Shalom. Welcome to Israel
peter_asirvatham@yahoo.co.in

"Shalom. Thank you." I said, beaming, to the twenty-something female customs officer as she returned my Passport, duly stamped. "Shalom. Welcome to Israel." she smiled back. Collecting my bags I stepped out of the customs office.

And I stepped into Israel.

As I walked towards the bus parked a few metres from the customs office, I thanked God for fulfilling a dream. The customs office at Eilat on the Egypt-Israel border is in the southernmost tip of Israel, literally at land's end-the office is at the very shore of the Red Sea and the foothill of Mount Tallul. Light breeze from the Red Sea was so soothing after a tiring early morning trek up Mount Sinai and a long day's travel from the foothills of Mount Katherine. "I am in Israel! Thank you Lord!" My mind kept replaying the words again and again. Years of dreaming of visting Israel came true that evening, the 28th of April 2008.

The dream which germinated as a secular one - after reading the book "90 minutes at Entebbe" many years ago - was simply to visit Israel and meet her brave soldiers, if possible. Over the years it developed into a dream to go on a pilgrimage.

When we were comfortably seated in the Mercedez Benz bus, Mr. Sayed our tour guide in Israel introduced himself and gave us all a map of Israel compliments of his in-bound tours company. Our journey in Israel started. "We are on High Road No. 90" announced Sayed on the bus' PA system. I spread the map and looked at High Road 90. The high roads were marked in red, these roads could easliy qualify as highways in India. High Road 90 runs on a South-North axis (and vice-versa) of Israel and parallel to the border with Jordan. We hit Route 90 again on our last day in Israel.

I had put my camera away a few hours before we crossed the border with Egypt. The previous day on our way to Mount Sinai, when we were nearing the Suez Canal, Brother Raphael our tour organiser had warned us of edgy soldiers who do not like nosy cameras pointing at sensitive locations (sometimes they would confiscate the cameras or mobile phones and erase the memory cards) - I did not want to take any chances with the border guards of Egypt and Israel.

As we sped along Route 90, Sayed kept feeding us with tidbits of information on the various locations we were traversing. There were so many vineyards and palm-grooves to our right. Then there was a zoo which housed the animals mentioned in the Bible, where it was not possible to aquire real animals the zoo authorities had fashioned look-alike dummies of the same for display. Fantastic, I thought, how ingenious.

I brought my camera out when we stopped for coffee along Route 90, and shot a few photos. "Are you from India?" asked a hypie like man coming out of the coffee shop. "Yes" I answered. "From where in India?" he continued. When I said, Chennai, he smacked his lips and smiled "Real spicy food!" I replied, "Shalom. Thank you."

We toured all over Israel in the next six days, from the Dead Sea (Salt Sea in The Bible) in the east to the Mediterranean Sea (The Great Sea) in the west and to Caesarea Philippi - close to the border with Lebanon in the north.

The sun slowly set behind the mountains to our left as we continued the long journey along Route 90. We caught a glimpse of Jerusalem before we reached our destination - Bethlehem, in the Palestinian Authority area of The West Bank.

The Day Three's sunset and sunrise are so memorable to me.

About 12 hours previously I saw the most brilliant sunrise in my life, from Mount Sinai, Egypt. Many years ago I had a humble dream of visiting Israel, but God in His Graciousness and Providence had added three counties; Egypt, Jordan and Dubai as bonus to my dream.

God makes all things beautiful in its time. Thank you LORD!

This is the bus that picked us at the Israeli border and took us around all the places and, upto the border with Jordan. The photo was taken when we stopped for coffee along Route 90.

The fridge magnet map of Israel was bought on our last day in Israel. The Bible is an illustrated KJV, printed in 1954, commemorating 150 years of The British and Foreign Bible Societies. The papyrus sheet on which The Bible is placed, was bought in Egypt.

The photos below are from Wikipedia.

This is the Customs office on the Eilat-Taba border between Israel and Egypt.

View from the Israeli side, Eilat - the Customs office is at the very edge of Israel, to the left is The Red Sea and to the right, Mount Tallul.

My best birthday ever
Isaac P. Benedict X 'B'

I could not really sleep well on the night of 25th April, 2008, I was so excited, for, in a few hours my family and I had to leave home to the airport. I was about to make my maiden flight!

On arriving at the airport, my dad announced it was the first time he had come to this part of the Chennai airport to board a flight, for we were at the Anna International terminal to take our flight to Cairo, Egypt.

We first flew to Bahrain and from there to Cairo. I thoroughly enjoyed my flight, the in-flight food could have been better though. On arriving at Cairo International airport, I started the video camera running, my dad had given me that responsibility. Cairo city has many fly-over bridges, and one fly-over went on for almost 20 minutes. We crossed the river Nile two or three times. The Nile looked really really clean, our own Cooum and the Adyar rivers can never be compared.

Later that afternoon, our group of 29 pilgrims (on a pilgrimage to Egypt, Israel and Jordan) went for a "cruise" in the Nile. The Nile is not only a long river but also very broad. Taking a break from filming, I listened to my favourite music on my dad's mobile phone. After the boat ride, we were taken to the Khan-e-khaily market for souvenir shopping. I had my first Turkish coffee here, eeks! our south Indian filter coffee is the best anywhere in the world! Tired after the hectic shopping, I went to bed soon after dinner.

And then the big day arrived, 27th April, my birthday! My dad and mom came over to my hotel room early in the morning to wish me and pray for me. My grandfather blessed me and gave me some money, I wish he had given me US Dollars. I was happy when my parents gave me birthday gifts, which they had hidden from me while packing our bags. But I was sad too, because no cousins of mine could be present to share my joy.

