The glorious blooms that abound on my street, in my neighborhood, and the whole way to the Burger King drive thru window wave to me with joy. They remind me that the sun is still rising every morning. There is no new thing under the sun. The world has seen worse. God is still in heaven, and we will get through this too. If the earth is breaking out into such harmonious song, as seen in these pictures, then obviously the fat lady ain’t quite sung yet.

Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Luke 12:27

I emailed a few friends with cameras and asked for photographs of spring wherever they are currently. Then I went on Facebook and begged a few spring pictures off of people in my newsfeed. These range from my own back yard to Amman, Jordan. Most of them are in the U.S. because I have never lived overseas. All of these photos, with the exception of the Europe ones (2018-19), were all taken in spring 2020, right in the middle of the world-wide shutdown. And you don’t have to click “NEXT” a thousand times to see them all either because you know I would never do that to you. Enjoy!

My friend Kristin sent me these gorgeous European photos. These first two are from flower shops in Amsterdam.

The picture of the yellow fields is from the village where my friend Kristin lives in in Germany. There is lots of farming in that area, and these are rapeseed flowers that they press to make rapeseed oil.

My friend Laura sent this photo from where she lives in Jordan. She said that the scene above is spring in Jordan in the tiny window when there is actual green to be seen before the sun fries all the grass once temperatures pass the 90s. Sheep are grazing everywhere while there is fresh grass! By the end of May this will all be brown.

Some of you may be wondering how I got pictures of Utah. Remember Jennings? She’s my college days friend who is a flight attendant. Well, airline travel is drastically reduced, but she does still get to work some days. Jennings went to Utah this past week and shared a few photos with us.

People of all ages are passing time outside this year instead of at shopping centers and restaurants. These young folks in the photo are all my cousins. I think we are all getting more time than usual in nature. Aren’t you glad it is spring and not winter?

Spring 2020 is no ordinary season. This is my friend Kristina who, like many people across the country, has been busy at home creating masks. Kristina has made tons of these and delivered them to community and hospital personnel. Her designs are cute too!

Look at all these super cute masks, and here I still haven’t managed to make myself one or find one, so I just don’t go anywhere. I really need to order one of these. I am not crafty, friends. Alan made one out of a bandana which he wore to buy our groceries, but I just haven’t left my car.

I thought the photo above was a fun way to end the post. Kelly’s family staged this so perfectly. In a spring where we are all tied to our electronic devices, I hope you all get a chance to go soak in all that spring has to offer. You know, when it isn’t raining. Of course, you could also be like my son Daniel and go out and play in the rain.

Thank you to all of my photographers!

Kristin Voudouris, Laura Childs, Megan Riley, Olivia Burley, Laura Sheldon, Jennings Rhodes, Amber Townsend, Dave Zimmerman, Kristina Tucker, Alyson Mims, Helena Booth, Katie Hedges, Amy McAmis, Sadie Waters, Stacie Harris, Amy Wilson, and Kelly Divito. Some of these I literally saw their photo in my Facebook feed and asked them if I could pretty please have their pictures. Haha! They were kind enough to share.

The post 60 Triumphant Photos of Spring Around the World in 2020 appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Normally on this blog, I tend to visit new places and post photos of them. I also go house hunting every 1-3 years, since I am a military wife, that has been our lot. Since nowadays we, like everyone else in the world, stay home all the time, I thought I would give you a tour of my house instead, or at least the interesting parts of my house. I am officially not allowed to show you the boys’ rooms. Not everyone loves to share their life on the internet. Huh. Weird..

Now this will not be a tour of an envy worthy home full of hand crafted Good Housekeeping decor. No, no. I wish. This will be true photos of a house FULL of children who have been at home for over a month. It is like summer, but with long sleeves and school work. Messiness does abound, especially in the Easter basket aftermath.

Welcome to our lovely home. Notice how the blinds on the second floor do not match. That irritates me. It does, but I have been too cheap to shell out the few hundred dollars to fix it. Plus, I prefer white. And yet, I know that the dark window blocks more more morning light, and those particular windows do happen to belong to the youngest children in the house, you know, the ones who still like to rise early, so the dark blinds are quite functional.

