Israel: The Trip That Didn’t Happen

Over a year ago, my husband and I were on one of our usual 10,000 step walks. A man walking his dog stopped us. He said he’d watched us walk by his house for years and felt it was time he knew our names. This prompted a conversation that eventually led to us traveling with him and 37 others to Israel.

Many years ago, our church organized a trip to Israel, and we talked ourselves out of going. It was too expensive, our boys were too active to burden anyone else, etc. We have been remorseful ever since. When the man, Steve, told us about the trip that he and his church were organizing we did not hesitate to commit. Everything fell into place. We ended up knowing quite a few of the other travelers. Two pastors were going with us as guides, these two pastors held classes for us to prepare us for the trip. There was a growing bond with the group and each of us had a story about how the trip had been set up in an individualized, spiritual way. For us, we received an unexpected check in the mail that was only $17 short of what we needed to pay our balance.

At one of the classes, Pastor Ed explained that often travelers become overwhelmed in Israel because moving geographically through the area conflicts with the actual Biblical timeline. To help us with the ability to understand what events happened in which places, he provided an inexact timeline: