Memories of the Holy Land!!

It was around six to seven years back, my family and I had decided to go on a pilgrimage to the sites of the Holy Land which include places keenly mentioned in the Bible which have a connection with the life of Jesus and apostles as well as the other stories of the lives of the Israelites mentioned in the Old Testament. So we had enrolled in for a 'Holy Land Tour' organized by a tour company by the name of 'Emirates Tours' which had their meeting of all the people enrolled in for the tour at our church in Sharjah where they had distributed the related itinerary information and tickets which is still fresh in my memory till date, especially the thrill of receiving the caps to be worn when touring was what had brought in that bit of excitement as I looked forward to the tour.

The day that we were all waiting for at last finally arrived. We headed off to the airport where we had our tickets confirmed for a flight to Jordan via Bahrain on Gulf Air. We boarded both the flights and finally reached Jordan. At the Jordan Airport (Queen Alia International Airport) we waited for sometime after having our passports stamped for the members of the tour to arrive. After waiting for a while we started seeing many people arriving with blue caps which was a true sign that everybody had come by then, and all were patiently waiting for the tour guide to come after which we would all be heading off to the coach bus to begin off with our tour initially to the places in and around Jordan.

Our tour guide was a Jordanian, so indeed with his typical Arabic accent, he led us to the coach bus where we travelled to a few sites in and around Jordan such as Madaba, a place where the map of Israel depicting the birthplace of Jesus was displayed on a floor of mosaic in a small church in one of the neighbouring towns, we also got to see some of the beautiful orchards while travelling dating back to the time of Abraham and now filled with splendour and some more places explained in great depths by our tour guide each time he turned on the intercom the bus was fitted with. In between of our journey we made a stop nearby for lunch to one of the local restaurants where I could remember we had a soup full of barley, an assortment of Arabic dishes such as hummus, fathoush and some lentils before continuing forward for our onward journey to Israel.

On reaching the Israeli checkpoint, we bid farewell to our tour guide and welcomed our new tour guide, who with a new coach bus picked us up and led us to Bethlehem where we checked ourselves into a hotel and rested for the night.

Bethlehem as far as I could remember was a place situated at the top of the hill, so at nights it used to be very cold and chilly despite it being the months of August which we had imagined would be really hot and having not anticipated it, we really felt the frostbite the moment we stepped out of the hotel for a short walk nearby and immediately rushed to the hotel room to wear another set of clothes on top of the ones we were already wearing to go for a short stroll to the places nearby. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the weather as it provided us an escape from the hot and humid climate of U.A.E around this time.

Mount of Olives

The next day after satisfying ourselves with a stomach full of heavy breakfast we headed off on our tour to visit the sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. We visited the Al Aqsa Mosque though we couldn’t enter it which is of great significance to the Muslims as well as to us Christians and the Jews, we visited the Mount of Olives from where we could see the gates of Jerusalem and the entire view of Israel from the top and we even visited the Garden of Gethsamene where Jesus had pleaded to God to take away the sufferings from him. We had even visited the site where Peter had denied Jesus three times and also the tomb of Lazarus whom Jesus had brought to life.

Al Aqsa Mosque

The very next day, we had gone to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where we actually got to see the exact place where Jesus was born, the Golgota stone where Jesus was crucified and outside the church we even got to see the actual stations of the cross and prayed at every station the prayers we would actually be doing during the Lenten season. The stations of the cross being at far distances from each other made it really hard to imagine how Jesus with the weight of the cross could have actually borne it up when going from one station to the next and so it was really great to be experiencing the stations of the cross accompanied with the prayers.

Sea of Galilee

The next day we had to bid farewell to our hotel in Bethlehem as we had to head off to Nazareth to visit the remaining places. On our way to Nazareth, we made a stop at the Church of Cana where Jesus had performed the miracle of changing water to wine and we got to see the vessels preserved till date that were in those times used to make wine and also got to taste the blessed wine of Cana from a souvenir shop 

nearby. Apart from that we had even visited Galilee where we visited the site where Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fish and also took a small ride in the sea of Galilee where Jesus performed the miracle of increasing the catch for Peter. On reaching Nazareth we alighted at a hotel which was not as good as the previous hotel we had stayed in but nevertheless provided us with an abode for the few days that we were left with.

Church of Transfiguration 

The last and final day we had visited the Church of the Transfiguration where Jesus was transfigured as far as I could remember before heading back to Jordan. It was really great to see the exact site on a mountain called ‘Mount Tabor’ which quite heavenly stood with sun rays from the sky being scattered towards it and the church situated over there where we had said the last mass there and headed back to Jordan where we had visited a mosaic art gallery one of the true art and crafts of Jordan and Mount Nebo where Moses had died and also performed a miracle to save the Israelites from the serpent sickeness.

Somewhere in the journey we had even visited the River Jordan where we had our vows of Baptism renewed as we dipped ourselves into the river and as the priest ushered his blessings onto us which was really great to experience.

To sum up, it 

was a really great memory of the travels we have had till date and to be recounting the trip to the Holy Land fills me awe and blissful wonder that we really did make it to the sites mentioned in the Bible!!!

Below are some of the other pictures clicked at the various places in the Holy Land.....

'Hail Mary' in Konkani

Remains of an ancient temple at Caesarea, Philipi

Remaining columns of Herod's palace

Exact site where Mother Mary visit St. Elizabeth

At the top of Mount Nebo with what resembles the exact stick with a bronze metal twirling around it to the heal the Israelites of the snake poison

Haifa Gardens