I also have high hopes of changing those shutters to some shade of blue this year. They are faded, and also they are brown. Bleh, brown. Other than that, we just love this house. I mean who would not love this front porch?

Notice the new wood around the garden? Alan built that the very first week of quarantine.

He did an outstanding job. That looks like quite a project. I can’t tell you much more about it. Wood craft is far outside of my areas of expertise.

We have a lovely tulip tree that is almost finish blooming now. I have always loved these. We had one at our southern Alabama house too.

This large cherry blossom tree is just beginning to bloom which means it will be gorgeous this week. That brings me so much joy. I will have to take extra time to sit on my front porch and just look at that this week.

This is all very classic quarantine, don’t you think? An Amazon package is on the doorstep, and the entire porch is covered in chalk art. They do such lovely creative things when I make them get off of video games. The pictures shown here are Daniel’s.

I just realized I still have a winter welcome mat out. Oops. The thing is I do not own a regular one to replace it…

When you enter the house, you will find yet another Amazon package, and no, they are not essential items. Well, I mean, they are as essential as a cake keeper and a new game of Sorry can be.

The very first week of quarantine I went around the main floor of the house and stuck Bible verses everywhere. I figured we were all going to need these reminders.

In the office you will find book boxes. I had to make these for silent reading time. Now that spring break is ending, I need to switch out a few of the books again. I tried to put variety in each box.

Hobby time: I do not have more free time than usual. I actually have less free time than usual by far because of managing four different school routines each day, but I still squeeze in time for my newest hobby. My whole life–okay my whole teenage plus life– I have wanted to learn to play the piano. Now I am finally doing it. I am still only in the first beginner book, but I am making progress.

My kitchen table is a symbol of another quarantine problem. Doctors can only see you for emergency type problems, so I was turned away from getting a badly needed steroid shot for my plantar fasciitis/heel spur problem. It is so bad I cannot go on any walks at all, not even short ones. Even working around the house is difficult. So my mother-in-law told me about tart cherries. I did a little research, and this is a real thing. If you have an arthritis problem you cannot shake, try eating a large amount of tart cherries each day. It may take a while, but it is supposed to help.

In our living room, you will often see our little whippet mix standing at the door, waiting to come in or out. This dog seems to go in and out about 99 times per day. Sometimes it’s annoying. And oh yeah, electronics are everywhere. We are having a few days of spring break.

Baking galore! I am still going through my Mary Berry cookbook. These are coffee cakes I made from it. Next up is a Battenberg cake. I will be sure to take a photo of it to show you when I finish it.

I finally changed out the hallway flowers to spring flowers. Once Easter hit, I realized I had left out my winter things for far too long.

The dining room has been completely taken over by Lego projects and school supplies. That room is so bad it is downright embarrassing.

Here was the kitchen table all set up for Easter morning. My oldest son stayed up late and helped me fill eggs, and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed that. Fourteen is full of new milestones.

You can often find a little boy in the corner of the dining room because that is where the charger is. He likes to play Mario and Minecraft.

Our kitchen still has happy birthday signs up from our March birthdays. That just dawned on me yesterday. I guess I should take those down.. These two are celebrating that I was going to make sweet potato casserole. Sweet potatoes are rock stars at our house.

And in the living room, here are the boys in their natural element, the cushy LazyBoy recliner sofa. We love that thing. I have been a hero with the youngest this week because I helped him figure out how to “make things enchanted” in Minecraft. Then I helped them friend each other so they could play Minecraft together, in each other’s worlds. They have really had a ball.

See this? This is the boys’ end table. You have the toys, the books, the charging station, and the toy box overflowing. If you think that is bad, you do not want to see the dining room (aka craft table/Lego table/ school table). I will spare you that.

Sometimes the office looks like this. The children have taken over every single room in this house.

I could not be more thankful for this backyard. On the good weather days, we can all go outside and do so many things.

I hope you enjoyed the tour! My Facebook newsfeed is full of people making jokes about quarantine and how much they are over being stuck inside. There are even one or two conspiracy theorists, but I gotta tell you, I am enjoying the at home time. Everything is cancelled! That’s like a dream come true. Because we did not lose our income, this is fun to me. I do feel terrible for those who have lost their jobs, though. That is a totally different thing. For them, I will be happy when things begin to transition back to normal, and even happier when people have work again.

