Twenty Belmont University students and two professors left Nashville May 8 for a 19-day journey to Israel, Turkey and Greece, traveling to numerous sites along the way including Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Istanbul and Athens. Students on this study abroad trip are taking either a Third Year Writing course or a general education religion class with the goal to see the lands in which Christianity was born.
As School of Religion Dean Darrell Gwaltney writes, the trip is part pilgrimage as well. “It is moving to travel to Jerusalem and other places many of us have been reading about and learning about all our lives. One of the great benefits from such a trip like this is that we are forever changed. The people we meet and the people with whom we travel change us.”
Student Carter Abel recounted an experience from the first day of the trip: “I was about to fall asleep when we drove over the top of a moutain and before me lay the most magnificent sight I have ever seen–the Sea of Galilee. Spanning out before me, the incredible blue waters stood out like gemstone surrounded by bare mountains. I sat in absolute awe and wonder as I laid my eyes upon the place where Jesus walked on water, calmed the storm, fed thousands of people with a single basket of food and performed miracles. No matter how much cities and nations have changed over two thousand years, the Sea of Galilee remains a living altar of the power, compassion and love of God who walked its shores.”
Click here to read more from the Holy Land trip blog.
