Hmm...let's see how much I remember. I did cheat and call Sus and get a little recap of each day but to my defense, I remembered more than I thought! I see it as using my resources ;)
Day 6, hello horrible weather! The weather had been perfect until today..it was freezing, raining, and super windy. Wonderful..Despite the bad weather, we still had a great day! We started today on the Mount of Olives. The road down the Mount was real steep and the fact that it was raining definitely did NOT help..I'm pretty sure I slipped about 1203982395 times. embarrassing, I know.
fam at the top of the mount!
you can see how bad the weather was by looking at my hair...
Along the road to the bottom on the mount, there were several churches we stopped at. The first one was the Dominus Flavit, which means the Lord weeps. The church is shaped like a tear drop in resemblance of Jesus crying over the doom of Jerusalem.
Dominus Flavit Church
After that pit stop down the mount, we stopped at the Garden of Gethsemane. This is where Jesus and His disciples got together after the Passover meal to pray. The night before Jesus was arrested, he prayed here! I have prayed where Jesus prayed, heyyy! We got some time to ourselves in the garden to just go off and pray/have some personal time with the Lord.
creeper pic of my precious brother praying in the garden.
doesn't that just melt your heart?
There were tons of olive trees in the garden that have been there for centuries!
Keep walking through the garden and you will run into the Church of All Nations. The inside of this church was gorgeous! The ceiling and walls were blue and gold and had symbols of each nation that helped build it. There were twelve domes in the church and each nation has their coat of arms on a dome. The church was built around the Basilica of the Agony, aka the rock where Jesus prayed so hard he sweat blood. crazyyy!
The dome that has the United States coat of arms
the rock of agony with my two favs :)
From the Church of All Nations, we went to the Pools of Bethesda and St. Anne's Church. The church is named after Mary's mother, Anne and the church is supposedly built above Anne's house. Inside the church there is a lovely statue of Anne and Mary!
Anne and little Mary
The Pools of Bethesda are two cisterns that date back to the 8th and 3rd centuries. King Herod turned this area into curative baths and the waters were believed to have healing powers. This sight was believed to be where Jesus healed the paralytic in John 5. There were three people in our group who had various surgeries 4 weeks before the trip and it was such a blessing that they got to go. Since this was a place of healing, we prayed over each person recovering from surgery. It was very powerful.
Pools of Bethesda
Next we went to the shepherd's cave and had a little concert from the one and only Michelangelo Caggiano. He did all the worship on the trip and of course, it was fabulous! I have one of his CD's and yall can borrow it if you want! When I say we went to the shepherd's cave, we legit went underground in a dusty, dirty cave. There were lots of little tunnels inside and we went exploring..probably not the smartest idea but hey, you only live once, right?
angelo and john rockin outtt
On the way to the next stop, we drove through Bethlehem and saw what we thought was a Starbucks..but we were seriously mistaken. Check it out...
bahahaha how ridiculous
Our next destination was the Church of the Nativity. Part of this church was Greek Orthodox and let me tell ya, they aren't shy with the gold and decorations! Everything was brightly colored and there were things hanging from the ceiling. This is one of the oldest churches that still has services in the world. This is supposedly where Jesus was born.
that church was blingged out!
Next, we went to St. Jerome's Chapel. I had no idea who Jerome was before this trip, but he is pretty important guy if you ask me! He translated the ENTIRE Bible from Greek to Latin. Do you know how long that must have taken? I'm thinking along the lines of..forever!
This mosaic was in Jerome's Chapel
I think that is all for today!
love yall!
Sarah
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