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Israel and Jordan 1998

Trip to Israel and Jordan for the Feast of Tabernacles 1998

Part 6

Tuesday 13 October — Time to pack to leave the hotel in Tiberias and head for Tel Aviv. Most people will be flying home tonite, but myself and fellow Englishman Paul will stay the night at the youth hostel we stayed in when we first arrived. And of course some were going on the extended tour to Egypt.

Baptismal place at the Jordan River, where one member of the Church was baptised during the Feast First stop today was Yardenit, the baptismal place at the Jordan River. Here one woman was baptised earlier in the Feast, now we all got a chance to see the place. Some waded in the water and got their feet baptised, I just baptised my fingers, as did some others. It was a very beautiful and peaceful place, I do not know how many people have been baptised here, but I know that many have. And across the river is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. I was surprised at how narrow the Jordan River is, whenever I read about it in the Bible I thought it was similar to the River Thames in London, but it is more like a stream.

After our visit to Yardenit, we travelled on to a Mövenpick restaurant for lunch, it was a bit chaotic in there with 3 bus-loads of people turning up at once, in addition to regular visitors and others passing through. Then off to Megiddom, where we saw some of the ruins there, saw the excellent views of the surrounding plains and the Jezreel Valley. This is the place where the armies of the world will gather in the end times to do battle with the returning Messiah (Revelation 16:16 – “And they gathered them together at the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon.” Not to be confused with the movie called Armageddon.

Sharon dips her fingers in the Jordan Then we stopped at Caesarea, a former Roman town, it’s by the coast and today in view of 4 tall chimneys of the nearby power station. The beach was romantic, so long as one does not look towards the power station, and near the sea front three weddings had just taken place and the happy couples were being photographed. We toured the ruins. The place is mentioned in Acts 10:24, when the apostle Peter was given a vision by God to go and baptise a Gentile called Cornelius who lived in Caesarea. We may even have walked through the ruins of the house of Cornelius, where Peter also had been.

Next stop was an amphitheater that had been partially rebuilt and was in current use. Here also we left those who were going to Egpyt, said our goodbyes as they departed on a separate bus and drove away.

Those who remained were driven to a restaurant called Picasso, in the outskirts of Tel Aviv, where we had pasta and free drinks (wine and beer). Here I said goodbye to all the Americans, because after this place Paul and I were off to the youth hostel and the rest off to the airport, apart from 4 who were going to stay in a hotel somewhere. This was the saddest part, saying goodbye to the friends I had met (although some had already gone to Egypt earlier). It was finally over, the tour was ended, it was time to depart, not long now till we would all be back home, back to reality, back to our normal routines, no longer touring the exciting and wonderful biblical lands which had brought so much of the Bible to life and made us very grateful for the time we had spent together as a group on this Feast of Tabernalces tour in October 1998.

Heather and mum Ellen baptise their feet in the Jordan at Yardenit Back to the youth hostel, booked in, paid our shekels for the night’s stay, and said hello to the other two guys sharing the room. In the morning we got ready, had breakfast (nowhere near as good as the four-star hotels we had stayed in for the past 11 days) and departed to catch the number 222 bus to the airport.

Although I had wanted the tour to carry on, I had really enjoyed it and the new “life-style” as it were, there was no way anyone could really continue it, lack of finances, we would get bored eventually and we need to get on with our “real” lives.

Anyway, at the airport when we tried to check in it was a case of being asked a thousand questions by security officials at the airport, having our baggage thoroughly and intimately searched and hence a long wait to get into the departure lounge. The flight home was okay without problem, and arriving back in England at Gatwick airport was rather strange after where we had been. But, time to get home, get the photos developed and then make this web site and put this text and various photographs on here and hope that those who view it find it interesting or stimulating some good memories for those who were there.

Baby Sierra (taken by someone else on the tour) To those who were there, thanks for visiting my site, I look forward to seeing you all again sometime, I miss you all. If you spotted any errors in the text, please email me. If you thought I should have added something, then let me know and I might put it in if it is relevant and appropriate.