Israel...here we come...actually, here we are! (Day 1&2)

Before we start in on Israel Trip Days 1 & 2, we wanted to start out by showing you Israel in comparison to CA. Here is this image below. Wow! Small! Yet such a significant place. We are in Israel, Yahoo!!!

•

Day 1: Traveling and Tel Aviv

•

Whew, we made it! It was a long journey (not just the long flight over!). Getting all of the architecture projects completed was grueling and many all-nighters in a row. Here is one of the all-nighter projects when finished. Pretty impressive. (agree with us, it will make us feel better about the countless hours put into this!) : ) We ended up driving down to the LA hotel at 3am getting there after 5:45 and Donna was able to finish up some projects as well before the rest of the Israel team woke up and met us in the lobby! From there we went to LAX and took a flight over to Atlanta, Georgia then off for the long flight to Israel. (No pictures from this part of the journey...we were exhausted!) Well, we did take a couple pictures of the last meal we would have in the US. This is the cheesy burger, the item on the top of the burger is indeed cheese, fried and breaded! Here is a picture of Corey with a big bite of the burger in his mouth...he is happy! (the stickers on him are remnants of Donna spending the entire flight to Georgia labeling Christmas cards, and she wanted some entertainment) We arrived in Israel safely, though, for the safety of Israel, both Corey and Ben were pulled over after gathering their baggage, just to make sure! We ate and then went out for a walk so that we could try to get more onto Israel time. (Israel is 10 hours ahead of CA time). Bethany, Donna, and Corey are raring to go for a nice Tel Aviv walk! We strolled around Tel Aviv for a little while. Below is a picture of the city as well as our little group (there are 8 of us all together). We saw an interesting sight... exercise equipment that resembled a children's playground. The bright colors lured us in and we had to see if "exercising was fun". Corey tried the spin bike (if only he would do spin with Donna at the gym!).Donna tried the arm machine (whatever this thing is called). When you press the bars together, you lift yourself up. Much of the equipment is based on pulling your own weight! Donna was concentrating hard, as you can see below.We were all pretty exhausted (and full from dinner) but who can pass up Gelato? Not Donna! Here she is, running at the speed of light to get to the shop (no, it is not just a blurred shot because Corey was moving the camera, donna was going REALLY fast, at least at a pace of 15mph, ha!) We all got some nice sleep that night, and much needed! • Day 2: SHABBAT (Sabbath, Saturday)

• So Donna was a little late getting down to breakfast (finishing up last minute grading for the end of the quarter) and she had to catch the elevator down to the restaurant. When it went up a flight when it was supposed to go down, and then was opening on every floor no matter how many or how hard Donna pressed the buttons. Well, she finally realized that she was on the Shabbat elevator and decided to take the stairs. Everyone got quite a laugh when they found that out. Below is an image of the Shabbat elevator and typical signs that it has (well, this is not the one at the hotel because it only had hebrew and Donna had no clue what was going on!!) Donna was hearing all the beeping sounds but just kept pressing!  We joined up with the Calvary Chapel in Tel Aviv for a sabbath worship service. It was great! Here is our tour guide, Ronnie, "playing" the keys and showing a nice cheesy grin as all the sound equipment was getting EQed. What a ham! Donna was able to join the worship team (which ended up being 5 women singing and Tonye on guitar!). After that we grabbed a bite to eat at a fast food burger place. When the price came up for the two burgers and one order of fries and a drink at 71.00 we flipped! A shekel is almost 4 for a dollar, so you do the math! It was expensive!! We were later told that Tel Aviv is one of the most expensive cities in the world (we believe it!). After eating we were ready to hit the streets and have an outreach with music, but it started to rain, hard. So we changed the outreach to an "in"reach and had a worship session with the church and some students from the bible college out here. It was refreshing! Hitting the road after a nice time of worship, we headed to Galilee, where we will be staying for 5 nights. Corey couldn't resist taking this random picture out of the bus. I wonder what he is contemplating? I wonder what the lady next to him is contemplating—it doesn't seem like she is much of a conversationalist (looks a little cold to me). Our drive flew by (as many of us slept to the background of Ronnie telling stories). Corey said it was much like vivid dreams being narrated! Here we are now, in Galilee for a time of retreat! Galilee is just a few steps away from the Hotel, so we walked out there before heading in for the evening. Along the walk we came across a little friend (or little gross thing, depending on who you talk to!). Tonye bonded with it and didn't squeeze it hard enough to frighten it to wetting itself thankfully! The sea was calm and such a nice time to sit and pray at the end of the dock as we looked out onto the sea where Jesus walked on water! On the way back to the hotel we got a picture of Corey "being" the guitar. He makes a pretty handsome guitar! (Corey wrote this about himself... ok, just joking, Donna wrote this—go figure!) Right outside our rooms and throughout the grounds are little swallows (so I think), they are adorable! Here is a picture of two lovey birds kissing (Donna made Corey take this picture) Here is a picture showing the area where we are blogging to you right now! (we are now sitting in the chairs on the right. Of course in this picture we are just heading in--that is Donna on the left). Now you can feel as if you are here with us! As we are blogging and looking at the time, it is 2pm for you on Saturday and 12:00am for us, time for bed! -- There is MUCH more to come! Stay tuned!