Preparing for a Trip

When Laura and I were given a very generous gift from our church to travel to Israel we quickly looked at a variety of options for going there. We decided on traveling with Under the Fig Tree Ministries. This is an organization which takes you to Egypt, Jordan and Israel to follow in the footsteps of the people of God and of our Savior. The teacher/leader is Rev. George DeJong who will serve as our guide. We will be doing a lot of walking and go to places that are not normally on an itinerary to The Holy Land. In fact, our trip will begin in Egypt and pass through the Sinai Peninsula, head to Jordan and then cross the Jordan River into Israel.

The philosophy behind this trip is that we will learn with our feet; that is, we will be hiking almost everyday from 6 to 10 miles, much of it up and down mountains. We will also be reading and taking notes on all of the places we will be traveling to. So in preparation for this trip we have been doing a variety of things.

We have been hiking and running to get into better shape. I like to run so I have been running a little over three miles a day. Laura has been doing some vigorous walking and running stairs. She likes to go to the Grandville Middle School football stadium and run up and down the bleachers -- 34 steps up and 34 steps down up to 30 times in an evening. That is just over 2,000 steps. However, climbing Mt. Sinai will be twice that just to get to the top! Usually we try to save Fridays for a long walk together. We strap on our hiking boots, grab our hiking poles and take off for a hike of four or five miles in the hilliest places we can find. We are finding out that we like both the hiking and the time to talk.


We are also doing a bunch of reading. We have read The Source by Michener which is an historical fiction book about the history of the Jews in the land of Israel. It is an interesting book but can be difficult to read as Christianity is not placed in a very warm light. We have also read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jesus by Bruce Fisk. This is an innovative approach to the study of the life of Jesus. It is written from the perspective of a college student who travels through Israel looking to fortress his faith with an in depth study of the life of Jesus in the same places where that life was lived. Laura has also read a novel about Masada called Dove Keepers and I read Who’s Land, Who’s Promise, a commentary about the contemporary political situation in Israel and Palestine. Presently I am reading The Great War for Civilization by Robert Fisk, which is a journalistic history of the Middle East conflict over the past 20 years. We have also been reading the historical books of the Bible from Moses through Jesus.

The most important preparation for such a trip is the opening of our hearts to what the Lord will tell us during this experience. Obviously the Lord speaks the most clearly through the Bible. However, when you take the Bible to the place that it talks about and describes, we anticipate that there will be another level of revelation which will speak to us. It is a revelation which I am sometimes able to enjoy when, in the study of the context and culture of the Bible lands, I all of a sudden experience an epiphany of understanding into the will of the Lord. How much better it should be to travel through this country with an expert teacher who will point out to us so many things which will add understanding to our faith. This will be wonderful.

So our preparation is close to being complete. We are almost ready to hike, climb, see and experience the Land of the Bible.