Jesus spoke the Sermon on the Mount in the area to the right of this church overlooking the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The setting was gorgeous and peaceful with trees, flowers, and green in every direction and birds chirping away. (Matthew 5-7)
The Church of the Beatitudes is an octagonal building with the 8 sides representing the 8 beatitudes (shown in Latin in the upper windows)
Gold mosaic in the dome
Pastor Josh read the beatitudes and then prayed over us.
View on the opposite side of the church – to the left (west)
View to the right (east) where they think the sermon took place. The area is now banana trees.
Little blessed kitty
Moving on to Caesarea Philippi – pomegranates in the trees
Some in our group sampled fresh figs off the trees
Hermon Stream (Banias) Nature Reserve in the Golan – the headwaters of the Jordan River. The spring rises from the base of Mount Hermon, Israel’s tallest mountain. (Psalm 133:3 “Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion. And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting.”)
This ancient city is mentioned in the gospels of Matthew & Mark under the name Caesarea Philippi and is the place where Jesus confirmed Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Messiah. (Matthew 16:13-20)
Shrine and Cave of Pan – named Panyas in Greek. Banyas in Arabic. These are the remains of a temple built by King Herod.
Tel Faher in the Golan Heights – we definitely didn’t leave the marked paths
This area has been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War in 1967.
We were able to walk in all the old underground (previously Syrian) bunkers. Eli Cohen, who was a spy for Israel, encouraged the Syrian leaders to plant eucalyptus trees in this area for shade – when in fact he wanted Israel to use the location of the trees to attack the bunker area later. There is a mini series called “The Spy” about Eli Cohen’s amazing life.
View from inside the underground bunkers
Lunch in a Druze village in the northern Golan Heights, Mas’ade. Mas’ade is one of the 4 remaining Druze-Syrian communities on the Israeli-occupied side of the Golan Heights.
Lunch was very similar to other meals in the region – with beef/lamb kabobs, goat cheese, baba ganoush, and ever present hummus, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, and pita. Somehow we scored French fries though!
Yummy baklava
On top of Mt. Ben-Tal – another former Syrian bunker with amazing views down into Syria.
Panoramic views of the Golan and even Syria. A courageous battle was fought here during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. It was one of the largest tank battles ever and was miraculously won by the Israelis with their small force of 160 tanks. Today the valley below is referred to as the Valley of Tears to remember this difficult battle.
The white buildings are an Israeli military training camp
Very tiny, dark bunker
Nondairy desserts back at the hotel. Those little crunchy balls were Kristi’s favorite especially when eaten with a little sparkly spoon. It was pretty impressive what desserts were offered with chocolate but without dairy.
