Monday means Work-day...

We arrived at Immanuel Mission late on Saturday night safe and ready for bed. We went straight to bed after unpacking and we were rested and ready for our time on the Reservation to start on Sunday morning. We woke up and went out to Green Valley for our traditional Outdoor church and communion. We found a wonderful spot (in the shade this year) to have our service.

We woke up this morning ready to go to work. We currently have four teams working offsite doing things like roofing, painting and building a shed. We also have four teams working on projects around the mission such as

cleaning out the cattle crossing, weeding, trimming trees and building a retaining wall.

We are also leading a basketball camp for the Navajo children. They are already working hard and learning lots of new skills. There are about 24 children attending and I am sure t

hat number will grow throughout the rest of the day and evening!! It should be a lot of hard work and fun for that team.

We are all very excited to get to our Kid's Club sites tonight to reunite with our Navajo families.

Thank you so much for your prayers. We can really feel God moving and motivating us to work hard for Him!!

Arizona Outreach Day 2

Hello again everyone. Glad to see so many comments on the previous post. As tradition would have it, the team dined at one of Boron's lovely rest stops for lunch yesterday in the balmy 111 degree heat The team arrived in Kingman, AZ in record time and had dinner at the church. Jason Moog led the evening devo's and surprise guest, Ryan Weber, led music. Then it was off to bed. Today a majority of the group went on one of Tim's secret errands to the Cracker Barrel at around 5am. It was a long night's sleep for Tim. Then it was time to hit the road. In Flagstaff, heavy thunderstorms awaited. Pat Brown met up with the group but the weather sort of nixed the lunch plans. Luckily Devon Dodgen's brother owns a ranch nearby so the team headed there for lunch. The group should arrive on the Reservation around 7pm tonight. Tomorrow will be a pretty laid back day as everyone recovers from the drive and adjusts to the mile-high atmosphere. On Monday the work projects and basketball camp will begin. We will try to update the blog as much as possible so keep checking back for more pictures and updates. Thanks for the comments and prayers.

Cracker Barrel (no sound for some reason???)



More driving.

A giraffe and GPS are essentials.

Some Flagstaff shots.

A mission trip essential.

Arizona Outreach 2008

Welcome to the ever-changing VBC blog. We promise we will not change the web address (URL) again. The team is on their way to Kingman and then will head to the Reservation near Four Corners tomorrow. Everyone is enjoying themselves so far and we will continue to update the blog with pictures and stories as time and internet access allow. Thank you all for praying for us!

Sarah Burns asleep on I-5.
Ashlee & Aspen's first mission trip.
Brent...can you see him?
Gotta love rest stops.
The Ton Face Cruiser.
Senioritis.

Day 12

Day 12:

Lyon's Gate

Bethesda - St. Anne's

Leaving Jerusalem....

Tomb of Samuel

Emmaus

Looking for smooth pebbles in the creek where David found his.

Last afternoon in Joppa

Goodbye Israel....

Day 11

Day 11:

The picture on the left is from the current street level (~30 ft above street level at the time of Christ)

While visiting the Temple Institute, we were shown the components of the Menorah. Spike is holding a reconstruction of the top of one of the seven candles. The actual 6 ft. version is shown on the right!

We visited the Western 'Wailing' Wall. Visitors can place their petitions to God on a small piece of paper & tuck it into a crack.The prayer area is divided into men & women sides

Below is a video clip of the Wailing wall on Shabbot. The Jewish worshipers are nicely dressed for this festive evening.

The narrow streets through the Muslim district of Jerusalem are lined with shops that display their colorful wares. This was along the Via Dolorosa.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, is one of two sites thought to be where Jesus was laid to rest.

Day 10

Day 10:

There were two Hezekiah tunnels, a wet one & a dry one.... Tim lead the Wet tunnel team! Both Teams ended up at the Pool of Siloam.

This is by the Southwest corner of Jerusalem in the Archaeological Park. Notice the impact of an earthquake on the street pavers.

Rick is sitting on the same steps that Jesus taught from. About 30 feet below the current street level the street paver stones are found where Jesus carried His cross.
We finished up the day with a visit to Abraham's Tent. It was a delightful re-enactment of what life would have been like 4000 years ago.