How is your quarantine going?

The post Quarantine Family Home Tour appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

A few months ago, just out of curiosity, I googled the distance from my new house to Valley Forge. I probably didn’t even know Valley Forge was in Pennsylvania, but I knew it was the site of the Revolutionary Army’s famous winter encampment of 1777-78. Much to my delight, I discovered that I live only an HOUR away! One hour!

My first thought was, “Awesome!” My second thought was, “Oh no, just how cold is this winter going to be?” because that winter of 1777 is infamous for being snow covered and freezing. I did not realize I was living quite that close to such a location.

The perfect opportunity came to drag my entire family over to Valley Forge just a week ago. They were a reluctant lot I am sorry to tell you, as they did not share my zeal for American history in the cold.

I am also sorry to report that I do not in fact live only an hour from Valley Forge. Either Google maps was wrong, or I remembered incorrectly, but the trip turned out to be more like an hour and a half. Ah well, it was a lovely trip through pretty countryside anyway. Maryland and Pennsylvania, once you leave the large cities, are beautiful states of rolling hills of farms with barns and silos.

It was cold and windy the day that we went, with snow from the last snowstorm still on the ground, which all added up to make it the perfect day to visit such a place.

We pulled into a large parking lot of the Valley Forge National Historic Park, bundled up tightly in our coats and gloves, and headed down a windy path to see General George Washington’s headquarters. I should also mention that right away we were all having a good time. My family can be strongly resistant to heading out on adventures that I want to take them on, but once they get there, they always have fun.

Valley Forge is a national park, and everything we saw was free. There is an official visitor’s center, but it was closed for construction until spring, so we did miss out on that.

You walk down this long, windy sidewalk ramp path to the large building at the bottom. At first, we thought that was Washington’s headquarters, but it is not. The first large building is actually the old Reading Railroad train station, and it has a plaque or two up about that.

Going places as a family is always amusing. I heard Alan command the boys, “Don’t throw snow. There are small children ahead.” I think someone who wasn’t listening still threw snow, which thankfully didn’t hit anyone. It was old, hard, and crunchy snow. Alan also had to say, I mean he truly had to say it because someone must have tasted it, “Don’t eat snow that is this old.” Sigh. The things we have to say!

Then we went inside the old train station, and it has several information stations about Washington’s winter at Valley Forge, complete with documentary/ reenactment videos. The boys watched the videos with a surprising level of interest. Although, at one point, John David did look up at me and ask, “Can we just go? I don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Daniel, who is like our little general, he is so thoroughly interested in all things military and police, soaked this up like a sponge. He actually came home and asked to watch more YouTube videos about Valley Forge.

I read a plaque to the boys about Billy Lee, and John David waved it off saying, “Okay. I know,” to which I said, “No. You did not know that Billy Lee was the only slave that Washington freed.”

There was more information there than our troop had patience to take in, but we browsed it all, and then marched on to the actual headquarters.

One of the best things to me about the headquarters is that this is the actual building, not a reconstructed symbol, but the real deal. This house is around 250 years old, and by American standards, that is a rare find.

“…it is very certain that half the army is almost naked, in a great measure bare-footed.”

Johann de Kalb to Comte de Broglie, Valley Forge, Christmas Day 1777

The Huts

General Washington instructed all the men in his army to construct for themselves huts according to this exact pattern. They had to be uniform, and these were much nicer than tents for keeping out the cold. A whole forest was taken down to build these, and when the war was over, local farmers quickly deconstructed the little houses to use the wood, and the farm land became farm land again. Washington later visited the site and was pleased to see that it had not been permanently ruined but was once again usable for farming.

After this, we hiked back to our car. During the hike, my feet reminded me that I do still have plantar fasciitis and heel spurs. Oh well, you can’t keep a good man down, right?

We loaded up in the car and drove up an area that was either a seriously large hill or a mountain, but it was the center of where the regular soldiers camped that winter of 1777-78, and it was the extremely cold, shaded, unmelted snow side of the mountain too.

