From: Stephen A.Quaye, Toronto-Canada

A group of 23 Ghanaians made of 21 Presbyterians and two Methodists resident in Toronto-Canada have successfully toured the holy land of Israel. The ten days Christian pilgrimage under the leadership of Rev. Frank Adu, started on October 25 and ended on November 3, 2011.

The group as part of the tour visited Jaffa of Jonah and the whale fame viewed the home of Simon the Tanner and Caesarea the Roman capital. Again, they visited Mount Camel, where Prophet Elijah confronted the prophets of ball enroute to Megiddo, King Solomon’s fortified city kingdoms with impressive ruins of 20 levels of civilization where the final battle of Armageddon will come alive.

Members were full of joy when they travelled to Nazareth as they viewed the church of Annunciation, visited Nazareth village where Jesus lived for 29 years; Cana where the wedding and the first miracle of Jesus took place followed tradition of the fishermen disciples sail on the Sea of Galilee.

In Bethlehem they visited the birth place of Jesus whiles in Jerusalem, they toured the garden tomb at Gethsemane, Golgotha where Jesus was crucified, Solomon’s Temple [ the western wall], mount of olives where Jesus was taken back up to heaven and later floated in the dead sea.

Commenting about the tour, Reverend Frank Adu, made it clear that reading the bible one has to know the sources where all the historic events took place in order to strengthen his faith in following Christ and also win souls for him.

According to him, his main passion in the Christian ministry was to spread the teachings of God to win more souls and that the tour made events recorded in the bible more real for him to understand than ever before.

Mr. Aharon Yahav , who has been a tour guide for the past six years noted that for this period, visit to the holy land by both Christian pilgrims and tourists have been increasing tremendously as last year more than 3.5 million tourists and Christian pilgrims visited the holy land, Israel.

Mr.Aharon, described Israel as the biblical land where Abraham lived, Jesus gave his life for the people which is the promised land, adding,” we built the beautiful country with all the facilities with many historical sites, beaches in Tel-Aviv, resort like the dead or Red Sea and of course Jerusalem”.

He took away the fears of would be tourists wanting to visit the holy land but are scared of doing so because of daily news reports of suppose fighting between Israelites and Palestinians to disregard such news and visit the holy land since the land is peaceful.

Indeed, there is no city in the world as significant as Jerusalem as the city is peaceful with Moslems living in the Arab quarter, Christians living in Christian’s quarter, Jews living in Jewish quarter and druses living in their own quarter and co-existing peacefully.

It was very soul inspiring to hear residents in Jerusalem urging visitors to pray for peace of Jerusalem and that of Bethlehem which is under the Palestinian authority.