Pillar of patience

 

The Lords Prayer

Our last day in Jerusalem, we walked from the hotel to tour the heralded sites that Christ walked upon and ascended from. Our first stop was at the Domaine National Francais, as known as Eleona, the place that Jesus taught his disciples the Lords prayer. This is a special and spiritual site since it is the only church on the mount and the Lords prayer can be found in over a hundred languages.

Chapel of Ascension

We then proceeded to walk to the highest point on the Mount of Olives. We viewed the site where Jesus made his ascension into heaven at Chapel of Ascension. Amazingly there were plenty of spiritually guided people from around the world to witness the same holy presence as us.

2,000 year old olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane

Our tour guide then led us to the Garden of Gethsemane where we were amongst thousands of spiritual seeking individuals who all wanted to witness the 2,000 year old olive trees and see the place where Christ prayed the day before he was sentenced to be crucified. We were all fortunate enough to attend a partial mass at the Church of Gethsemane which was given in English by a proud Irish priest.

Statue of King David

The amazing amounts of history all contained in a 2 mile square block is overwhelming. We visited the site of David Tomb’s and was able to also walk up stairs to the site of Jesus’s last supper.

Burial site of Jesus at Golgotha

A quick bus ride to the Garden Tomb/Golgotha was the last site we saw today. It is said that this is the site where Christ was crucified and then laid to rest in the Garden then arose for his apostles. This is arguably one of the two sites scholars and archeologists claim to be the burial site of Jesus prior to his ascention to heaven.

We finished the afternoon gathered to reflect our time spent in Jerusalem. The heartfelt synthesis allowed us to reflect on our journey in Jerusalem as well as our journey over the last 14 months as we have grown together in this leadership program. We are grateful for having the opportunity to be in this program and to all the alumni, fellows and donors who have made this possible.

Thanks,

Christian, Johnna and Shawn