Sunday 20 January 2020—Haifa, Israel

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It is odd, after being a Christian and a church-type for so many years, to wake up on the Sabbath and physically travel to places like Nazareth and Galilee. We awoke rather early today and caught a bus to Nazareth. There we got a look at the Basilica of the Annunciation which experts repute to be the largest church in the Middle East.

The Basilica of the Annunciation may well be that, but we saw much larger basilicas in both Lisbon and Messina earlier this week. We also visited the Mount of the Beatitudes (Sermon on the Mount), the church of the Multiplication (fishes and loaves), and finally the “exact” place where John the Baptizer baptized Jesus.

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Later, we dined for lunch at a kibbutz. I’m not sure what everything we ate was—but it was irrefutably good. I have not seen much b-b-que around here, but maybe in the future.  A lady serving food told me they rarely have people ask for pork ribs!! (Note from the editor, Neil, this never actually happened).

As you can imagine, security is superabundant here in Israel and I am worn-out from taking my belt off and putting it back all the while being told to “move it along.” We disembarked in Haifa this morning in the rain and discovered that Haifa is Israel’s third largest city. It is a large industrial center. I was surprised we did not see more signs in English. There are some, but for the most part they are all in Hebrew—which one would expect. I also saw a lot of Russian, Macedonian, and Greek script here and there on our trip today.

By far the best part of the day—and of our trip so far—was going to Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee. In the city of Capernaum, we saw the “exact” place where Jesus preached in the Capernaum synagogue. We also walked down to the edge of the Sea of Galilee and saw the “exact” place that Jesus called the first disciples, Simon Peter and Andrew (Matthew 4:18-20). Interestingly, because of earthquakes and war, many of the earliest churches had collapsed and then built over. During the last say seventy years, a lot of work has been done to uncover the original and ancient structures. At the same time more modern churches—with the same names—have been built on top of the originals and used for modern worship. Thus, we saw some superb architecture both ancient and modern.

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Tomorrow we head to Jerusalem.

From your friends,

Neil and David