My experience in the land of Israel

It’s been a dream of mine to study in the land of Israel. Over the past several years I’ve been learning a lot about the scriptures through the cultural and historical background and it opened my eyes to a lot that hadn’t seen before. As a result, I’d been longing to get an opportunity to study in the land and unpack the stories of the Bible through the lens of the Middle East. That opportunity came this year. I found out about some short-term study courses that I could do through Jerusalem University College. I wasn’t sure it would be possible due to the expense but God is all about making the impossible, possible. I didn’t find out that I would be able to make the trip until Mother’s Day, just one month before I needed to fly to Israel. That’s a story in itself. It was quite an adventure.

The trip took place over the summer which was not the time I would have preferred to visit Israel. I had always heard that the best times to visit are in the Spring or the Fall but this door of opportunity came in the summer and I knew that it was going to be a way for me to get a taste of the challenges in antiquity that would have been experienced by those that lived in the land between. I’m really thankful I got to experience it for the first time in the summer and being that I’m from Florida where it’s quite humid in the summer, at times it was kind of a relief to have less humidity.

I took two separate courses at Jerusalem University College. I took a course on the Historical and Geographical settings of the Bible and then I took a course on Jesus and His Times. In between the two courses, I traveled with a group to several sites in Jordan as well. It was an amazing experience. The weather in the month of June was warm but quite nice in Jerusalem due to its location and elevation. The nights were cool, so much so that I needed a sweatshirt some evenings. As we headed into July the weather got quite hot everywhere. In the Negev, the Judean Wilderness, and even in Galilee the temps at times reached in the 100s.

It made complete sense why so many of the stories in Scripture seem to surround the importance of water. Overall Israel is a very dry place. There are areas that get more rainfall but the rainfall tends to be shortlived. The early rains usually begin around October which allows for plowing and sowing seed and then there’s some rain through the fall but mostly in the winter months with the chances of rain tapering off in May. The little rain they get in the Winter needed to last them through the summer months. Some regions only get one to three inches of rain a year. It makes for quite challenging living conditions.

We were encouraged to drink lots of water and we had the luxury of having a water cooler on the bus. Most of the time we had ice-cold water but there were occasions when we had to drink it on the warmer side but it was always available. In antiquity, I can only imagine how it would have been for water to be such a scarce resource. I gained some perspective regarding the wanderings of the Israelites for forty years in the desert. We often give them a hard time for their grumbling in the wilderness. After experiencing the extreme heat but still having plentiful water available, it’s not hard for me to imagine the level of fear they might have experienced not knowing where they would find water in the sweltering heat of the desert or the dangers that would have found them. Today we see Ibex in the wilderness but back then they would have also encountered lions and other dangerous beasts.

I learned so much on my trip and came home with so many resources with which to continue my studies. There’s a lot of information that is foundational to understanding the stories in scripture but would be rather dry (no pun intended!) for me to share it in the academic way that I learned it. I knew I wanted to be able to share the things I learned on my blog but to be completely transparent, after coming home I felt a bit paralyzed because I didn’t know where to begin with unpacking these things. Rather than letting myself get overwhelmed, I decided that I would just begin sharing piece by piece whatever the Lord puts on my heart.

So much transpired while I was away including things I can’t fully put into words yet. When I got home I didn’t really want to engage with anyone right away. It felt like I needed time to process everything. When I was in Israel I felt the Lord’s heart for His people which felt like a well I couldn’t reach the bottom of. My heart enlarged for the land of Israel and the Jewish people. I’m forever changed by the experience. There are things I’m walking out as a result of my visit there that are still unfolding. I look forward to sharing more with you in the days to come.