kingdom travelin'

On this Black Friday, when thoughts turn from turkey and Thanksgiving to consumption and big deals, please pause for a moment and pray for Ukraine.

This pic is from the center of a city of a half million souls in central Ukraine. In the early evening yesterday, only the headlights of cars can be seen as there had been no electricity since 5:30am when an enemy attack turned off the lights.

Here is a prayer I prayed:
“I raise up prayers for you all today. Prayer for safety, warmth, running water, longer periods of electricity, and most of all, for your hearts and minds to be turned to our Lord, Christ Jesus.”

Please join me in praying. May God have mercy. May the terrorists be defeated.

On this American Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful for so much.

Breathing, heartbeat, and family.

But at this moment, I’m most thankful to have just learned that today our colleagues in Ukraine have running water… right now.
That may change in the next hour.

Think about that.

Pause for a moment and thank God that you had running water with which to make your coffee, brush your teeth, and wash. Let alone drink.

Thank God that no one is bombing your electricity supply and that you open your refrigerator as much as you want because your lights are on.

Then pray that the enemy will be defeated so that this terrorism against the population of Ukraine will end.

Thank you for praying.

I wish you a good day as the LORD is your strength!

May He shine His face upon you and kindle in you the living hope that sustains is.

Taking a cab up to the second highest spot in Jerusalem, we got coffee and sat for a spell on the Mount of Olives. This is a pano of Jerusalem from up there.

During Passion Week / Holy Week (you choose) Jesus spent a lot of time up here. And it was from here that tradition tell us he ascended. With that in mind we went to the spot that is revered for that event. But Luke names Bethany as the spot, so we hunted for a view eastward.

Give praise indeed.

We began our trek this afternoon by going down to the the Garden of Gethsemane.

It was meaningful to pray in proximity to where our Lord prayed “thy will”.

Our intent today was to experience the journey from the garden up into the city…

The Roman fort was likely positioned nearby – at the northern end of the Temple. We walked down the Via Delarosa.

The other end of the Via Delarosa is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where Golgotha and the tomb are memorialized.

It is a working Church and beautiful liturgy was ongoing.

At the end, we had walked thousands of steps, a lot of which was uphill. But the Via Delarosa is, at most, a quarter of all the steps he took that night.

That night Jesus experienced multiple hearings before two groups of Jews, Pilate, and Herod. Crossing this extremely hilly city was strenuous enough, but weakened and bloodied as Jesus was from the numerous whippings and beatings would have made it so much harder. It gives deeper meaning to Isaiah 53: “with his wounds we are healed.”