Day 10 Redux:

We started our day at the south end of the temple mount on the teaching steps. According to Jewish tradition this is where the “just” shall enter on Judgement Day. The Umayyads (Muslims) blocked the Hulda gate in the 8^th century to prevent such an occurrence, but I don’t think they’re accounting for the “chance” of an earthquake or some other such handiwork of God.

After a short visit, we went down into the City of David and saw the initial exploration and diggings in David’s palace. The archaeological work here is still on-going and many great finds are anticipated to shed more light on the time of David. We also saw in the Stronghold of Zion the house of Ahiel. This was a wealthy house (two-story) belonging to one of the scribes listed in Jeremiah 36:10-13. They found signs of Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Jerusalem here including arrows and royal seals made from clay (survives and even strengthens when burned) and dating to the 6^th century B.C.

We had the opportunity to go on adventure here as we descended into the water source of Jerusalem: the Gihon springs. We had the opportunity to enter the water tunnels that Hezekiah had dug to safely reach the Gihon spring which was on the outside of the city walls. Rather than extend the walls to include the spring, which would have diminished the high-ground advantage of the city, Hezekiah dug a tunnel to the spring (2 Kings 20:20). Not only that he dug it from both ends and managed to make both ends meet in the middle! Remember, he had no compass, no laser alignment, no power tools or even steel tools. The tunnel is about 1750 feet long and about 80 feet below ground. The five most adventurous among us (Tim, Cathy, Cheryl, Jayne & Colin) grabbed our flashlights and headed through the tunnel with water rushing by nearly up to our waist. The water was cool and a welcome refreshment from the hot Judean sun on the surface. We ended up at the Pool of Siloam (Jesus heals the blind man – John 9:6-7) where we met the rest of the crew who had gone the Canaanite way. There was an interesting mural here showing the Pool of Siloam with several people around the pool in the 1^st century A.D. Our guide pointed out one older boy walking with his father and a younger boy riding on his father’s shoulders. This was done to show that at that time, there was a debate amongst the Pharisees from the school of Hillel and school of Shemiah as to when a boy was able to go to the temple. One rabbi said when they were old enough to walk and the other said when they were old enough to ride on their father’s shoulders. I wonder how they decided?

In the afternoon we went into the old city through the Herod’s Gate (aka the Flower Gate, aka the Crusader’s Gate) and walked to the Struthion Pool. It was through this gate that Godfrey de Bouillon entered the city in 1099 during the First Crusade – the only crusade that captured Jerusalem. Godfrey, unlike most of his fellow crusaders, sold all his possessions in France before going on the crusade. It was his intention to stay permanently in the Holy Land. He got his wish. After he captured Jerusalem, he was invited to visit the Emir of Caesarea. He graciously accepted and enjoyed dining with the Emir. Unfortunately, he got a bad tummy-ache immediately after and died when he returned home.

But enough about the crusaders … as I said we were heading to the Struthion Pool. This is the water source inside Herod’s Apolonia fortress. Herod was a pretty smart, albeit paranoid, guy. He felt he needed his own mercenaries nearby the temple because he knew the people hated him and might try to take him out at any moment. He also knew that having a personal guard that could be besieged without water was as good as having no guard at all so he built a cistern to hold plenty of water in the fortress.

The Romans garrisoned soldiers at the Fortress and they left behind evidence of a macabre game they liked to play: the King’s Game. In this game they would choose a “king” and would pretend to follow his orders and pay homage to him for a period of time. Then the “king” would have to take his own life. The Romans realized this wasn’t such a wise idea for the soldiers to be killing themselves off so they modified the game to select prisoners to be “king”. It was a poignant reminder of the royal robe and crown and the taunting that the Roman soldiers gave our Lord.

We closed the day by returning to the temple to walk the tunnels at midnight! No, it wasn’t anything spooky or mysterious about doing it at midnight, it was just the only time we could get a reservation. We walked underneath the western wall and at one point were very close to where the Holy of Holies would have been up above. This is a highly venerated site by the Jewish people and they have set up a small prayer enclave here complete with candles and censers. We walked most of the length of the wall and stopped at a broad paved street that was being constructed at the time of the death of Herod. We saw the base of the wall go all the way down to bedrock and the amazing precision construction that Herod used with massive blocks of solid rock. Thus ended a very long but rewarding day.