JSam Photos from Monday: crossing from Bethlehem into Jerusalem

1/5/10 10:44 EDIT: Paul Gibson's latest photography is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsam/sets/72157623143039796/

Crossing the 'border' was disturbing today; I hope it comes across in the limited number of photos that we were allowed to take during the process.

One of the 'kter flumie' photos of the trip so far was taken at the Western Wall today as Father Jeff and George Kelley prayed together in an apparently spontaneous moment of fellowship and worship. Both of these guys have contributed mightily to the trip and it has been a pleasure to get to know them.

By the way, I discovered today that Father Jeff is blogging about the trip on his Butler site. It's good stuff and worth the visit over there: http://butler-catholic.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=22&Itemid=15

George helped set the stage at the Western Wall visit this afternoon. If it works, you should be able to see a bit of video of that here:



I wasn't able to walk with the group to several sites today as my feet got in the way of each other on the Mount of Olives resulting in a bit of a tumble on the stone stairs. It felt for a few hours as though I might have stumbled into a serious knee injury, but after babying it for the rest of the day I suspect it will be functional tomorrow.

And this has nothing to do with this trip (I don't think) but I ran into a minister friend of mine from Toronto, Canada in the middle of Old Jerusalem today. Nizar Shaheen was leading a group from Australia and we literally bumped into each other entering a souvenir shop. It was a nice moment, particularly since I was hobbling along quite lost at the time and he was able to point me toward the Damascus Gate!

Thanks again for following along; I'll let my photographs speak for the rest of my day.

• Day 8 begins here with the Bethlehem border crossing: www.flickr.com/photos/jsam/sets/72157623013370947