Gethsemane

we had the afternoon free today after some meetings this morning. a bunch of us walked down to the marketplace and found a burger place! the hamburger i ordered was as big as my head i think, and came with onion rings or fries and a beverage. i ordered the onion rings, at least once on this trip i need to have onion breath, right? it cost me 55 shekels, which is roughly 13 or 14 dollars, but it was worth every shekel. not as good as the burgers at home, but when all you've been eating is chicken, lamb, falafel, or schwerma for over a week, it tasted like heaven!
after lunch, we walked to lion gate and traveled down across the kidron valley up to the mount of olives and the garden of gethsemane. there is a beautiful church there that i'm sure we will tour when we make our group visit, but we opted to walk the grounds and enjoy the garden. it was beautiful, even though it was a cloudy day, and i enjoy the peace of the place immensely. i have to brag here, because i hiked up to nearly the top of the mount of olives, which presented me with a beautiful view of the kidron valley, the garden, and old jerusalem, looking upon the golden gate, which Jesus is supposed to enter through when he returns. the muslims have bricked it shut though, like that's gonna stop him! lol.
some of the trees there are over 2000 years old, which means i was looking at trees that were there when Christ was, how amazing is that? we had a wonderful experience when we met the gardener who is in charge of caring for the old olive trees within the fenced in area, the really old ones. we visited with him for quite awhile and he told us how he cares for the garden and the trees. he was kind enough to offer to take our cameras inside the fenced in area and take pictures of the oldest tree from inside, AWESOME!! he is a palestinian christian, whose father used to be the gardener before him. he is not married, (it would cost him 10,000 dollars in dowry to get a wife), so he has no son yet to carry on his profession. that was sad to hear about. now i know why the young men are offering me 40 camels for my daughters! i'm holding out for 75 camels girls, so don't worry yet, you have to haggle a bit to get the price you want.
all in all, it's been a very good day and i end it with sore feet after about six miles of hiking and a full heart after being able to pray where my Lord did before his death. powerful.
God bless you all.
five days until i come home, but who's counting?!
shalom,
jan