On May 17th we started off on our 27th “Holy Land Tour”.  This trip was going to be difficult because I did not have my dad with us.  Actually, I wouldn’t even have been on this trip if my dad were still around.

In December of 2013 he passed away.  At that point, he and my mom had a group of 25 or so people signed up to go.  We struggled to figure out if we should even pursue doing a trip without him, but on December 27th (9 days after he died) my mom felt that the Lord told her to do the trip.  Shortly after that she asked me to go with her.

This was not my first trip to Israel, I was able to go with my wife in 2008.  Ironically, this was the only Israel trip my mom missed because she was keeping one of our children for the 13-days.  The first trip I was on was AMAZING.  It was an eye-opening trip.  I heard and read the stories of the land for years, but being there was putting it in a tangible and real form.  We were extremely blessed to be able to go in 2008, and to be honest, I would not have been much help for my mom if everything were new.

Our trips are extremely intense when it comes to the amount of information that is given.  We call it a “Bible-teaching tour” because we teach the Biblical impact at every opportunity.  So with that much teaching, there is much learning needed.  The teaching was split into four teachers, my mom, Kent Reinhardt (one of the people that my dad was mentoring), Robert Vander Maten (a great friend of my dad and president of Noseworthy Travel) and me.

At our disposal was 12-15 videos of some of the sites at which we teach, and my mom had years of notes that we could lean on.  The beauty of it was that my dad always was teaching, so as I prepared I was relearning a lot of the material.  I also tweaked and added as I saw fit.  At one of the locations (Tel Dan specifically) I had only two bullet points I had to reference, the rest, I wrote myself.  I can say this for everyone, we learned so much as we prepared.  (Except for Robert Vander Maten, because he is awesome).

Israel is a place like no other and I look forward to going back.

Ezekiel 36:37 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Once again I will yield to Israel’s plea and do this for them: I will make their people as numerous as sheep, 38 as numerous as the flocks for offerings at Jerusalem during her appointed festivals. So will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”