Mediterranean: Galilee!

We got to spend a day in the Galilee region of Israel.

Our cruise ship docked in Haifa, 3rd largest city in Israel.

We stopped first at this cemetery to view the graves of two missionaries.  They both died, one from Typhus and one from Smallpox while they were serving their missions in Israel in the 1890's.

"It is clear that one of the important purposes of the Lord in sending these two young men on missions to Palestine was to assist in establishing the Church in the Holy Land a century later. They had not died in vain!"

(I've included the entire inspiring story at the end of this post)

This is a view of Nazareth!  

It is now the largest city in Galilee (76,000 pop.) whereas it was an unimportant hamlet of 250 people at the time of Christ.

The home where Jesus is believed to have grown up is in the area left of the dark green trees in the center of the picture.

Here we are on the Mount of Precipice, just south of Nazareth in the cliffs of Mt. Kedumim, the traditional site of the cliff that an angry mob attempted to throw Jesus off of after his bold proclamation in the Nazareth synagogue

 (Luke 4:16-30).

The site offers a panoramic view of the patchwork Jezreel Valley and Mount Tabor.  It includes the plain of Megiddo (Armageddon). This valley cuts through Israel serving as a trade route between Egypt and Assyria and so has been the site of numerous battles including a battle in the 15th Century B.C. involving Pharaoh Thutmose III and a coalition of Kadesh rulers, the battle in 609 B.C. between Egypt's army and Judah's King Josiah which is mentioned in the Bible.  Josiah reigned for 31 years and was killed in the valley of Jezreel and more recently, the battle in 1918  fought during World War I, between Allied troops led by General Edmund Allenby and the defending Ottoman Empire army.    

We stopped at the Mount of Beatitudes looking out over the Sea of Galilee.

Later at another stop we took a relaxing boat ride on the Sea of Galilee.

It was my favorite thing of the day with just our group--didn't feel rushed and crowded like we did at the other places that day.

Our lunch stop included a menu of a whole fish that is unique to the Sea of Galilee.  They always serve french fries with every meal as they think all Americans love them.  The meal started off  with pita bread and lots of fillings to choose from.

We visited Capernaum!

It is called the town of Jesus because he spent 18-20 months of his life there, performed many miracles in the area and was also the home to Peter, James, John, Andrew and Matthew.

It was a fishing village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee and had a population of about 1,500.

I like the aerial view of the town:

Views of the synagogue built in the 4th century A.D. over the original synagogue

Looking over the Byzantine ruins of the village which occupied the same area as of the early Roman houses (from the time of Jesus) to the large hexagonal building which is a Greek Orthodox church.  That site under the church is believed to be Peter's house, as verified by archaeological excavations. 

And final stop before the bus ride back to our ship at the pier:

The Jordan River.  

Perfect description from Trip Advisor:

"No Holy Land tour would be complete without a visit to the Jordan River, but be prepared for big crowds, lines and a commercialized atmosphere with gift shops full of souvenirs. A popular option is baptism in a gated section of the river."

Our group was able to secure a private spot which made it very nice.  

It was a great day in Galilee!

from:  Missionary Moment: Missionaries in Palestine

By Mark Albright · September 24, 2012

With so much unrest recently in the Middle East, it may be hard for some to believe that years ago LDS missionaries actively proselyted in the region. This is the true story of one of those rare missionaries.

Elder John Alexander Clark was born February 29, 1871, the fifth child in a family of ten, to Ezra Thompson Clark and Susan Leggette Clark, in Farmington, Utah. By the time he was 23 he was teaching school in Minersville, Utah, but he felt impressed that he needed to serve a mission. When his mission call finally arrived, he was surprised to read that he would be serving in Palestine. His parents were worried about his being called to serve in such a remote part of the world, and begged him not to go. But John firmly believed that the Lord had a special purpose in sending him to the Holy Land, and he was determined to serve where he was called by the Lord. When he arrived in the Turkey mission (via England and Germany), he was eventually assigned by his mission president to work in Haifa, about an hour north of Jerusalem.