Driving Through the Entrenchments

I would say things like, “What mound? I mean, I don’t really see a mound, but whatever.”

Training for War

During that winter at Valley Forge, the men fought disease like small pox and shortages of clothes and food, but they also trained to become a better fighting Army. Washington brought in a man named Baron von Steuben to train his Army. Here is what von Steuben had to say about them, according to the Valley Forge historic park website:

the entire system of drill, evolutions, maneuvers, discipline, tactics, and Prussian formation into our Army. I should have been pelted had I attempted it, and should inevitably have failed. The genius of this nation is not in the least to be compared with that of the Prussians, Austrians, or French. You say to your soldier [in Europe], “Do this” and he doeth it; but [at Valley Forge] I am obliged to say, “This is the reason why you ought to do that,” and then he does it. 

— Baron von Steuben to Baron de Gaudy, 1787-88

Then we came to this one area that had a cannon and a pavilion with information, so we all got out there and checked it out. This one was highly visible. You could easily tell where the giant trenches had been dug. The soldiers dug all sorts of things, but most of it was restored to normalcy after the war. In this particular area, it was left alone.

This park would be a wonderful place to go walking, as it has miles of paths, well tended and paved, but we were not looking to make a whole day of it, so we mostly drove.

After seeing the cannons, we drove around to see a few more historical markers and then headed back home, with a nice stop for ice cream on the way, of course.

Want to learn more or plan a trip to Valley Forge for yourself? Click here to visit the official park website.

The post 46 Photos and Facts of Valley Forge National Historic Park appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Last week, while Amber was here visiting, we decided to spend a day in New York City. We made time for a couple of things while we were there, and the 9/11 Museum and Memorial was at the top of our lists. It did not disappoint.

Take the subway to the One World Trade Center stop, and it puts you out in this fantastic white building. It looks sort of like an ice-skating rink, but it’s just a subway stop. It felt so up high and overwhelming in there, I had a short-lived panic attack getting onto the escalator. Amber was all, “Oooo, let’s get on the glass elevator!”

“No,” I staunchly refused to get onto that elevator, which isn’t like me. I was all sorts of clammed up. New York City stresses me out anyway, plus I don’t love heights. I was frantically looking all around for quick exits, but there were none. All I knew was there was no way I was getting on a glass elevator. This place made me feel like I was falling, and I have no logical explanation for it, other than to say it was just an odd panic moment.

We arrived to the museum around 4pm, but that was okay because it is open until 8pm on weeknights and 9 pm on Friday and Saturday night. We were there on Saturday evening and hardly even had to wait in line.

Also, it’s worth mentioning, since many of my readers are military, that admission is free for active duty and retired U.S. military members, Of course, several 9/11 related groups such as 9/11 rescue workers and 9/11 family members also get free admission.

If you go on Tuesday evening, after 4 pm, EVERYONE is free.

Otherwise, general adult admission is $26, and it is worth it.

No plans to ever make it to New York City? No worries. I’m going to show you most of it right here.

When you first go in, you go through metal detectors and bag checks and proceed into a large hall with stairs and some steel remains of the twin towers. You immediately pass through a dark hallway with photo displays of people’s faces reacting to the scene of 9/11 taken on that day.

Most areas of the museum allow you to take pictures, but the most emotional, personal part of the museum does not. This is the section that has photographs of every single victim of that terrible day, and it has audio recordings of people talking about the victims as well as slideshows of some of their stories.

According to this CNN article, written in November 2019, 2,753 people died at the World Trade Center site in New York City on September 11, 2001. That is remarkable considering that this sign in the photo above reports that 50,000 people worked in the towers everyday. Those rescue workers, 403 of whom were part of the numbered casualties, did an incredible job of saving lives.

Victims ranged from age 2 to 85 years.

Every single one of us has a 9/11 story. It changed America. We all know exactly where we were when we first heard the news.

