Israel, The Holy Land - Part 1

We arrived in ISRAEL February 23rd. We flew into Tel Aviv and spend a night at the most beautiful beach I have ever walked on. Teenagers from all over the world come to this beach for spring break supposedly... and when I walked through the area, I knew why. :) We enjoyed hanging out in a beach town for a night.
Below is one of the guys from Faulkner, Luke, playing soccer on the beach of Tel Aviv with some men from Israel. Luke plays soccer for Faulkner so this was a really cool experience for him. Afterwards he said to our group, "They didn't speak any English, soccer is just a common language." :) SO COOL.

Neysa and I standing by the ruins of Herod the Great's palace in Caesarea

Katie and I standing in front of ruins of the pool Herod had built in front of his palace
Below is the aqueduct that brought fresh water to Caesarea from the time of Herod.

Below is the 8th century B.C. Water way of Hezekiah

Below is me standing right outside of the water way after we walked through it from the other side. This was where the water was coming from that brought it to Hezekiah in the Bible -- obviously, notice the pretty flowers!

This is looking from up top the mount of the beatitudes from matthew 5,6, and 7:

This is a cathedral built on top of the mount.... the catholics build cathedrals on top of anything significant to them from the Bible.... so sadly we aren't able to see things as they were really at all. However, it was amazing to be at this place where Jesus probably was when he did the sermon of the mount. :)

This is the boat in a museum that was found in the sea of Galilee and it is dated back to the time of Jesus and the apostles.

This is what the boat looked like that our group got to go on to ride around on the sea of Galille:)

Faulkner group on the Sea of Galilee:

Standing in the Sea of Galilee! :)

This is the building on top of the place where Jesus fed the 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish:

Cape Sounion

On February 18th, our group drove out to Cape Sounion which is the site of ruins of the ancient greek temple of Poseidon, the god of the sea according to mythology. The point goes out into the water of the same seas that Paul would have traveled through when visiting Greece.

We arrived just in time to watch the entire sunset. We enjoyed watching God paint the sky and sea beautiful, gorgeous colors. It was by far the most beautiful sunset I have ever witnessed in my life. God is so powerful and wonderful. Thinking back on being there at Sounion so many thoughts come to mind. First off, that temple for a mythological god is ruined. It's broken and slowly falling apart every day. But the true God's temple, us, will never die. We are eternal, spiritual beings. I think I'll stick with a God whose temple will never ruin, instead of myths. Then while I was out there I looked at the temple and sure, it was cool... but I noticed that the hundreds of people there to see the temple were not looking at the temple, they had their backs to the temple facing the sea and sky -- God's creation. It was like God saying, "Yeah that 'god' may have a pretty temple made by the hands of men by turn around and look at the seas and sky of the setting sun that I created." -- NO comparison between God's true creation (the universe all together) and the material things made by God's creation (us). Sometimes God just does things just to impress me even more with his creation. These pictures honestly do not give it justice. I say you visit this yourself and witness some more of the incredible, breathtaking art of our almighty King and Father.

Corinth and southern Greece

Below was definitely one of my favorite places in Corinth, this is Cenchreae. This is the harbor where Paul left Corinth at the end of Acts 18. Below is the best professor ever, Dr. Edwards and our awesome tour guide, James as Dr. Edwards talks and reads Acts 18 to us. It was incredible to be here and sing together as Christians where Paul left after teaching about Jesus Christ in Corinth.

The remains here are actually remains of an early Christian church... the Christians in Corinth built a church on the beach where Paul left in the memory of Paul giving thanks to God for bringing the truth to Corinth. So awesome.

Below is a castle in Corinth taken from the highest point in Corinth where the remains of Aphrodite's temple are.

Walking up to the highest point in Corinth

Porto Rafti beach

Less than a mile from where I am living this semester! Beautiful Aegean Sea :) :)

Rome, Italy

We went to Rome February 6-8. It was amazing. We were there during their 1st snow in 27 years! So we were cold to say the least. However, I still enjoyed every minute of walking around Rome in the snow. It was beautiful as we saw and learned so much. We got there monday night and walked through the main part of rome. We enjoyed chestnuts roasting on an open fire, live music in front of the Pantheon, artists painting and making creations, old incredible buildings, the Trevi fountain, experienced mass in St. Augustine's basilica, and some italian food and language... beautiful. All in one night before heading to our hotel outside of Rome. :)

Neysa, me, and katie in front of the Trevi fountain:

Above is early century Rome around Paul's time

Above is Neysa and me on St. Angel bridge in Rome with SNOW. Did I mention first snow in TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS? :)
This is in St. Peter's cathedral which is the most extravagant "House of God" in the world by worldly standards. However, this place was absolutely incredible. It took over 30 minutes just to walk through it all without hardly stopping to really look at anything. It was HUGE and each inch was covered in beautiful art and the ceiling, wall, everything was gold, marble, or bronze. Words and pictures can't describe how amazing this place was. I was just in awe.

