Month: May 2019

Friday, May 24th, 2019. 9:00 pm

Dear Family and Friends,

I am still processing all I’ve seen in the past 8 hours and it has been a lot! Instead of writing about today, I will include a postscript from yesterday.

The Sea of Galilee is right out of our window. Yesterday afternoon just before dinner at 6:30 we noticed black smelly smoke competing with the clouds and evaporation of the sea from the heat. Linda said someone must be burning trash…I said it looked and smelled like rubber tires.

To the left of the hotel we saw the smoke then we saw the fire. We don’t know if it was on purpose but the area is so dry I don’t think it was a planned burn. As the smoke rose we began to see flames and it started spreading toward the shore.

Within about 10 minutes a fire truck was on the scene attempting to stop the fire. It took a while to put this out and this morning we saw that the fire included a formally white car.

The Sea of Galilee was the location of our pilgrimage today. We took a boat ride from the dock at the Ginosar Kibbutz and had our morning devotions on board ship. Gary shared with the group the events in Jesus’s life on board boats on the Sea. I am so glad that this trip is not about being a tourist but the challenge of being a pilgrim. As I continue to process today I promise to write soon.

Until next time…

Ellen and Linda