Dear friends,
In just a few days we will meet in Tel Aviv to begin our life changing tour of the Holy Land. Please share this information with everyone in your family who will accompany us on this exciting journey.
Our guide and driver will be Palestinian Christians. As Christians, they are more sincere about the New Testament sites we will be visiting and less excited about Old Testament sites. If we had Jewish guides, this would be reversed. Palestinian Christians are the people caught in the middle. They are discriminated against by the Jews and also by the majority Palestinian Muslims. In fact, our guide had a Christian cousin living inside the Gaza strip. Because he talked to a Muslim girl at the university, he was beaten so severely that his arms and legs were broken. He had to be smuggled out of Gaza. Please be sensitive to the fact that they are Palestinian and feel the suffering of their own people, regardless of what we would consider the Jewish biblical/historical rights to the land. Be respectful.
Safety - Our guide and driver will be in contact with the tour company and their friends throughout the land by cell phone at all times. If there are any security issues, they will know about it and take precautions to keep us safe. This may require a quick change of plans or taking an alternate route. Please follow any instructions quickly and carefully, such as, "Return to the bus now" or "Do not leave this building." Please stay with the group and do not lag behind. This means that when we walk through the crowded streets of Old Jerusalem, filled the with brilliant colors of scarves, fragrant scents of exotic spices and irresistible souvenirs...resist. Do not stop to look. Keep thine eyes straight before thee. You can go back and shop, and get lost in the Old City, later, but stay with the group while we are touring together.
Respect the fences and barriers at archeological sites. Careless tourists can destroy delicate sites and artifacts. One day after we had visited one site (where we will also be visiting on this tour) a young man strayed over a fence and wandered into a mine field. He stepped on a mine and it exploded. A helicopter was sent to rescue him but as he was being lifted up, he fell to his death. Disregard rules somewhere else if you want to, but on this tour please obey the rules, your life may depend on it.
Every tour has someone who is always late. They make the bus and 45 other people wait on them to take one more picture or make a last minute stop in the restroom. Don't be that person. Be mindful that you are part of a group. If you are a solitary explorer, you will have an afternoon and a couple of evenings in Jerusalem to use as you wish. But when we travel as a group, respect the time of others. We will be visiting a lot of sites, some of which we have reservations at a particular time. To be able to get everything on the itinerary in, we have to follow the pace set by our guide.
Everyone wants pictures, and I promise you that you will get more photo ops than you know what to do with. Please take your photos as quickly as possible when we are on the move. I've asked Sis. Kimberly Smith to be our official tour photographer. Please cooperate with her requests to pose, and when we desire a group photo please be a part of it. If you miss something, she probably won't. I hope that you will be able to purchase a photo book as a memory of this tour.
This tour is designed primarily for ministers, and more than of our group are ministers and their families. If you are not a minister, we are very glad that you could join us, however, I would like to request that you allow the ministers to sit in the front seats on the bus so that they can fellowship together and hear any discussion that I may wish to have with them. My wife and I will sit near the front to be in constant contact with the driver and guide, and to be close to the microphone so that I can comment.
If anyone gets sick or cannot keep up with the group, you have the option to stay the day at the hotel. You only have to inform us so that we will not be waiting for you.
At each hotel please take a hotel business card with you when you leave the hotel. If you become separated from the group you will have the address of the hotel to return to.
We have asked Josh and Ruby Czinger to help with the organization of this tour. Please cooperate with them in their duties. When the bus arrives at a new hotel (we will be staying in four hotels), allow Josh, Ruby, Becky and Jamie to be the first ones off the bus when we stop at the hotels. They will go to the front desk and collect the keys for all of us. They will pass out the keys, and you will be able to go to your rooms.
Luggage. If you wish for the porters to take your bags to your room for you, you can leave them in the lobby and they will take them to your room. The tip for this is included in your land package, you do not have to tip them. We recommend that you travel with only a carry on and small backpack or bag, as we are doing. This makes it easy for you to grab your bags from the lobby and head to your room right away with your bags. Do yourself a favor and travel light.
When you land in Tel Aviv, do not joke with the Israeli immigration and security. Answer their questions directly and succinctly. (If they ask you what time it is, don't tell them where the watch was made.) Tell them you are with Dr. King's Holy Land Tour using Inspirational Tours/Guiding Star tour company. If they ask, this is a "land only" tour which is why people are arriving at different times. We will be spending the first night at the Dan Panorama Hotel in Tel Aviv. The next two nights at Leonardo Plaza in Tiberias. The next night at the David Hotel on the Dead Sea and the last three nights at the Grand Court in Jerusalem.
You will enjoy this trip. We pack more into our tours than anyone else I know.
God bless you. Have safe travels to Israel.