Elder Clark’s letters from the mission field, written on parchment to his family from Haifa, Palestine, are touching.  Unfortunately, Elder Clark entered a home where the family members were sick with a contagious disease and he contracted smallpox. He died several days later at the age of 24 in Palestine. Because of the dreaded nature of the disease, he was quickly buried in a cemetery at the base of Mt. Carmel, Palestine, and his personal belongings burned.

Sadly, just three years earlier, Elder Adolph Haag of Stuttgart, Germany, died August 3, 1892 of Typhus. Elder Haag was also buried in Haifa, Palestine, now Israel. The two graves of these missionaries are located near each other in the same cemetery.

Other than beloved family members, most members of the Church would probably not know of Elder John Alexander Clark and Elder Adolph Haag, but for some interesting developments which occurred in the Holy Land in the mid-1970s. David B. Galbraith, a BYU professor, was appointed in 1972 as the resident director of BYU’s Study Abroad program in Israel. He was also called that same year to serve as the first branch president of the Church in Jerusalem. In these assignments, he oversaw the experience of thousands of students who came to the Holy Land through BYU.

In the mid-1970s, the Church determined that it should seek formal recognition by the government of Israel as a church legal entity with certain legal rights, including the right to be a land owner and to have certain banking privileges (to deal with large sums of money). The Church was interested in acquiring some land for the construction of the BYU Jerusalem Center, and needed to obtain this formal recognition.

There were only five old non-Jewish religions that were recognized in Israel at the time: the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, Armani, Baha’i, and the Anglican Church. These entities were of course not interested in having a new upstart Christian religion, particularly one from America, working their way into this elite group. The Baptists and others had already tried and failed previously. The Church’s local attorney in Israel explained that the Church would likely never attain to the status of the original five, whose presence predated the State of Israel, unless the Church could show a similar, official presence existing in the Holy Land dating back before Israel’s establishment in the year 1948.

The Church’s efforts to construct a building for near-eastern studies in the Holy Land were met with great resistance. The Jewish leaders argued that the LDS Church should not be allowed to construct a building on the selected site when it had never had a presence in the Holy Land previously. It seemed as if nobody wanted the Church to be established in Jerusalem.

But then an important miracle occurred. It was discovered that two Mormon missionaries were buried in a cemetery in Haifa. They had died while establishing the LDS Church in the Holy Land some 90 years earlier, in 1892 and 1895, respectively. The inscription on Elder Clark’s headstone made it very clear who he represented.

Elder Haag’s inscription on his nearby tombstone said essentially the same thing (in German). Although there had also been a mission home in Haifa before the establishment of the State of Israel, the real property records did not indicate that it had been purchased outright by the Church. Professor David Galbraith points out in his article entitled: “The Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies: Reflections of a Modern Pioneer,” The Religious Educator Vol. 9, No. 1, 2008, “Even though the street and the very building could be located, there was no evidence of any documents that the Church had owned the land outright.” Nevertheless, based significantly on the fact that the Church’s two missionaries’ headstones confirmed the existence of the Church in the Holy Land in the 1890s, the Articles of Association sailed right through the complex approval process without complication.

Although the Church did not acquire the same exact legal status as the original five churches, the Church had miraculously satisfied the requirements of Israeli law for a modern association as a legal entity. This meant that it had all the legal rights associated under Israel law, which included the right to own land and conduct banking business. The Articles of Association were approved on June 16, 1977. Later another Israeli attorney, Joseph Kokia, was retained to successfully guide BYU through the same political minefield in establishing its own legal status in Israel.

The two LDS missionaries served as witnesses for truth, making it possible for the Church to establish a learning center in Jerusalem almost a century after their deaths. This beautiful center has blessed not only the lives of thousands of BYU students, facility and members of the Church who have visited the center, but thousands of local residents who have visited the Jerusalem Center for countless lectures and concerts.