1st stop= Jaffa/ Joppa

After too many hours in flight, restless legs, and nasty airplane food, we landed in Tel-Aviv, Israel.

(Isn't the Israel airport gorgeous?!) 

Our bus sat waiting outside for the fabulous Red Group!  Coby, our tour guide- or better known as "the encyclopedia", was also waiting with a rose for every single person on our bus!  What a warm welcome!  There were 140 people total, but we split into 3 buses.  While most of our time was spent with our bus groups, we met up with the other buses for most meals and one site each day.   

The very first stop in Israel was on our way to the hotel from the Airport.  

The town of Jaffa, in Hebrew, or Joppa, as transliteration from Greek, is an ancient port-city believed to be one of the oldest in the world.  Jaffa is now a part of Tel Aviv, Israel.

This ancient city is where Jonah set sail to Tarshish in an effort to run from the Lord and where Peter stayed with Simon the tanner.  Peter raised Dorcas, also known as Tabitha, from the dead in this town.  Also in Acts 11, Peter shares of a strange vision he received while praying in Joppa.  And it was because of this vision from the Lord, Peter realized the Gospel was for not only the Jews, but also for us... Gentiles.

{here} is a link to the Joppa references in the Bible

 

 

I should stop here for a moment and make it known that any information I share about Israel or certain sites... I learned from Coby or one of the other wise leaders from the trip. 

Below is St. Peter's Church, a Franciscan church, built in Jaffa during the late 1800's on top of the ruins of several other churches dating back to the 1600's.

I could have stayed here all day.  The architecture was beautiful and the splashes of turquoise, so unique.  Glad I didn't stay here though... this was just the beginning of beautiful Israel. 

The view of the Mediterranean Sea from Jaffa:

 

Somehow we can find flea markets and sales no matter what country we are in :)

Check out the YouTube videos from my dad:
Video 1 {here}
Video 2 {here}

Stayed tuned... much more to come!