On January 8 twelve people from First Covenant in Rockford will be leaving for an 11 day trip to Israel. Please keep us in your prayers and check this blog for updates on the trip.
Darla

Greetings from Bethlehem!
Our flights were great and we made our connection in London with no problem. Our van driver met us in the airport. He drove us through Jerusalem and through the checkpoint into Bethlehem. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner of rice and lamb, yogurt, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and pita bread. We were excited to […]

Just a quick note about last night.  After dinner we were taken on a walking tour of Bethlehem by three American young people who live here.  It was amazing to think we are walking around Bethlehem!  They took us to the wall separating the Palestinians. There are a lot of writings and pictures on the […]

Wow… what a full day we have had.
We began with a very interesting talk by the Dean of Bethlehem Bible College (BBC). He gave us a tour of their facility with a lot of good information. It is amazing what they are doing in this area not only through the students, but in helping the […]

Greetings from Israel!
We have just finished another FULL day. It began with a van ride to Jerusalem to the office of Salim, the man who has helped in making our schedule. We met with a Jewish man who talked to us about the delicate balance here and his opinion of the reason for conflict.
We then […]

It is early Saturday morning.
Just wanted to respond to a question about what we are eating. Most of our meals are eaten here at BBC. For breakfast we have pita bread, cereal, hard boiled eggs, coffee and OJ. For lunch we have had tuna salad sandwiches, tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles and cookies. For supper we have […]

Help!
Our brains are totally saturated and I can’t tell you what is happening in our hearts.
We began this morning with a lecture from a Muslim gentleman on the definition of Islam. We then boarded a van and spent the day touring Bethlehem. We went to the mountain where King Herod built a fortress and they […]

We just returned home from an all day trip through the beautiful hills of Israel.
We left this morning by van with our driver, Sam. He drove us to Hebron in the West Bank. We did quite a walking tour through the marketplace towards the old city center. It was a pretty typical market scene with […]

We are busy packing up our things and moving to Jerusalem. Our time here in Bethlehem has been amazing. The people we have met, the amazing stories will be with us forever.
Last night we took four students out for dinner. We interviewed them so we can bring their stories home. We also invited a Pastor […]

We are now in Jerusalem.
We left Bethlehem by van and had no problem at the checkpoint. Al and Todd walked across the check point and had a much different experience. There was no ‘problem,’ but they understand better now the difficulty of daily life here.
We had two lectures today, one on reconciliation and the other […]