Johnny King
In just a few days we will meet in Tel Aviv to begin our life changing tour of the Holy Land. Please share this information with everyone in your family who will accompany us on this exciting journey.
Our guide and driver will be Palestinian Christians. As Christians, they are more sincere about the New Testament sites we will be visiting and less excited about Old Testament sites. If we had Jewish guides, this would be reversed. Palestinian Christians are the people caught in the middle. They are discriminated against by the Jews and also by the majority Palestinian Muslims. In fact, our guide had a Christian cousin living inside the Gaza strip. Because he talked to a Muslim girl at the university, he was beaten so severely that his arms and legs were broken. He had to be smuggled out of Gaza. Please be sensitive to the fact that they are Palestinian and feel the suffering of their own people, regardless of what we would consider the Jewish biblical/historical rights to the land. Be respectful.
Safety - Our guide and driver will be in contact with the tour company and their friends throughout the land by cell phone at all times. If there are any security issues, they will know about it and take precautions to keep us safe. This may require a quick change of plans or taking an alternate route. Please follow any instructions quickly and carefully, such as, "Return to the bus now" or "Do not leave this building." Please stay with the group and do not lag behind. This means that when we walk through the crowded streets of Old Jerusalem, filled the with brilliant colors of scarves, fragrant scents of exotic spices and irresistible souvenirs...resist. Do not stop to look. Keep thine eyes straight before thee. You can go back and shop, and get lost in the Old City, later, but stay with the group while we are touring together.
Respect the fences and barriers at archeological sites. Careless tourists can destroy delicate sites and artifacts. One day after we had visited one site (where we will also be visiting on this tour) a young man strayed over a fence and wandered into a mine field. He stepped on a mine and it exploded. A helicopter was sent to rescue him but as he was being lifted up, he fell to his death. Disregard rules somewhere else if you want to, but on this tour please obey the rules, your life may depend on it.
Every tour has someone who is always late. They make the bus and 45 other people wait on them to take one more picture or make a last minute stop in the restroom. Don't be that person. Be mindful that you are part of a group. If you are a solitary explorer, you will have an afternoon and a couple of evenings in Jerusalem to use as you wish. But when we travel as a group, respect the time of others. We will be visiting a lot of sites, some of which we have reservations at a particular time. To be able to get everything on the itinerary in, we have to follow the pace set by our guide.
Everyone wants pictures, and I promise you that you will get more photo ops than you know what to do with. Please take your photos as quickly as possible when we are on the move. I've asked Sis. Kimberly Smith to be our official tour photographer. Please cooperate with her requests to pose, and when we desire a group photo please be a part of it. If you miss something, she probably won't. I hope that you will be able to purchase a photo book as a memory of this tour.
This tour is designed primarily for ministers, and more than of our group are ministers and their families. If you are not a minister, we are very glad that you could join us, however, I would like to request that you allow the ministers to sit in the front seats on the bus so that they can fellowship together and hear any discussion that I may wish to have with them. My wife and I will sit near the front to be in constant contact with the driver and guide, and to be close to the microphone so that I can comment.
If anyone gets sick or cannot keep up with the group, you have the option to stay the day at the hotel. You only have to inform us so that we will not be waiting for you.
At each hotel please take a hotel business card with you when you leave the hotel. If you become separated from the group you will have the address of the hotel to return to.
We have asked Josh and Ruby Czinger to help with the organization of this tour. Please cooperate with them in their duties. When the bus arrives at a new hotel (we will be staying in four hotels), allow Josh, Ruby, Becky and Jamie to be the first ones off the bus when we stop at the hotels. They will go to the front desk and collect the keys for all of us. They will pass out the keys, and you will be able to go to your rooms.
Luggage. If you wish for the porters to take your bags to your room for you, you can leave them in the lobby and they will take them to your room. The tip for this is included in your land package, you do not have to tip them. We recommend that you travel with only a carry on and small backpack or bag, as we are doing. This makes it easy for you to grab your bags from the lobby and head to your room right away with your bags. Do yourself a favor and travel light.
When you land in Tel Aviv, do not joke with the Israeli immigration and security. Answer their questions directly and succinctly. (If they ask you what time it is, don't tell them where the watch was made.) Tell them you are with Dr. King's Holy Land Tour using Inspirational Tours/Guiding Star tour company. If they ask, this is a "land only" tour which is why people are arriving at different times. We will be spending the first night at the Dan Panorama Hotel in Tel Aviv. The next two nights at Leonardo Plaza in Tiberias. The next night at the David Hotel on the Dead Sea and the last three nights at the Grand Court in Jerusalem.
You will enjoy this trip. We pack more into our tours than anyone else I know.
God bless you. Have safe travels to Israel.
Johnny King
