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Joel Thornton

A common sense conservative.

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Plans for 2022

January 2, 2022 by Joel Thornton

I am getting ready to head to Greece. It wasn’t my plan to travel to Greece. We are sitting here at the beginning of 2022 still staring at the Coronavirus pandemic that will not go away. Four times I have cancelled a trip to Israel because the Israelis government has closed the country to outsiders.

I was scheduled to be in Israel this coming week; instead, in the next few months I am traveling to Greece with a small group of pastors to pray for strategy in the fight against sex trafficking. We are doing a Steps of Paul tour and spending time in strategic meetings and prayer.

This has been a frustrating time for all of us. Businesses shut down, travel shut down, new rules every other week. How do we navigate the pandemic and how do we know what is true and what is not? How do we trust the science when we are told not to question the science? I have been trying to get back to Israel for over six months.

I am fully vaccinated and ready to travel. Anyone who knows me knows that I am always ready to go on the road. I would have been a rock star but for my inability to write inspiring music and play at a professional level. Instead, I travel without fanfare. I bring groups of people on the trip of a lifetime. I get to experience the same places through the new eyes of a first-time traveler. That is fun.

I am going back to Israel in June if the country opens up. I will be taking 30 of my new closest friends with me. It will be exciting. In the meantime, I will be in Greece following the Apostle Paul through the first days of Christianity in Europe. Then I hope to do a Christmas Market Tour of France, Germany, and Austria in December this year.

Whatever this year brings I will face it. If I don’t travel internationally, it will not be for the lack of trying.

Filed Under: Tour in General Tagged With: Apostle Paul, Austria, Coronavirus, France, Greece, Israel, Pandemic

Safety, Always a Concern, Never an Issue

May 3, 2020 by Joel Thornton

Many people never travel abroad because of the fear of the unknown. I do not let that happen. I believe that, if we do our homework and take some easy precautions, we can avoid troubles while abroad and still enjoy traveling.

My family and I were living in Strasbourg, France on September 11, 2001. We sat in our apartment and watched the World Trade Center Towers come tumbling down. I knew that this one event would change how we travel for years to come if not forever. Tensions rose in Europe, as did anti-Semitism.

Not long after, we began to see refugees streaming into Europe unchecked, mostly from the most troubled areas of the Middle East. This changed the dynamic of Europe fairly drastically. And yet the world still spins on its axis.

[Read more…] about Safety, Always a Concern, Never an Issue

Filed Under: Tour Planning, Travel planning Tagged With: Acropolis, Anti-Semitism, Austria, Belgium, Brandenburg Gate, Bulgaria, Colosseum, Eiffel Tower, England, Europe, France, Garden of Gethsemane, Garden Tomb, gERMANY, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jerusalem, Luxemburg, mars hill, Middle East, Neuschwanstein, Norway, Palestinian, Refugees, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Scotland Yard, Strasbourg, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Towerof London, Ukraine, VAssilios Tsirmpas, World Trade Center Towers

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