Promise Land

I have been out of touch so I hope to update you for the past 10 days! So much has happened, we have been to the mountain top, and to the mountain top, and to the mountain top! Every day is so packed with once in a life time experiences. Lets begin where we left off, Monday, May 21 really was a day to remember. We headed south down the transjordan to Mount Nebo, the place where God showed Moses the promised land. Along the way we got our first look at the fertile Jordan valley and drove through the land of Ruth - Moab. It was easy to imagine Ruth gleaning in these fields of grain. From Mt. Nebo we had our first look into the promise land - the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, Jericho. Here we had our first worship service of the trip (post orientation) and I was so excited to preach there over looking the promise land. We talked about the echo of many voices who had gone before us to these holy places, the voices we had known from Sunday School, Moses and Joshua, Abraham and Sarah, the voices of Max and Julene who had prepared the way for our journey to this land, the new voices we were only just learning, the voices of our traveling companions and the other peoples who had walked this way, Ammonites, Syrians, Persians, Naboteans. We read from Hebrews 11, how Moses had gone by faith - God's faith, and that is how we go to into the promise that we have recieved through Christ. And when we go, we go with a cloud of witnesses, past and present.