Above is from outside St. Peter's cathedral

My most favorite part of the Rome trip was visiting the catacombs outside of Rome. It was incredible. Catacombs are tombs under the ground who once held early Christians. We stood in the mist of witnesses before us singing praises to God as a group with Dr. Edwards. It was just a huge help for me spiritually... to see and touch the places were Christians that were persecuted and executed for their faith and still lived it out... to see their remains. I mean there are not words to explain this. It was just gives me courage. From now on throughout my life I can remember that moment of being down in the catacombs remembering the strong, courageous, faithful Christians before me... some of those tombs may have even held Peter or Paul or any of the apostles. No one knows who they were. However, the symbol above emphasizes the fact that these were definitely followers of Jesus Christ from the 4th century and earlier.
Colosseum! This was awesome to see after seeing it for years in the movies! :)
The road PAUL would have WALKED ON in rome!!! SO AWESOME!
Down here is the prison where Paul and Peter supposedly were in jail in Rome. Just... so REAL. This trips emphasizes the fact that this faith that is my life really is REAL. It just backs up my faith so much. It's incredible to just know that I know that I KNOW Jesus Christ walked on this earth, died and rose again, established HIS church and that HIS church is still alive today. The true faith. The faith Christians DIED for... faith I should at least step out of my comfort zone for... Faith I just trust in and take confidence in... Faith I will never ever give up. This just adds to my firm foundation. Just words truly cannot describe how helpful this trip is spiritually and how I will forever keep this images in my mind the rest of my life. It's crazy to SEE this. There is no way, no way something could survive this long, for so many years, through dark ages and everything and still live on, the same faith still being found after 2,000 years.

Above is the prison of Peter and Paul the Apostles

1st trip to Athens, Greece

We visited the Acropolis today and also went to the museum which was very interesting.

The Parthenon

Above is the Panathenaic or Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece. This was really cool to see and listen to different stories of the olympian games that went on here. The street in front this stadium has a river underneath it that they used to overflow into the the stadium where naval battleships would fight to the death (like Gladiator kind of) as the whole stadium was filled with thousands and thousands of people watching for entertainment. Now that river is covered by a road, but our guide, James, said that when it rains everyone then realizes there is a river underneath the road because it overflows.

This is Mars Hill. The 1st picture shows the stone that reads Acts 17 in modern greek. The 2nd is me standing on Mars Hill. This was an incredible experience. Once I could get past the below freezing weather, which was easy to do considering the things I was seeing, I was able to sit on Mars Hill looking over Athens as Dr. Edwards read Acts 17. It was incredible. This made it so real to hear Paul's words where he most likely actually said them to the people of Athens, extremely smart people that had to be intimidating to Paul. For Paul to have the courage to do that really inspired and deeply reminded our whole group of WHY we are on this earth. WHY Jesus came to die for sins and WHAT we are supposed to be doing with our lives. We need to stop trying to be successful by the worlds standards and try to hold each other up to GOD's standard. Over the next couple of months I have the most awesome opportunity to go back to Mars Hill whenever I want just to talk to God and reflect on Paul's life and the fight he fought on this earth for the Lord and the church. I want to have zeal like Paul so Lord willing, I can focus on that the next few months praying for courage and wisdom to do the work of the Lord, worrying only of the Kingdom of God and the lost souls around me. Today was so inspiring, uplifting, convincing, and ...real. It made the Word I was holding in my hands that I have based my entire life on, REAL. Paul was a REAL person. Everyone knows that, there's no trying to deceive people of that fact, you see "St. Paul" everywhere in Greece. He made a 180 turn in his life for only one reason, only one thing can do that to a person, THE LORD... just really proving and making it real that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God and I am walking on the same grounds HE walked. There aren't words for the experience and the reality of it. I'm so excited to see what else God has in store for this group and I can't wait to visit more places that we read about in the Bible.

