Wednesday, May 30, 2012

From the Bronx to the Holy Land





Having grown up in the Bronx my whole life I would have never expected to be travelling 
internationally especially not to the Holy Land. When the idea was proposed to me I don't 
know why but I answered "yes" immediately without a hesitation. Somehow I knew that this
 was what I wanted. Every site we have visited from the Sea of Galilee to the Jordan River 
down to the Dead Sea have all been breathtaking. Standing in Nazareth and seeing the ruins 
of the temples just left me with a sense of amazement. As I am experiencing these first few 
days of my trip I find myself looking around just letting the moment sink in. There are many 
times when I catch myself telling everyone around "I can't believe we're actually here". By
 visiting all of these sites and embarking on this journey I feel that many think things have
 been put into perspective. For example, growing up I attended a Catholic school and did 
all of my sacraments. As a child I would have hear all of these stories about these foreign 
places called Jerusalem, Israel, and Dead Sea just to name a few. However, I would always just 
hear the stories and never thought about where these places were or what they look like. I 
remember always thinking that these places were just deserts. And these past few days I was definitely
 proven wrong. Going to these places and experiencing stepping into the Mediterranean and floating
 in the Dead Sea,  getting water from the Jordan river allowed me to connect and see how much more 
real these places are. This experience of visiting Holy sites have allowed me to see everything in
 different perspectives and to think outside of the world that I live in and start seeing what is out there.

Love,
Maxiel

1 comment:

  1. Great post, Maxiel! It must be amazing and eye-opening to visit all of the places you've grown up learning about. What a great way to describe the trip to all of us jealous blog readers back in the US :)

    Tell the rest of the trip members that I say hello! I love seeing all the updates and pictures on Facebook!

    Sincerely,
    Danny Crawford

    ReplyDelete