If you know me personally, or have read the blog long, you know Alan served in the War on Terrorism for 3 tours of duty overseas. One thing that burned me up the most was when Alan brought home a silver lighter the souvenir stands in Iraq were selling back in 2003 to celebrate what had happened to the U.S. on September 11. The lighter had a picture of the twin towers with a picture of the airplane on the flip-lid. When you flipped the lid, the towers lit up like they were on fire. Oh, and Osama bin Laden’s photo was on the box. Seeing this display glorying over what happened on that day was infuriating.

I couldn’t help but think about things like that and memories related to 9/11 as we toured the museum. It’s amazing how much you kind of forget.

You pass by this large wall with the blue tiles and the haunting quote several times, and you don’t think too much of it, and then boom. There’s this plaque that reads:

Wow. That took us by surprise. Suddenly, you look at the wall completely differently, in a whole new light of deep respect and awe.

Our Best People

What struck me most watching the ladder truck videos and seeing the walls of photos of the victims was just how many of them were rescue workers. So many of the people in the photos had on a fireman hat or a police uniform. They didn’t take just anyone from us. No, they took some of our very best people.

At the end of the museum, you walk through the area with these timelines on the wall and the final column mentioned in the photos above. The timeline doesn’t seem like an emotional thing to gaze at. That seems safe, but by this point in the tour you’ve already faced all of your memories of the event, all the victim stories, their photographs, and the firefighter video, and this was the tipping point for me.

I looked at the timeline, which stretched on to the present day, and I thought, “Yes. Yes. It DOES stretch on to the present day.” On September 11th, 2001, it never occurred to me that I would be directly impacted by the events of that day, other than the same fears everyone else felt back then of, “What will happen next? Where will they attack us next time?”

In 2001, I didn’t realize that a year later I’d be married to an Army lieutenant who was actively training to go join the war effort, a war that was precipitated by this day in history. Standing before this 9/11 timeline, I thought of all the deployments, of the soldiers who never came back, of the day my child ran to the wrong man at the airport because it’d been 15 months since he’d seen his daddy and he didn’t know which one he was.

There was no power to hold back the tears. I stood there and cried. Amber was dealing with these same emotions, I’m sure. Her husband also served overseas in this war. She came over and put an arm around me. And yet, I didn’t leave angry. I mean, yes, I was angry for a few minutes, but that’s not the overriding lesson or feeling of all of this. It isn’t, “Get mad. Look what these people did.”

The lesson is, “Look at how each world event shapes each one of us. How are you going to respond?”

It was sad. I cried at this museum, big ugly tears of dealing with a past I try not to think about. It must be 100 billion times harder for the families who lost loved ones.

But let us not forget why the sacrifices we made. We fought so that this would never happen again, and I am ever so proud of the small part that we got to play in supporting Alan in the War on Terrorism.

They could take away our buildings and even some of our best people, but they couldn’t take away who we are, a nation of good, God-fearing people. Do you remember the way we all pulled together in those days? All those prayer circles we had? I remember standing around Denny Chimes on the University of Alabama campus praying with people, many of whom had probably rarely prayed before, some Christians, some Jews, some just searching, but we all felt the same on that day. We were uncertain as all get out, but we were a determined and united people, and we turned to God for help.

America needed that capture, and I was thankful we didn’t have to drag through any court proceedings because he was dead on the spot, how it should’ve been, if you ask me. I also thought it was fitting they put this display at the end of the museum. We didn’t defeat all of the terrorists. Is that even possible? But we caught many, and we got the mastermind behind 9/11 that day when our special forces took down Osama bin Laden.

By the time we were through with the museum, Amber would probably agree, we were both emotionally, mentally, and physically shot. Also we were hungry. It was nearing 7, so a pretzel from a street vendor would just have to do because we had a bus to catch.

It had been an urgent matter to me to see the 9/11 Memorial (as in the fountains, not just the museum) earlier that day, but by the time we finished the museum I had totally forgotten about the memorial. We walked out the doors of the museum. Amber said, “Hmm, I wonder where the memorial part is though,” and I saw it, half of it. I was in front of Amber, and it was so close I almost could’ve tripped right into it. There was a ginormous water fountain with reflection pool, in a perfect square. The names of the victims are engraved around the fountain.

We gazed into the first fountain for a few minutes before realizing that actually there are two, one for each tower. They give the impression of two giant square holes, standing where the towers once stood. They aren’t as large as the towers, but they are in the exact locations.

