Final Day in Israel (boo hoo)

What a trip this has been! Last full day. I think it's gonna be a good one. Then we fly out around midnight.

The food here has been fantastic. I've been very disciplined. Ok, the passion fruit and mango sherbets demanded multiple tastings multiple times. But other than that, I've followed a John the Baptist diet--minus the locusts. Well, maybe it was the King Herod diet. Who knows what it's called, but it sure tasted good.





I probably shouldn't share this, being a pastor and all that, but put this under the category of real life in Israel. My room mate, Tom is a retired army colonel chaplain. Great guy, real jokester. He's a vegetarian, which has an upside and a distinct downside when certain veges are consumed in large quantities. When, in the middle of the night, he broke wind, I thought it was the call of the shofar ram's horn summoning soldiers to the walls for battle.

Here he is in front of Elijah's statue, Mount Carmel.

Mt Carmel & The Valley of Megiddo

Then to Mount Carmel, where Elijah and his God had the famous showdown with Baal and his flunkies (that's Elijah with the knife, in case there's any confusion). I seem to recall Elijah saying something about toilets, but that was before Herod's time so we know that Baal did not use the one featured in the last post.

The challenge was made up on the mountain where a beautiful monastery now sits. "Let the competition begin!" Wow, to think it all happened, actually happened, right here. Kind of fitting, really since Mt Carmel overlooks the gorgeous, huge Jezreel Valley, the valley of Har Megiddo or Armageddon, where God's decisive end-time battle will be fought, and won.

As we are gazing on this awesome piece of real estate, F16s take off from a military runway we can see far in the distance. Our guide tells us that there are two in the air 24/7. Not that long ago the President of Iran was just north of here at the border with Lebanon, threatening again to push the jews into the sea.