, but towards Bush. They said, "Americans they will let freely go, but not us. We are prisoners in our own country."

The girls came back on the bus in tears and I felt extremely bad for making the 42 of us go through this experience. Bethlehem was humbling.