Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

Several years ago, we put a deposit down for a trip to Israel with a group. But the fighting flared up and we became uncomfortable with the idea of going to visit a place that had some risk of violence. So we canceled our trip and forfeited our deposit.

This has always remained something we have wanted to do and a place that we really would like to visit. Pastor John Klomps has lead tours to Israel 43 times over more than 30 years. He is extremely knowledgable and his experience in the country gave us the security that we would be safe and well taken care of if we joined this group. As well, it would be the last time he will lead a tour to the Holy Land. Good friends, Baldwin Verstraete and his wife Lucy were the travel agents who organized the trip so we felt confident and excited to be planning this trip of a life time.

We left home on Sunday, October 9 after Thanksgiving dinner with our family and spent 8 days in Holland visiting family and friends. You can read about this trip at the end of the Israel trip. Because I wrote about this part of the trip first, it now comes AFTER the Israel trip.

We were very moved by our experiences in the Holy Land and I have written about it extensively in this blog - please enjoy what I have written and the pictures I have taken - and may you be moved as much as Jack and I were.