Ash Wednesday - Day 1 In Israel

“Welcome to Israel!” The lovely lady welcomed us with boxes of wonderful chocolates! Nope that’s not normal… it was to make up for all that we’d been through! Our plane had been stuck in New York for 7 hours, while we waited for -- off all things! – a new engine for our plane! We’d been on that plane for 17 hours by the time we got there… We’d missed any chance to shop in Tel Aviv and we wouldn’t have time to see the salt/rock “statue” that used to be Lot’s wife. Instead, we were heading straight to our hotel in Bethlehem.

Bethlehem at night had seemed to be a small city with one main street and, when we headed out in the morning, it looked pretty much the same. But just beyond the houses the land was more like I’d imagined…

Yes, these are two children, playing in a jeep parked on a very steep hill!

We drove past The Church of the Wise Men and Leo, our guide, told us the story of the Three Wise Men, whom the Jewish community believes all came together, from Persia.  They slept in a cave after seeing the Christ child, which was when they decided to return home a different way.  The church marks the spot where the cave was.

We thought our next stop would be to see where Jesus was born, but after a short delay, we were off to the Jordan river, where Jesus was baptized….