Life Meets Doctrine

here are some more pictures. they are a little smaller than the other ones, but if you click on the picture you can see the bigger version.

it is hard to tell, but this is actually believed to be Peter’s house in Capernaum. Jesus spent about 75% of his ministry in Capernaum, and most likely this would be where he stayed.

whitney is posing in front of a boat that was recently discovered. it dates back about 2,000 years. of course, no one has any idea whether Jesus ever was on the boat, but it is still a good idea of what the boats that Jesus was in looked like.

this is a view looking north in the ancient ruins of Caesarea. one of the Herods lived here, and he was super rich. this main sand area would have been the arena of the city – where chariot races happened, where other big events happened, where martyrs might have been killed.

this is a view of the Roman Coliseum from its stage in Caesarea. There was a huge concert in this coliseum just a few days before we toured it. it is huge!

here is beautiful whitney in our hotel room holding a basket full of gifts that we received from our friends in israel. it might be hard to see, but look carefully at the bed. it is actually 2 beds! we slept on two twin-size beds pushed together – separate sheets, separate covers. we did our best, though.

whitney took this awesome picture of the akko sklyine and the mediterranean sea. isn’t it beautiful?

here is another picture that whit took. again, it is beautiful (just like her).

this guy is jumping off of the massively tall ancient city walls of akko into the (shallow? deep?) mediterranean sea below. we just hoped they knew what they were doing. we definitely know they liked having a crowd of americans looking on. a bunch of them jumped, and each time someone would gasp. and each time…they came out just fine.

whitney took another excellent picture – this one of the waves crashing on the rocks just off of akko.

this past september 14-24 we went to israel to spend time with some of our friends and to tour the land (and pray!). below are some pictures from our trip.

whitney and doug with our friends Guy and Tali Cohen. Guy and Tali lead a congregation in Israel. They are an amazing, challenging, encouraging couple with three kids. we spent one evening with them over hot tea, good brownies, and excellent conversation.

this is our team praying on the ancient walls that surround the city of Akko. these are actually the walls that helped protect the city from Napolean. we had a rich and powerful time of prayer up here. great stuff!

here is whitney with melissa. melissa is a friend of ours who lives in israel. she and her family are great!

this is eitan shiskoff, the papa leader of all of the congregations that we support in israel. this was our last morning with his team. we are in the banquet room of our hotel in akko, where we ate breakfast and dinner.

it is hard to tell, but we promise that we are on a boat that is on the Sea of Galilee. Yep, the sea that Jesus and Peter walked on. Yep, the sea that Jesus calmed with his words. Yep, the sea where Jesus called the disciples to follow him. That sea. And that’s us.

friends and family,

this is a blog. blog is just a short word for web-log. basically, we get to publish stuff – kind of like journal entries or digital pictures. we hope this will help us share our life with you guys. we love you.

doug and whitney