Blog

Reflections on Israel Trip

Back in September, CHRI celebrated its annual "Sharathon". An on-air fundraiser for the station with some pretty awesome prizes! Including the grand prize, a trip to Israel with Insight for Living's Chuck Swindoll - can you imagine?! Our very blessed prize winners, Bev & Chuck, recently returned from their jaunt to the Holy Land. Bev scaled down her 1,200+ photos to these few to help capture the once in a lifetime experience. 

We feel incredibly blessed to have experienced the Holy Land with Chuck Swindoll and Insight for Living Ministries, and especially so that it was through the unbelievable generosity of a fellow listener. Seeing biblical history unfold before our eyes will impact us forever.

An obvious highlight for us is one that is common to any tour of the Holy Land – being able to see and experience the geography of lands where the Old Testament stories took place, where Jesus walked, and where the apostles carried on his ministry. We were surprised that Israel is only two-thirds the size of Vancouver Island. There will most definitely be new meaning and insights into the geography of Israel when reading through the bible in the future. Case in point, when reading in the book of Ezra this morning, mention was made of the port of Joppa, a city we strolled through, where the timber for the second temple was delivered to. The map for the chapter in Ezra showed Judah in the time of Persia and included the Dead Sea (we floated in it), the Jordan River (we had many sightings of it), and Jericho (had a tour of it). The study bible map of Jerusalem at the time of Zerubbabel showed the Temple Mount (size of 12 soccer fields), the Dung Gate (walked through it), and Hezekiah’s tunnel (we waded the length of it). The bible will never be the same as each of the places mentioned in Israel will come to life in a wonderful new way!

The unexpected highlight, and the biggest highlight of the trip, is more unique to the Insight for Living tour with Dr. Chuck Swindoll. We were given lots of materials ahead of time that we reviewed each night before seeing the sites – both descriptions of geography, and references in our bibles to some of the events that took place there. This was the head knowledge part. It was the practical and insightful communication of biblical truths and life applications throughout our days that hit us right in our hearts. This came through the many practical and pertinent sermons of Chuck Swindoll, the 25 or so strategic talks scattered throughout key locations and delivered by our gifted and energetic Canadian bus bible teacher Dave Currie (each one geared to personal application), several dramatic presentations of bible characters (such as hearing in person from the boy – now elderly - with the loaves and fishes while on the Mount of Beatitudes), and timely songs from David Phelps (such as belting out “He Arose!” just after the 600 of us had communion at the Garden Tomb). Our Canadian bus (one of twelve!) was particularly blessed to have Tisha, a Christian Israeli from California, as our tour guide (and our always grinning bus driver, Odie, became a Christian through an earlier Insight for Living Tour). Tisha was super passionate for the Lord, bubbly, joyful and laughed continually – and was a wealth of information on Israel and the bible. A couple of examples from one of our stops was at Caesarea. Tisha spoke about the murex snail that washed up on the shores of the Mediterranean from which the Jewish people extracted a blue dye used for the prayer shawl. Inexplicably, the snail stopped washing up on the shores in AD 70, the exact year the second temple was destroyed. Then, in 1948, the snail began to wash up on the shores again, the year Israel became a nation! At first, they couldn’t figure out how to get the blue dye out and then realized it through exposure to the sun (the Son!). God’s providence is truly amazing, isn’t it?!! Also standing on the shores of Caesarea, Tisha told us of the account of Pontius Pilate allowing desecration of Mosaic law and so 5000 Jews marched from Jerusalem to Caesarea to express their sorrow. Upon arriving, to the amazement of Pontius Pilate, they stood silently for a few days, not moving or speaking. As they prepared for their execution, they not only did not protest, but they willingly leaned back to expose their necks to be slit. Pontius Pilate was both amazed and touched by their strong convictions. He not only relented and spared their lives but he also removed the images causing the desecration. This would have been in his memory as he lobbied for the release of Jesus prior to his crucifixion. Am I as passionate about my faith as these Jews were? These are two examples from ten minutes – imagine the blessing we had from eleven days of teaching!!

Here’s one funny anecdote. We were extremely impressed with Inspiration Travel and were incredulous at how smoothly everything was run. It was a sight to behold. We did, however, have a suspicion before we left Ottawa that Inspiration Travel is not overly accustomed to having “grand prize winners” receive free trips. When Inspiration Travel staff warmly greeted us and gave us our room key upon our arrival at the hotel in Tel Aviv, we were a little amused that we were not only invited to the welcoming reception dinner at 7:30 pm that evening but we were also given details about the 4:30 pm staff meeting that we’d be attending. “Ummm… we`re not staff!” It is worth noting that each of the three hotels were top notch and the sumptuous spreads on the buffet food lines were truly unbelievable. When Tisha, our tour guide, was handing out the room keys in Jerusalem and explaining how to get to our rooms, she was a little confused that our room (and hence our elevator) was not with everyone else’s but, rather, was in the brand new part of the hotel. Turns out we were in the penthouse suite (one of twelve rooms on the ninth floor) and in plain view of the room of Chuck and Cynthia Swindoll. And yes, we can assure you that Chuck is incredibly funny and witty and personable in person!

We are forever changed. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! :)
Chuck and Bev Frankish

PHOTO CAPTIONS

• Shores of Joppa with the city of Tel Aviv in the background. Joppa is where the timber for the temples was delivered, the location from where Jonah tried to flee, and where Simon the Tanner lived and thus where the gospel was opened to the Gentiles)
• Herod Agrippa II boasting of his achievements.
• Our bus shepherd, Steve Johnson, Executive Director for Insight for Living Canada, proudly wearing his CHRI t-shirt.
• Port city of Caesarea. Seat of Roman government for over 500 years. Home of Cornelius. Paul in prison here for two years.
• Teaching from the top of Mount Carmel where Elijah had his contest with the prophets of Baal. Below is where the battle of Armageddon will take place.
• We could see the sunrise on the Sea of Galilee from our hotel room in Tiberias.
• Steven searching for a rock on the shore of the Sea of Galilee at Capernaum, home base of Jesus` ministry, and where he called Peter, Andrew, James and John to be apostles. We each dropped a rock into the Sea of Galilee from our boat to represent something we wanted to give over to God.
• Chuck Swindoll speaking to us at the Mount of the Beatitudes on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee.
• Nazareth Village.
• Three brothers, among eleven from our bus, who were baptized in the Sea of Galilee.
• Sunset view of one of our six boats (all were tied together for our reflections together) showing the traditional site of the cliff where Jesus was tempted to jump from.
• Herd of sheep in the Judean desert.
• A camel outside the city of Jericho.
• A 50:1 scale model of the temple and the city of Jerusalem in AD 66.
• Chuck (with Cynthia in green) signing a very dog-eared book. He asked if she had dragged it behind her car!
• Typical day including our evening tours.
• Traditional site of Jesus` baptism. The Jordanian guards are literally a stone`s throw away on the other side of the Jordan River.
• En Gedi, and the presumed site of the cave where David and his men hid from Saul.
• Floating in the Dead Sea.
• Western Wall (men on left, women on right) with new excavations in forefront.
• Map of Israel with roads highlighted
• Sunday morning service on the Southern Steps (where Simeon met baby Jesus, and where Jesus would have taught)

Tweet

• Prev
• Next