Sunday, June 25th, 2017

At 5:45 am, over the mountain tops, soft shades of orange and yellow cover the sky. A bright light soon peaks out from the top and pours sunshine onto the earth as Archie Brallier, my mom (Angela Miller) and I (Gina Miller), stood at the shore of the Sea of Galilee looking for shells.
Though I am not big on waking up early, the best way to start "another perfect day in Israel", as our guide Eres would say every morning on the tour bus, was to be at the place where Jesus had walked, watch God paint the sky and feel the presence of the Lord.


In the morning it was really hot and continued to heat up throughout the day with the high being 110 degrees. Our first stop was the Roman city of Beit She'an where we saw all kinds of ruins of what used to be old buildings, temples and theaters. You could tell it was a Roman city because of the way it was. Just kidding. The architecture contained lots of arches, columns and mosaic roads.
The coolest part of visiting this site was when we got to climb Mount Gilboa. From the bottom looking up and considering how hot it was, I had no idea how we were going to climb all those steps, but we pushed through and were rewarded greatly. The view was breathtaking and helped bring the city we just walked together. It's really fun to have moments like this when things start to click in your brain and you can take what you've learned and have a real life picture to go along with it.



The next stop was the Jordan, the messier part of the Jordan. The water was drastically more foggy, dirty and smelly than we had witnessed the day before because it was farther along from the flow of the Sea of Galilee. From where we stood, we could see people on the other side of the river who were in the country of Jordan. The river was the boarder of the two countries.

Jericho was the next place we stopped at and we reflected on the story of when the devil tempted Jesus for 40 days and lead him to the highest point on the Mount of Temptation.
Shortly after we talked about the site, we were greeted by a young man who was selling Keffiyehs. He was clearly excited about his job and really hoping for new costumers. He wanted us to try them on so he began wrapping the scarf around my head, which caught me by surprise. Exclaiming how beautiful the scarf was, he insisted that I needed to get it. Lindsey Kauffman was his next potential customer so obviously he continued by wrapping a new scarf around her head and announced how nice it looked, then repeated the process with Archie. Bundled up in fancy scarves, we asked him how much they were and he gave us the price. We weren't convinced that we needed them so we politely didn't accept and tried to walk back to the bus. The guy insisted that we buy them and he even gave us a special price. We were still unsure but he didn't want us to leave empty handed. He leaned over before we walked away, looked up at the rest of his family who owned the market, looked back and whispered a better offer. To seal the deal we chatted with him for a bit. He was very pumped to find out we were from the United States because he explained to us that he used to live in Los Angeles and he was working to raise money to go back and visit. He was a believable 15 years old, however, told us his name was Michael Jackson. Laughing, we headed back to the bus. Before we could leave, Michael thanked us and told us if we spread the word to everyone one the bus, they could buy for a good price as well. A couple people from our group also bought one and he wrapped it around their heads for them just as he did for us. Finally, to thank us for the free advertisement, I think, he gave me and Lindsey mango smoothies on the house. Driving away with our new accessories we waved goodbye to Mr. Jackson and sipped our smoothies with big smiles.


Everyday and probably every meal in Israel, I've tried a new thing. As I walked into dinner, a few people were already there munching on exotic foods. Archie told me, whatever you get, you have to try the cow tongue. She insisted that is was really good and that I shouldn't be scared. Being brave and having Elias Uecker trying it with me, I scooped up a long and flat piece of meat thinking there was no way I would be able to eat it. We tried it as well as my mom and Kara Hershley ate it only to find out that it wasn't so bad after all. Besides the weird texture and that I couldn't get out of my head the realization that I just ate a tongue, it was pretty tasty.
I love how this trip has pushed me out of my comfort zone and that I am able to experience so many new things in the place where people from the bible had been long before me.

- Gina Miller