I don’t know why staring into water is soothing, but this was yet another awe-inspiring reminder of that day, and it felt like a perfect way to close out our tour. It is all definitely worth visiting when you are in New York City.

I hope this answered many of your questions about the museum and memorial. A list below provides my sources of information for this article, in addition to the tour itself. You can click on those links to learn more.

September 11 Fast Facts, CNN.com, November 13, 2019, CNN editorial research

Memorial Pools Will Not Quite Fill Twin Footprints, NYTimes.com, December, 2005, David Dunlap

One World Trade Center, en.wikipedia.org

911 Memorial and Mususem, 911memorial.org

The post What to Expect at the 9/11 Museum and Memorial appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Welcome to summer in northeast Maryland! I have lived in Maryland a grand total of 3 months now. Wow, huh? Such a long time. And what is the first thing we do when we move to a new place?

Unpack boxes!!!

And what is the 2nd thing we do???

Explore the new place!!

I have barely put a chip into my goals of exploring our new state. I haven’t even made it to the actual Chesapeake Bay yet! Don’t worry. I will, and when I do, there will be even more photos.

But for today, we have the lovely, serene side of Maryland. I used to think of this area as a traffic-locked I-95 metropolis, and some of it is, but there is so much more to this lovely state than just the urban areas.

In fact, to get to our new house from the interstate, you have to drive pass three different farms, complete with cows and fields of corn, making for the happiest most peaceful of drives. So today I give you photos of the wilderness side of northeast Maryland, your own drive through the almost-countryside.

In 1632, King Charles I of England granted a charter to George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, yielding him proprietary rights to a region east of the Potomac River in exchange for a share of the income derived from the land.

History Channel website, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-settlement-of-maryland

Did you know?

Maryland is named after Henrietta Maria, the queen consort of King Charles I, of England.

Cecilius Calvert, also known as Lord Baltimore, wanted to establish Maryland as a community of Roman Catholics, fleeing persecution in England. Therefore, in 1634, a carefully selected group of Catholics and Protestants landed on St. Clement’s Island, via the Ark and the Dove.

I don’t know about you, but now I want to visit St. Clement’s Island. I’ll check into it, and we’ll save that for a future post. Apparently, it is a state park now.

The Puritans

As more Puritans arrived in the mid-1600s, conflict rose up between Marylanders over religious liberty. Even in the colonies, Roman Catholics were still under persecution. 1649 brought the Toleration Act, to protect everyone, but the Puritans took over the colony in 1654 causing a short lived, all out Civil War, resulting in Lord Baltimore losing his rights over the colony.

The Calvert family did eventually regain control of Maryland, but persecution of Catholics continued into the 1800s. During the 19th century, more Catholics arrived and religious protections were put in place.

I refer to this post as “northeast Maryland” because it’s only 15 photos, and there is so much more to explore. All of Maryland has this very green and beautiful feel, once you get outside the city, but there are so many other things to explore here. Maybe next time we can go to Antietam or the bay!

I hope you enjoyed the photos and the quick mini-history lesson. This will be the first of many in this series over the next year. As a newbie up here there is an endless list of places in which to go adventuring!

“The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the road has gone, and I must follow if I can.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

The post 15 Beautiful, Serene Photos of Northeast Maryland appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Look closely to see the olives!

After Nazareth, and before Capernaum, we headed over to Tabgha, to see where Jesus called his first disciples and later performed the miracle of feeding the multitudes with the one basket of bread and fish.

If only these flowers would fit in my suitcase…

Tabgha

This sign below provides a nice overview of what happened here:

I love the historical value here! They had these sites marked from as far back as the days of Jesus, and the mosaics I will show you today were created around 480 AD!!! Y’all! Wow! That’s so long ago!

History and the Bible

People often want to compare Christianity with science, which is baffling because Christianity is not science. Those are two different fields. I mean, yes, I believe God created the world because I look at creation, and I don’t think amazing things like life on earth just happen on their own. I guess in that way it’s related to science.

However, the actual study of the Bible and what happened in it is not a scientific topic. That is history. It is a historical account, and there is so much evidence to back up the existence of Jesus that whether or not he lived is not even debatable.

