Had another great day! We went to Caesarea today and saw Excavated ruins of Herod’s Palace and the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. Our guide showed us where Felix would have stood as he questioned Paul. It is such a huge structure! Then we saw the Hippodrome where Herod held Chariot races. Very cool!

Our last day in Jerusalem and I don’t know if I can describe what we have seen and felt. Our first day was spent at the Temple walls exploring the places that have been excavated. I am amazed at how God gave Herod such an incredible mind. The things he designed were really unbelievable. The temple he built was so incredible in size and beauty! You cannot appreciate the size until you see the foundation. We went to the Western Wall where the Jewish people go to pray. I learned that they are offended by the term Wailing Wall. (That is all I have ever heard but now I know better!) It was so sad that they are not able to worship at their most Sacred Site in their own country. I was heartbroken over the fact that so many people that are truly devoted to God are so blind to the fact that their Messiah has already come. The next day we visited the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. Some of the Olive trees in that Garden have been dated over 2000 yrs old. Some that I looked at would have been there when Jesus was there! We were able to go to an area and have prayer, read scripture and sing praise songs. There were several groups from around the world there that were also doing the same thing. It was such a blessing to hear Jesus praised in so many languages and worship styles. Like Heaven, maybe! I just closed my eyes and enjoyed the praise songs and as many of the songs were the same tunes, I sang in my heart with them in my language.

         This morning as we were getting ready to leave in the hotel lobby, there were several other groups getting ready to leave as well. There was this one group of men with a guitar player with them and they were singing in the lobby. They were singing really well and with a lot of gusto! The words were unfamiliar but many of the tunes were either hymns or worship songs popular in the 80’s! It was so fun listening to them. I asked them where they were from and they were Gypsies from France. So nice and a lot of fun! On our first night in Jerusalem, we went walking in the city. I always felt very safe, of course being with a group, but also there were tons of young adults walking about, shopping or waiting to catch a bus. We went to a shopping area that was like a cleaned-up New Orleans in that there were people everywhere with booths or singing for money. We heard some Modern Praise music and went to see who it was and I met a group of students from California that were studying at Hebrew University. They said that they came down there every Saturday night at the end of Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath) and would play and sing. Lots of people stopped to listen and sing along. As I was standing there, I saw a couple of young women singing with them in English and as we caught each other’s eyes we smiled knowing we shared the same faith! I went to them after the songs and found out they were from South Africa and we had a very sweet time of fellowship.

         The last place we visited was Golgotha and the empty Tomb. Many of the sites in Jerusalem were more traditional sites rather than really the actual places. But some of them had archeological evidence to back up their claims and the garden tomb was one of them. On the Via Delarosa (way of suffering) I was very disappointed because it had become so Catholic and commercial that It lost so much of the real sense of where you were. So when we got to the tomb and it was very much like it would have been in Jesus’ day, I was very happy. The guide showed us the hill that looks like a skull called Golgotha. Then we saw the garden and the tomb that they had recently unearthed and it was just like they found it only cleaned out. I have to say that that was by far the most emotional I have been over here. I started crying when we were looking at the tomb and then we had The Lord’s Supper together while in the garden. All around us we heard singing in every language imaginable and my heart was full. Amazing!

After a very looong 12 hour flight, we are back in the
States. I love that when you come through customs, they say “Welcome home, Mrs. Cox”. I am very happy to be home in America but I will never forget my time in the Holy land. When I try to think of what my favorite thing was that we did, I remember standing at the garden tomb and hearing one of the pastors with us saying “This changed everything” and I could say it no better. The Resurrection changed the world and my life and I am so grateful for a Savior who loved me enough to suffer and die for my sins. Halleluiah!