The Holy Land Experience in Orlando

I have to be honest and admit that when I first heard about this "attraction" amid all the other theme parks in Orlando, I was not impressed. All I could think was, "Hmm...a cheesy knock off of key sites in Israel." Once I read over the brochure, my interest was piqued. Kelly and I went today and, once again, I was pleasantly surprised and even blessed to be there.

We saw a re-enactment of the last supper in an exact duplicate of what is now called "The Little Church", the location believed to be the original site of the Upper room. Then we went to the Scriptorium where they had an amazing array of ancient writings from clay tablets to papyrus to original scrolls to very early Bibles to replicas of the Guttenberg press to some of Spurgeon's original writings to modern day texts. We saw an absolutely astounding scale model of Jerusalem in Jesus' time and heard two excellent lectures on the city and then on the Tabernacle (with an almost life-size replica) and the Temples. All in all, it was a beautiful, interesting and educational place (in spite of some commercialization, as noted below) and turned out to be one of the highlights of our stay.



The Holy Land Experience is now sponsored by TBN. We were surprised to be asked to guest host one of their shows, using the original TBN chairs. Here's a few shots of Kelly and I in action :

.
We asked if we could come back again. they said, "Don't call us......"

Since we started out by documenting our trip with pictures of South of the Border and their gift shops, we thought it might be a good idea to end our vacation in Florida with pictures of the gift shops in "The Holy Land Experience". Vastly different......yet in many ways.......



Tomorrow morning, we will worship at the Sovereign Grace Church in Winter Garden. Then we head home! We'll be back in town sometime Monday evening.