It has been a while since my last blog entry because we have been in Israel for the last couple of days!
We left Dahab to go and climb Mt Sinai, which has a lot of steps to get to the top!!! Getting to the top, we had the extreme realization that it was freezing up there! We even found some remaining snow on our way to the summit! 
There was a small church on the summit of the mountain and we where just in time to see the most amazing sunset! 
We left the mountain and headed straight for the border! We went through the Egyptian side quite easily, but the Israeli side was a bit more of a challenge! Many of us had to unpack all of our clothes! But we where very
happy to see the sign saying: 
We had to wait a long time for every one to pass through so we simply sat outside of the border post and relaxed! 
Israel was such a lovely surprise! It seems like a second USA! All of the public transport systems are on time, the people are in no hurry and they obey basic traffic laws!
We stayed on the roof of a hostel in the old city in Jerusalem, which was amazing! We where right across the street from David's tower, at Yaffa gate! 
We did a lot of sight seeing and met a lot of interesting people! We went to the garden tomb and saw one of the possible grave sites of Christ! This was written on the door of the tomb.
We also had a trip to Bethleim to see the birth place of Jesus. There is a huge church, but it is still special! Afterwards one of our local friends sponsored us a meal at a local shop and we had some fun with the camera to make it look like amazingly big pita breads! 
WE where also grieved when we saw the wall the Israelis had built to keep the Palestinians in their territory. It is a huge wall, similar to the wall that was demolished in Germany.
Speaking of Germany reminds me that we also visited the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. It left me speechless. I never realized the severity of the oppression by the Germans, and I still don't have the complete picture, but I realized a lot more. I was overcome with compassion
for the Jewish people who died.
Israel was a great experience! We are now back in Cairo for today, we are flying to Kuala Lumpur very late tonight. We are looking forward to the next country and the new people we will be meeting!
I just want to ask everyone who reads these blogs to never stop praying for us! We really need as much prayer as we can get, and it really works! As a testimony of the power of prayer I just want to share this short story:
One of our team members was in such a hurry to get of the bus in Jerusalem bus station, to go into the bus station and board the bus to Eilat, that he left his day bag on the bus. In his day bag was his wallet, passport, camera, etc. As the bus was leaving with other people on it he realized it. We prayed and just calmed down. One hour later the bus was back with the back pack just as he had left it!
Thank you for all the prayers!
See you in Thailand!
Janus
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