Our family moved to Beruit back in the early 1960′s and we took a number of trips throughout the middle east. One of our memorable trips was to Jerusalem. In this photo we were in the garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. Our guide was a history professor making some extra cash driving a cab and giving tours of local historical sites. He was a Christian and he knew that we would be particularly interested in sites that were visited by Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry. This was the traditional site known as the Garden of Gethsemane – Matthew 26:36-56 – where Christ prayed and where the authorities took him into custody.

The guide told us that olive trees generally do not die but, like apple trees, they sprout new growth from dead looking stumps. He concluded that this olive tree was quite possibly 2,000 years old and that it may have been same tree that was in the garden when Christ was in the garden.

From left to right we have my brothers Gary Eckhardt and Fred Eckhardt, my mother Alice Eckhardt, and myself.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 7:22 am and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.