There are dogs everywhere in Greece!!!! I mean EVERYWHERE. Now in Athens the government has put colored collars on them to tell whether they are male or female, fixed them, and gave them shots to make sure they don't over popularize or harm the people of the city. We have dogs in Porti Rafti that sit right outside the Harding doors and act as guard dogs for us -- we haven't done anything special for them or anything, they just like us.

The same thing happened in Athens today with our group -- it was hilarious. These dogs in the picture along with about 3 others flocked to us and chose our group to follow and hang out with all day. We would go in a museum for hours and come out seeing them there just waiting to greet us. As we walked through the street they would walk in front of us and literally bark everyone else out of the street chasing them so that none of those random sweet people would even get near us. I mean we laughed so hard we cried. 3 of the dogs saw this man in front of our group on the side of the road with a hose and they ran after him and chased him 30 feet scaring this man half to death. I mean he had the most frightened look on his face because these dogs would bark and growl at the people, but they never tried to bite, thankfully. It was so funny because they weren't meaning any harm but they were serious about protecting us. I honestly felt like royalty the way the dogs treated our group and cleared the streets for us. I mean I felt bad for all the people they were scaring half to death, but the dogs thought they were doing good. They chased this one lady in front of us to her car... she was so scared that she sprinted to her car and got in and locked the doors. Again, they weren't meaning any harm just mostly the barking was very scary. The way they barked reminded me of somewhat of trumpets announcing a king coming throughout the street, clearing the road for the king.

These guys were really good! Fun music to listen to while walking around the market place after lunch with the dogs in Athens. :)

Airplane Ride

This is Katie and me in the airplane on the way to Athens, Greece.

Devin's first plane ride! Woo hoo!

Neysa and I on our way to the Harding campus from the airport! :)

I am so thankful to be going to greece with great friends! I really appreciate these 3 and also Jared, Tay, Gretchen, and Luke. It's going to be a great next couple of months getting closer to this group as we grow spiritually together. More pictures to come of the rest of the group!

<3 Greece!

The name: It's All Greek To Me

Guess what this is!?

You're right! It's a coffee shop! Was it the words or the pictures of animals that gave it away??

Seriously I rely on very poor pictures and unreliable facial expressions to figure out what in the world is going on around here. All the signs, labels, every word around here in written in Greek AND there is no english underneath it or anything since this is a smaller town it's completely greek. The adults here don't speak english either except some of the adults on harding's campus (not all of them though). So talk about culture shock?! This is craziness! I only had travel size shampoo, conditioner, and toothpaste this morning so I decided I better go ahead and buy more this morning. Well all the students from Faulkner walked down to the girzteck (the pronunciation sounds like that spelling I think but I have no idea how to actually spell it because it's written in greek letters) to get a few things and the only thing I could read in that grocery store was "Nutella." I'm not kidding. Every thing was written so weird. They had shampoo that were some of the same brands we have at Wal-Mart back home but I could only tell because of what the bottle looked like but they don't differentiate the look of the bottle between shampoo and conditioner so I never could figure out which one was which. Most of the brands did not carry conditioner but I ended up opening up the bottles and looking inside to see which looked creamier. Hahaha. I just did not think about the language barrier being such an issue but it really is. I just assumed it'd be like spanish kind of since some spanish words are readable and kind of make sense in english especially if you know a little spanish from high school like I do. Anyway greek is nothing like any other language that I am familiar with or even seen in my life... I guess I knew that from the bible majors at Faulkner, but it just didn't click with me before I got here. That language almost seems impossible for me to ever read because the letters are nothing like our alphabet to me. I have learned how to say "hello" "thank you" and "excuse me" but even those I can hardly remember in the moment that I'm supposed to be saying them. However, it is my first full day here so I'll practice and get better! This is exciting! :)

My roommate and room

This is my roommate, Katie! She is a great great friend and I am so happy to be able to be with her in Greece. We are standing on our balcony in Porto Rafti, Greece right outside our bedroom. That is our view from out huge window door. :) Mountains, beautiful homes, little bakery, coffee shop, dogs -- there are seriously random dogs that hang around everywhere, they follow us to the grocery store, to the beach, etc... they are so sweet (and dirty). Grecians don't eat dinner until 10 pm or later so around bedtime the streets are crazy... all night I heard cars honking and so so many "almost" wrecks. It's crazy. There aren't speed limits that I know of and if there is there is no one to enforce them so watching these people drive is completely scary!!!