When my husband George and I decided to go to Israel, I was super excited! It was literally a dream come true.
I am not sure about anyone else, but when we landed I felt like I wanted to get on my knees and kiss the ground of Israel. From the moment of our arrival, our group went from plane to tour bus, which would be our traveling home for the next 10 days. A short drive later we made our first stop in Israel.
We were in Joppa, of the oldest seaports in Israel with a history that goes back almost 4500 years. So much biblical history happened in this little seaport town. From the Old Testament: it was from here that Jonah fled from the Lord’s command to go to Nineveh and from here he escaped on a Phoenician ship to Tarshish; King David and King Solomon used Joppa as the port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon’s Temple and for the Second Temple of Jerusalem. From the New Testament: Peter’s resurrection of Tabitha, his vision of the sheet. Simon the Tanner.
As I was walking through the cobble-stone streets of Joppa, these biblical stories raced across my mind. As we stood in front of “Simon the Tanner’s” front door, I felt like I was standing in the middle of the Living Bible!
I was overwhelmed. I felt the presence of God in that moment.
The name Joppa means beautiful in Hebrew. Believe me, it was beautiful.
~ Lois Gennaoui