In fact, when you consider the humongous cloud of witnesses around the time that the Old and the New Testaments were written, it is nothing but strengthening to your faith.

Now whether or not Jesus was the son of God, that’s a matter of faith, so we could debate that,  but whether or not he walked among us, that is well documented history.

For more on that topic, see this post.

I regret not stopping longer to soak in just how much happened in this place! That’s the thing about touring. It is always a hustle to stay with the group, and having lost my group one time already (back in Jerusalem), I wasn’t in a hurry to lose them again.

an olive tree

The list of things that happened here is astounding. Holy ground.

This was our last day in Israel. I didn’t want to leave!!!

Below the altar is the rock where Jesus divided the loaves.

site of the miracle of the loaves and fish–Look at the mosaics in front of the rock. You see the fish? These were created in 480 AD!!

I don’t recall if that front right part of the tile that is colored differently was damaged or if that was a mosaic map. I think it’s a map.

As you can see, only portions of this amazing floor survived the test of time.

Some of it has been repaired and restored over the years, but you would not believe how much of this is ORIGINAL!

My mouth hung wide open when he was telling us about this!

From the letters and the types of birds, archaeologists determined that Egyptians created them.

Do you know what this is!!??? Squeeeeaaaaal!!!

That is the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus walked on the water, where Jesus taught from a boat, where the disciples fished!

On my next Israel post, I will show you more of the Sea of Galilee and we’ll go into Capernaum. It was our favorite part of the whole trip. I cannot wait to share it with you.

Here are a few more photos, and a few quotes from the famous Sermon on the Mount, preached near Tabgha.

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

The Beatitudes

² And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴ “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

⁵ “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

⁶ “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

⁷ “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

⁸ “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

⁹ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons^[a] of God.

¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.         Matthew 5:1-11

It really was the trip of a lifetime! For more Israel photos/stories, see below! To read the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, go here.

Can’t get enough Israel? Click here to snag my book about the whole trip, with over 180 full color photos and stories.

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our view, walking to Jaffa

For me, touring Israel was all about the history. I wanted to EXPERIENCE the Bible lands. Historic sites, ground that Jesus walked on, that was what we were after.

On day 1, we crashed with jet lag and didn’t leave our hotel. Day 2, we rushed off to Jerusalem, as fast as our tour bus could take us. On day 3, Alan was working, and Julie and I were feeling out our surroundings, so we walked all over Tel Aviv, to see what we could find interesting. Day 3 was exhausting, and sweaty, extremely sweaty.

This whole trip was so sweaty, I needed 14 changes of clothes. I actually had to find a local store and buy more underwear because silly me, I’d anticipated 1 pair a day, not two.

Day 4 brought the excitement.

Day 4 was one of the highlights of the trip. For day 4, Julie and I were on a mission. Jaffa, also called Yafo, also referred to in the Bible as Joppa, is exactly 3 miles from Tel Aviv. You could see it from our hotel, and we decided to just walk there.

There is a beach walk that connects Tel Aviv to Jaffa, so you couldn’t ask for a more pleasant walk…..well, unless it had been a shaded beach walk, but that is a rare find indeed.

So off we went, down the beach to see Old Jaffa. Jaffa is where Jonah went to run from the Lord, sailing to Tarshish. Jaffa was also the home of the famous Simon the Tanner. I’ll tell you more about ol’ Simon in a minute here.

port of Jaffa

The port of Jaffa was also where Solomon shipped in the cedars of Lebanon. Plus, after World War II, this port was where vast numbers of Jews arrived to return to the Promised Land.

It is one of the most historic cities there is! According to archaeologists, Jaffa has been constantly inhabited since about 1900 BC, and perhaps even longer. (source 1)

view of Jaffa from the beach, by the port

This area is currently run by Arab Christians, according to locals, but just like the rest of Israel, it has fallen under many different countries’ rule over the year, to include the Turks.

Yafo/Jaffa is diverse.

I definitely saw more Muslim people in Yafo than I did in Tel Aviv.

