Back to the travelogue of our June trip… our tenth day in Israel was a Sunday. We were staying in the Olive Tree Hotel in Jerusalem, not far from the old city.

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We went first to the Mount of Olives. Near where the bus let us off we saw a room full of ossuaries, the boxes where they would put the bones of the dead. We walked down to the Dominus Flevit church, traditional site where Jesus was to have wept over Jerusalem. Along the way we saw groups carrying palm branches, re-enacting the triumphal entry. The altar of the Dominus Flevit building has an image of a chicken gathering chicks under her wing; worshippers see the temple mount and the city behind the altar.

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I was surprised to see how close the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane were to the Temple Mount. Hadn’t realized how the temple would have dominated your view while there.

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From there we made our way to Gethsemane and the Church of All Nations (Church of the Agony), built on the traditional site where Jesus was to have prayed in the garden. There is a large stone inside that is the focal point of the church.

One of my favorite things came next. We had reserved a private part of the garden for our Sunday service. It was a garden mainly of olive trees, looking much the way Gethsemane would have looked when Christ was there. It was very moving to take the Lord’s Supper in that place.

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Next we went to the Israel Museum and the Shrine of the Book. We were able to visit with Dr. Adolfo Roitman, who is the curator of the Shrine of the Book and the Dead Sea Scrolls that are housed there. He is Argentine and was able to visit with our group in English and Spanish. I got to interview Dr. Roitman in Spanish for the radio program that I do.

We couldn’t take pictures inside, but the documents housed there are very interesting. The highlight, of course, was seeing some of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were on display.