{"id":1431,"date":"2011-01-30T17:52:55","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T22:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/?p=1431"},"modified":"2014-11-21T10:27:40","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T15:27:40","slug":"israel-day-2-bringing-on-the-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/2011\/01\/israel-day-2-bringing-on-the-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel &#8211; Day 2&#8230;Bringing on the rain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u2013 Sunday, January 30, 2011 \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Israel 2011\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/zenphoto\/albums\/2011-Israel\/Israel-Day2-2011-01-30\/RonBeach.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"432\" height=\"324\" \/>Greetings again from Tiberias, Israel!<\/p>\n<p>***Click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/zenphoto\/2011-Israel\/\" target=\"_blank\">HERE<\/a> to see the Israel Pics from this trip!***<\/p>\n<p>What a day, our first day of touring is concluded and I&#8217;m exhausted.  It was a wet day today as we experienced lots of on-off rain.  But that didn&#8217;t stop us, we put on our poncho&#8217;s and trucked on through!<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s first stop&#8230;.the dining room!  Yes, the dining room.  We got to experience our first Israeli breakfast, they&#8217;re renowned we were told!  But it was amazing, you name it, they had it, and it tasted great&#8230;buffet style too: eggs, honey pastries, lots of other pastries, fresh fruits, pancakes, fish (yea&#8230;didn&#8217;t want fish in the a.m.), chesses, etc.  And the coffee, best we ever had!  Karl, Kurt, Zach and I each had 3-4 cups each!<\/p>\n<p>Next up, seaside veranda for some photos!<\/p>\n<p>Following this, we made our way to Tel Dan, the ancient city of Dan where 2 golden calves were placed (1 Kings 12:28-29).  However, before we could get to the uncovered alter site, the rain poured down and the trail in the nature reserve was blocked w\/ a fallen tree.  We got some great pics still but the main highlight was unattainable.<\/p>\n<p>Just a short drive away we came to Ceaserea Phillipi.  This is the region where Jesus told Peter he&#8217;d be the ROCK that the church would be built upon.  However, most do not know that Ceaserea Phillipi was actually a temple region to the god Pan.  There are rocks &amp; cliffs that meant much to this cult because they made human sacrifices by throwing people off the cliff; the rock was a key part of this cult for death and other purposes. To make a point, Jesus may have meant many things in his analogy of the rock, as the early Christians would be well aware of this cult&#8217;s practices.  Of particular interest to me was the Roman architectural influence.  I recognized many of the columns and floors and walls from my time studying Roman Art.<\/p>\n<p>As a side note, while at Tel Dan and Ceaserea Phillipi, we were only a few miles from the Lebanese border.  What I thought at one point was thunder was actually artillery shells, probably an Israeli practice shot nearbye.  We later saw tanks in the region maneuvering around.<\/p>\n<p>We then traveled up near Mount Hermon for lunch were I tried the schnitzel, chicken wrapped in pita w\/ some toppings, pretty good!<\/p>\n<p>Our drive back down towards Galilee took us to Hazor.  Hazor is a huge excavation from the times of the Old Testament.  Much of the 600 acres aren&#8217;t even excavated yet.  Steve made a comment that every time he comes back, there&#8217;s something new to see, now that&#8217;s exciting for us history buffs!  The finds at Hazor are also very biblically accurate, which is cool to read up on in verses such as Joshua 11:1-14.<\/p>\n<p>After Hazor we went up to Cana for what was a change of pace from the day to a new cultural experience: a Christian, but Arabic styled worship service!  We met up w\/ Steve&#8217;s Christian Holyland Foundation friends and got to experience songs and a message (with translation help though!) in another language!  We then proceeded to dinner and got to eat and talk w\/ the Foundation&#8217;s members and family.  We talked about what life was like in Israel, the food, fun, etc.  It was a good quick learning experience for us!  I know that we all are happy that they all agreed to go out w\/ us!<\/p>\n<p>Following dinner, back to the hotel.  We were exhausted from a long day, little sleep, and a crazy schedule.  Me&#8230;I can&#8217;t sleep unless everything is done, so I hope you enjoy this post, the pics, and hopefully I even posted the videos from worship!<\/p>\n<p>Shalom!<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">[FLOWPLAYER=http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/movies\/2011-Israel\/Israel-Day2-Praise1.flv,320,240]<\/p>\n<p><strong>At church in Cana, Israel. A few Arabic speaking Christians worshiping before service.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">[FLOWPLAYER=http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/movies\/2011-Israel\/Israel-Day2-Praise2.flv,320,240]<\/p>\n<p><strong>At church in Cana, Israel. A worship service in all Arabic.  This group was a part of the Christian Holyland Foundation.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2013 Sunday, January 30, 2011 \u2013 Greetings again from Tiberias, Israel! ***Click HERE to see the Israel Pics from this trip!*** What a day, our first day of touring is concluded and I&#8217;m exhausted. It was a wet day today as we experienced lots of on-off rain. But that didn&#8217;t stop us, we put on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,26,10,11,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1431"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1902,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431\/revisions\/1902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wjfuoco.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}