Now I want to share my greatest treasure from this spiritual vacation. When we walked up to the Garden of Gethsemane, I could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in a powerful way! As you walk up. you see that it is enclosed by a rough iron fence and has a walkway that goes completely around it.

The Church of All Nations is on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, right next to the Garden of Gethsemane and it faces the walls of the Old City. We initially went into the church with the rest of our team; however, I quickly told Steven I wanted to go back outside by the Garden of Gethsemane. I found a spot alongside the rough iron fence and closed my eyes as I praised God and thanked Jesus for what He did for me!

When I opened my eyes, a man was standing inside the garden very close to me and he was facing me. As I wiped my tears, he asked, " Why you cry?" I took a breath and simply said, "Because this is my Lord's garden and I love Him." To my response, the sweet man told me that his Dad had been a Christian and that he was also a Christian, which made me smile. Then he said to me, "I'm the Gardner." WOW! Here came the tears again, I smiled and said, "Thank you" and then expressed my sincere gratitude for how perfectly he tended to the garden. It was the most beautiful garden I've ever seen. My new friend then shared that the giant olive tree roots in this garden, were here when Jesus walked this earth. Well to be exact, he said it was the roots of these giant olive trees. I stood frozen in time during our short conversation and took it all in.

I was beyond excited, to be honest, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I watched my friend walking closer and closer to me (Steven stood behind me and off to the side).

As the Gardner approached the antique-looking gate, he put his hand into his pocket pulled out the most amazing-looking skeleton key, and unlocked the gate. With this, I took one step inside the gate and he came forward with two steps to back us out of the garden. This is where he handed me something and told me to put it into my Bible. He repeated, "Put it in your Bible" twice, and with that, I hugged him, he turned around and I lost him in the Garden of Gethsemane. I heard Steven asking me what he had given me and realized that I didn't even know, I had not looked at it yet. So I turned my hand over and released my fingers from holding the object to find a piece of bark and a snip of an olive branch. My tears of joy ran down my cheeks as I placed my treasures into a Ziplock baggie and my purse.

Now let's go back to the night prior as I laid in bed exhausted from a full day of sightseeing. Steven and I were discussing our adventures of that day when I heard the Holy Spirit ask me to get a Ziplock baggie and put it in my purse. My response was that I was too tired to do it and would do it in the morning. Then Holy Spirit told me so gently that I would forget it if I waited until the morning – to get the ziplock baggie now and put it in your purse, He repeated. Well, I'm sorry to say I was not obedient at first and we held this same conversation for at least five minutes. Then I got out of bed, got the baggie, put it in my purse, and forgot about it completely. Forgot about it, that is until the moment the kind Gardner said, "Put it in your Bible." So this is why the Holy Spirit had told me to put the baggie into my purse!

Thank You, Holy Spirit for not letting me sleep until I was obedient to You. As we packed to leave Israel, Steven and I placed the bark and olive branch (still in the baggie) into my Bible and zipped up the Bible cover. We prayed over it and asked PaPa (God) to protect my treasure all the way home. I'm thrilled to tell you that we made it home with my gift from that sweet Gardner. It now hangs proudly in a shadow box that Steven designed in our Family Room. BEST GIFT EVER!