There were loud prayer calls and women in full Islamic garb. That was the first time I had ever been walking around a city and suddenly heard the loud sounds of the Muslim call to prayer. These are sounds my husband is extremely accustomed to, considering all of his time in the Middle East, but it was a new experience for me!

This plaque is on one of the Old Jaffa buildings.

Armenian Convent of St. Nicholas

I thought these blue doors and vents looked pretty against the sand color bricks.

More of these gorgeous bougainvillea plants.

You go up these stairs, and you are suddenly in an extremely unique, ancient place. Even the ground is brick. If you ever go to Israel, be sure to see Old Jaffa!

This is the way to Simon the Tanner’s house! Up the stairs into Old Jaffa, and then keep turning corners and getting lost until you stumble upon it. Follow the light house.

view of Old Jaffa

We glanced at the map the first time around, not knowing what to look for.

After walking through Old Jaffa and not finding Simon the Tanner’s house, we decided to try again. We looped downhill all the way back around to where we started from. The SECOND time around, we studied the map as hard as our eyeballs could stare, and then made another go of it.

beautiful Jaffa

It felt Medieval-ish to me. I don’t know how old it was. We missed the guided tour, so we were on our own.

Searching, searching, where is that Simon the Tanner’s house???

I bet Cornelius’s messenger in the Bible didn’t have this much trouble finding it…

By the 2nd time around, we knew if we could just find THIS lighthouse, we could find ol’ Simon’s house.

We got in a ton of steps and stair-climbs that day.

So all of a sudden, when we least expected it, we realized we were standing right in front of it!!! Ha!

Simon the Tanner’s house!

Want to know who Simon the Tanner is?

Well, after Jesus died and rose again and ascended to Heaven, the disciples kept up their work. They were still going around teaching and preaching the good news of Jesus: Jesus died to pay the price for our sin. No need to make animal sacrifices. Instead of a Messiah to come, we now have faith in a Messiah that IS.

However, the disciples were only teaching this method to Jewish people, not Gentiles.

It was time for a change.

First of all, Peter was staying at the home of a tanner. That was considered an unclean trade (source 2), which fits this story perfectly.

As a Jew, there were many foods that were unclean, and Gentiles were unclean. Therefore, when Peter had a vision of a blanket of unclean food, with God telling him to eat it, he was perplexed.

The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour^[b] to pray. ¹⁰ And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance¹¹ and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.

¹² In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. ¹³ And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” ¹⁴ But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” ¹⁵ And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” ¹⁶ This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.   Acts 10:9-16

While Peter was still pondering the dream, a man came to fetch him to come tell Cornelius, a Gentile, who loved God, about Jesus, in the town of Caesesarea.

By the way, Israelites do NOT pronounce Caesarea the same way we do. Over there the C makes the k sound in that word, so it was confusing!

So Peter went to Cornelius’s house in Caesarea, and this is a snippet of what the Bible says about the meaning of the dream he’d had at Simon the Tanner’s house:

 ²⁹ So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”    Acts 10: 28-29

That’s when Peter learns that Cornelius worships the Lord, along with his family, and God has sent Peter to tell this man and his family the gospel:

³⁰ And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour,^[d] and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing ³¹ and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God.

³² Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ ³³ So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”     Acts 10:30-33

For the full story, read Acts 10.

Ok. Now that we’ve had our one Bible lesson, let’s see a few more photos to round out the visit.

A tomb, maybe?

This used to be a government building. Only this front remains. The back was bombed out by one of their wars.

another view of the bombed out government building

whale fountain in Old Jaffa—perfect for the Jonah and the whale story

just an interesting building in the more modern part of the city

a church

I just liked the architecture.

Old Jaffa (beyond the parking lot)

view of Yafo

Jaffa

We found this at the port. I had never heard this story. Have you?

Hope you enjoyed the tour!! Want to see more? Here are a few more of my previous Israel tours:

Jerusalem: Mount of Olives and the Last Supper

Tel Aviv 

Sources:

1.  The Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project website, Historical Overview, jaffa.nelc.ucla.edu/site.html#overview
2. Acts 9:3 Peter and Simon the Tanner, readingacts.com,
3. Acts 10, Bible Gateway Online, English Standard Version

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