The breakfast I had that morning, my first continental breakfast outside the country, was a lavish spread. There was so much meat on the buffet table and I piled up my plate with sausages, salami and egg omelette.

Our first place of visit was The Pyramids at Giza. It was awesome to look at the Pyramids and touch the stones. Our Egyptian tour guide Mr. Sayed gave interesting details about the precision and planning, and the hard labour that its builders had to go through to build this marvelous Wonder of the Ancient world. We took a few photos with the Pyramids in the background. Next we went to see The Sphinx, which also is built with stones and has the face of a man and body of a lion. Seeing the Sphinx with its broken nose reminded me of the comic "Asterix and Cleopatra" in which Obelix accidentally breaks its nose.

Though there was no birthday cake, my parents had brought some milk sweets, which I distributed to my fellow pilgrims in the tourist bus. When they learnt that it was my birthday they started singing "Happy birthday." The Egyptian bus driver and tour guide liked the Indian sweets and wanted more of it, they wished me well too. We had lunch in a restaurant built like a boat on the bank of the river Nile. Here too the food was fantastic. With the visit to the Sphinx, our "secular" part of the tour ended and the pilgrimage started.

Later in the afternoon we visited Elim, where Prophet Moses got good water for the Israelites on their exodus from Egypt. Our next stop was at the Red Sea, which was parted in two so that the Israelites could cross it like on dry ground. Unlike the Marina in Chennai, the shore here has pebbles. We couldn't stay here for long, the sun was setting and we had to move on. Our next place of visit was to be the Mount Sinai where God gave mankind the Ten Commandments.

We reached the foothills of Mount Sinai late at night. After dinner I went to bed, I had to rest and get energised for the trek up Mount Sinai in a few hours. With that my 14th birthday got over. It is one birthday that I'll never forget in my life.

I thank my God, Lord Jesus Christ for giving me this wonderful birthday gift.

(At the Bahrain Airport Transit lounge)

(Me listening to music-cruise in the Nile)

(Our family photo, with The Great Pyramids in the background)

An artist's impression
peter_asirvatham@yahoo.co.in

The Day Five of our pilgrimage to the Holy Lands in April-May 2008 was a truly memorable one. The day's itinerary started with the visit to The Chapel of Ascension on the Mount of Olives and ended at The Garden Tomb of Jesus Christ - chronology wise - Ascension and Resurrection.

When I first saw the tour itinerary from Brother Raphael, our tour organiser, I wondered how awesome it'd be if the itinerary had been planned in such a way to visit the places in a chronological order of the life of Jesus (something like Michael Palin's travelogues). The itinerary should have been something like the following: start from Bethlehem (Jesus' birth place), then go to Egypt (where the Holy family fled to), return to Israel - Nazareth (where Jesus grew up), then to Jerusalem (where the Holy family visited every year), from there to Galilee/Caphernaum (where he ministered), go to Caesarea Philippi and so on and so forth and, finally end at the Mount of Olives from where Jesus ascended to Heaven.

Indeed such an itinerary would have been wonderful, tracing the steps of Jesus' life, martyrdom and ascension, but practical it would not have been for the tour organiser and for the pilgrims.
This Lent as I reflect upon that memorable day's itinerary (which included St. Peter's Church - where the Apostle Peter denied knowing Jesus), another chronology from the Bible comes to mind. This is from the first two chapters of Acts.

Then [the disciples] returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives (after Jesus' Ascension), a Sabbath day's walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. (Acts 1: 12-13)

In all probability the disciples would have taken the same route that we took that day, that is, descended from the Mount of Olives, down the Palm Sunday road, cross the Kidron Valley and reach Mount Zion where the "Upper room" is. (The difference being we were driven in a Mercedez Benz bus from the Garden of Gethsemane to Mount Zion.)

Again, when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples on the day of Pentecost, Peter witnessed about Jesus Christ.

Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. (Acts 2: 14-41)

In the chronology of events described above, the itinerary of our Day Five (April 30, 2008) fits perfectly - the Ascension at The Mount of Olives and Resurrection from The Garden Tomb of Jesus Christ!

Our first day in Jerusalem (two days and two nights) ended at The Garden Tomb of Jesus Christ. In the serene garden that evening we had the Holy Communion. What a privilege it was to renew our faith by partaking of the bread and wine from near a place believed to be the tomb of our Lord.

The Garden Tomb is one of those rare places we saw in our tour that was preserved in its near original form. As I stood before the empty tomb, listening to Mr. Bob McLean the guide present evidence that fits the tomb's description from the gospels, I could visualise the shock and confusion and later the joy that came upon the women and apostles' minds that first Easter. Now, "How would the tomb of Jesus Christ looked like two thousand years ago?" is a question I can answer with some imagination.

Presented below is "my impression" of how the Tomb could have looked like that first Easter evening. I had used Adobe Photoshop (an image editing software) to remove and add some elements in the original photograph. The "sky" is from another image - the Judean wilderness where Jesus fasted for forty days before the beginning of his ministry. Hope you like the picture.

"HE IS NOT HERE-FOR HE IS RISEN" Happy Easter!

"An artist's impression" of how The Tomb of Jesus Christ could have looked like on the evening of the first Easter Sunday.

The Garden Tomb of Jesus Christ as it existed on the evening of April 30, 2008

Those interested in visiting the official website of

The Garden Tomb click here.