Following is the second installment of a travel diary by Kelly Hyatt, who traveled to Israel in February of 2018 with a group of American travel agents. Thank you Kelly!

Read part 1 here.

ISRAEL 2018 – WITH YA’LLA TOURS, BY KELLY HYATT

Let me say a little bit about my host Ya’lla Tours USA. What an amazing group of people both on the US side and inside Israel. Participants of the familiarization tour were met at the Tel Aviv Airport by Ya’lla Tours representatives and transferred to the hotel. The people who work for this company in-country are some of the most knowledgeable, kind, interesting, compassionate and funny people I have met on my travels. Our tour guide and driver were really top notch. This being a travel agent FAM we were also inspecting other hotel properties and the best way to do that is to have dinner! Ya’lla arraigned some amazing dinners and always comped the wine and drinks, which was an added surprise and appreciated by all. All of the hoteliers were gracious and the properties were quite stunning. Each time we stopped at an archaeological spot or church or anything else, all our entries and transfers were seamless and we never ever had to wait, so very VIP!! And there were 14 of us, can you imagine if it was just a small group, I can say with certainty even a larger group will experience a totally seamless trip with this company.

Now back to my experience. I won’t tell you all the amazing and wonderful things I saw and did because YOU need to GO there yourself and you can always look at the Ya’lla Facebook page as we were all posting photos from the bus Wi-Fi (free) every day.

the Jezreel Valley from Mt. Carmel

I am not what I would call an “overly” religious person, but I have studied the Bible and have a pretty good grasp of the Gospels and some Old Testament scriptures. This being a Christian tour, I was excited to see those places I had learned about. It was an extreme honor for me to volunteer to read the first scripture at one of our first church stops on Mt. Carmel at the Carmelite Monastery of El Muhraqa. This is a tiny church on top of a very high mountain overlooking an amazing valley. This is the place where God caused Elijah to defeat the priests of Baal. The scripture I read took on a very special and renewed meaning to me that day.

loaves and fishes mosaic at Tabgha

Certainly, how could one not be moved when you visit the town of Jesus, Capernaum, and visit the church at Tabgha, with its Byzantine era mosaic showing two fish and a basket filled with loaves depicting the Miracle of the Multiplication? And then to take a boat-ride on the Sea of Galilee, it was so quiet and serene and you could almost feel the presence of the ancients on the calm waters.

Our group did not have a pastor with us so when we visited Mt Tabor to visit the Church of the Transfiguration, we were treated to a special mass being done by a group that arrived before us. I have never been to a mass and they were singing in Latin and the small church was filled with joy and amazing light and love. It was so spiritual for all of us.

Nazareth Village

After this we went to the Mount of the Beatitudes the site of the Sermon on the Mount, and then on to Nazareth and Cana. We visited a place called Nazareth Village, a recreation of how life was during the time of Jesus. We were impressed by volunteers from all over the world, young people and old people working in Israel to help keep alive the Bible and the Gospels.

Yardenit baptism site on the Jordan River

Our final stop this day was much-anticipated, a place called Yardenit on the Jordan River. We were given the opportunity to rededicate our faith with a renewal of baptism, but since we did not have a pastor or priest, Ya’lla provided a wonderful stand in, a young Messianic Jew, who was so filled with the love of the Lord that his excitement took over the whole group and 7 of us took the dip!!! It was truly a special time for me as even though it is symbolic, it was my own moment with my Savior before I entered into the city where HE died for my sins.

Megiddo tunnel

The following day we visited one of the most amazing archaeological sites in the world, Megiddo, the Hill of Battles, where 20 civilizations, built one upon another have been uncovered, this is the place of King Solomon’s stables, and is also the place called Armageddon. Here we learned how very smart the ancient Israelites were in how they figured out how to move water from springs outside the city and up into their mountain fortresses. We got to go down in to VERY impressive tunnels.