I am up to my neck in home school work at the moment. Two are reading contentedly. One just finished Dog Man and is choosing to whine rather than pick his next book to read. The other one is begrudgingly beginning Hunger Games. His teacher has outlawed many of the books that he would rather read. Since school here is only cancelled through April, we still have to follow the guidelines they gave us. Fun, fun, fun.

But I wanted to take a second and let you all know the exciting news!

For today and tomorrow only, my new book, Tour Israel in Pictures and Stories, is FREE for your Kindle app on Amazon!

Since you guys are my readers who have stuck with me through seven years of blogging, I know some of you want to help me and not get it for free. However, it actually DOES help me when you buy the book for free. It raises my number of books sold, which pulls me up in the search order and places me back on the best seller lists for my category.

So yes! You are helping me big time when you download my book for free.

Here’s a snippet from the book. The book has around 280 full color photos of Israel:

THIS is the Mount of Olives, also referred to as Mount Olivet.

There was so much I did not get to see, because Jerusalem is huge, and you cannot see it all in one day.

Thankfully, our tour’s very first stop was on the Mount of Olives.

I stepped out of our little bus and breathed in the holy air. Wow! The Mount of Olives! Wow! This is where Jesus hung out! This is where he came to pray. I think this was his quiet, sanity place.

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.⁴⁰ On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” ⁴¹ He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, ⁴² “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” ⁴³ An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.⁴⁴ And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.^[a]                                                       

Luke 22:39-44

Would you like to see the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed that blood-sweating prayer?

They built this Church of all Nations in the midst of it, which makes it much easier to locate.

If you look in the very front of this picture, and also to the right of the church, you can see the olive trees and stones. This is the Garden of Gethsemane, located on the Mount of Olives. When I took this photo, I was just snapping. I had no idea what I was photographing, except I knew I wanted these beautiful churches. I went online and did my research to find the garden.

The oldest trees in the garden are much larger than the ones in the photo above. That’s only a sliver of it.

By the way, they built the church on THE ROCK they believe Jesus knelt on to pray.

According to this article, among many others, this site is proven to be the actual Garden of Gethsemane. These olive trees planted here are the oldest in the world. While most of them are not quite old enough to have been there when Jesus was, they were all carefully grown from the same tree, according to DNA research, to preserve a lineage of trees that was there when Jesus was.

Some sources report that there are 3,000 year-old trees in that grove that are not much more than stumps now, but still, pretty amazing.

I would have loved to have walked through that garden, but alas, it was not on the standard tour.

4In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east;and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south.

Zechariah 14:4

The Bible tells us that in the end times the Messiah, Jesus, will return on the Mount of Olives.

Jesus wept and lamented the future, “set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side . . . crush you to the ground . . . and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognise the time of your visitation from God.” (Luke 19:37-44)

Not 40 years later, the prophecy was fulfilled when the Romans burned the temple and destroyed Jerusalem.

Jesus wasn’t the only one to weep on the Mount of Olives.

David also went up the mountain weeping with his followers in 2 Samuel 15:30.

I went into this whole thing expecting a moving, spiritual experience.

The thing was that there was an excellent tour guide to listen to, pictures to be taken, you are pouring sweat in June, and you have to stay with the group. Therefore, pausing for reflection or prayer? That did not happen much, I am sorry to tell you. We all piled back into our bus, made a stop by a souvenir shop, and then headed on over to Old Jerusalem.

Our group was a hodgepodge of folks from Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, and the States. Who knows where all we were from? Thankfully, everyone seemed to understand English.

We have been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., which I am told is similar to this one, but I bet in Israel it is even more powerful.

It was actually awesome to be in the Holy Land on the Sabbath day.

In Hebrew, it is not “sabbath”, it is “shabbat.” Shabbat is not just a nod to the law of Moses, either. They take this thing seriously. Everywhere you went, everyone would joyfully greet each other with, “Shabbat shalom!”

Shabbat is their day of rest, which is important, because they work hard the other 6 days of the week. On Shabbat, they are supposed to do no work at all, according to their tradition, not even to push a button. Therefore, there was always one elevator in “shabbat mode”, which means that it automatically stops at all the floors.

We entered Jerusalem through the Zion gate. Our first stop was King David’s Tomb and the Upper Room, where Jesus and his disciples had the last supper.

And here is the part that surprised us: the upper room is above David’s tomb.

My jaw dropped open when she told us that.

David’s tomb has rules. Men visit it on one side, women on the other, not together.

Remember, Jerusalem has been sacked many times over the years, so these are not the same buildings as the ones standing during Bible times. You see these beautiful buildings? They were built by the Crusaders around 1099.

People were leaning everywhere, praying, in groups and out loud. It was so noisy, I could not carry a thought in my head. Our tour guide couldn’t either, and she chased them all out.  Yep. It reminded me of Jesus chasing the money changers out of the temple, only she didn’t turn over any tables, and these people were only praying, though they were terribly noisy.

Our tour guide had a name that sounded like Molly. She was a former officer in the Israeli Army, and she was quite likable. Molly was sharp and quick, with an answer for any question about the Holy Land, past or present. She knew her stuff.

Notice my wardrobe.

If you are touring holy sites, be sure you have your knees and shoulders covered. It’s a matter of respect, but also rules. They will give you a shaw if your shoulders are uncovered, or a long skirt thing if you are showing too much leg.

In Jerusalem, the only place we went that was strict about it was the Wailing Wall. In Capernaum, only the monastery said anything to women with bare shoulders.

Also, this white tile is so prevalent because it is found in Israel. Therefore, they are able to build large cities with all matching buildings. It has a lovely effect.

So exciting! We don’t have buildings in America that are that old! You can even arrange a tour to go through these tunnels that run under Jerusalem to see way more of the ancient ruins.

I hope you all have a good week with what I have been calling “living underground”. Thankfully, we have a beautiful day here in Maryland. Don’t put too much pressure on yourselves with the home-schooling. Reading and writing with outdoor play make for perfectly successful days in times like these. No one expects you to become a one-room schoolhouse expert overnight.

²⁸ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Matthew 11:28-29

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