The Story behind the Free Online Zoom teachings

if you like you can also subscribe to the mailing list and you will receive 45 minutes of Jesus through the Middle Eastern Eyes Master Class. to get the schedule for the Next Free Zoom Lesson go to www.walkingtheholyland.com My name is Andre Moubarak, and I am from Jerusalem. My ancestors are Aramaic speaking Christians, indigenous to Southern Lebanon, northern Israel, and Western Syria. Our community says the same prayers as Saint James, the head of the Jerusalem Church in the Book of Acts. James was the brother of Jesus and their common language was Aramaic.   My frame of reference is the Bible – specifically the Gospels and the Book of Acts. In modern terms, I grew up in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, and I am a citizen of the state of Israel. I speak 5 languages – Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, English, and French. This is typical for the Christians because we usually work in an international setting. My job is a tour guide and I regularly travel throughout the whole country of Israel, and also to Europe, UK, the United States of America, Canada, South Africa, Philippines, and Singapore. Everywhere that I have visited in the world has a more stable peaceful society than my hometown of Jerusalem. My family and community have witnessed many conflicts in Jerusalem over the centuries. The Christians are a minority group, caught in the crossfire in the ongoing rivalry between our Muslim and Jewish neighbors. The Christian culture here is very peaceful and we avoid conflict. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 9, NIV).   Tourism in Israel was at its peak in the year 2019, and we expected even more tourists in the Spring season of 2020. It was going to be overfull capacity at all the hotels, tour sites, and all of the tour guides were fully booked for the whole season. When COVID-19 first hit Israel in early March 2020, we were surprised by how fast the virus pandemic spread around the globe, and the government of Israel shut down all tourism and closed the borders indefinitely.   Personally, I was grateful for the break from tour groups because I was really drained physically and needed an extended rest to restore my health. The COVID-19 shutdown was the perfect time to take a sabbatical in the USA. I left Israel on May 31, 2020. My wife’s family lives in Maryland and Texas, and we ended up spending 1 whole year in the USA based in those two states. We also traveled to a few other states, to speak in churches about making a journey to Israel in the future. It was a fun experience to rest in the USA, and take my time getting to know people in a relaxed setting. People were curious about my background and I was able to teach them some Aramaic phrases, the language of Jesus and His Disciples. I had so much time to develop my educational projects – write my 3rd book, record two seasons of my podcast, build a website, and develop virtual tours and Bible Study lessons on zoom meetings. It was a wonderful time of personal growth and I felt so calm in the USA. But each season must come to an end, and my time of sabbatical ended in early May 2021. The vaccination program in Israel was very successful and the COVID-19 cases were very few in Israel by April 2021. The country was open again for local tourism and the Israeli government announced that foreign tour groups would be welcome to enter Israel in late May, June, and July on a provisional basis. We were hopeful for the tourism industry to heal and flourish, after 15 months of complete shutdown. I was excited to return to Israel and be with my team, and my family and friends, in Jerusalem. The Lord’s hands were on me during my long journey flying from Texas, to Newark, to Tel Aviv. I arrived on the afternoon of Saturday May 08, 2021. My brother picked me up from the airport, and as we drove to Jerusalem, we saw a checkpoint on the main road. Just a