Israel!

I think today I'm gonna share about how I got to go to Israel for the first time and how it effected me spiritually!

I was in college back in 1988. Actually I was in Junior College, about to go off to Northern Arizona University in Arizona. I wanted to major in archaelogy and be an archaelogist! A friend of my grandparents knew i was interested in archaelogy and knew I was a Believer, and they knew a professor at the Seminary in Fort Worth. Dr. George Kelm, He and Ami Mazar (of Hebrew University in Jerusalem) were head of archaelogical dig of the biblical site of Timnah, in Shephelah Valley. Timnah is mentioned in Judges 14, and in the story of Samson when he wedded a Philistine woman, and ate honey out of a dead lion's belly.

I had wanted to go to Israel but didn't think it was possible. I thought it was too dangerous because of the intifada.

I need to back up and share about my life spiritually at the time. I had spent my high school years going to a little baptist church near my grandparents. It had an awesome youth directors when I first started. Jerry and Judy Chambers. They were so awesome and enthusiastic and fun. We did awesome things..field trips skiing, camping, lock ins, etc. I saw the LORD in them. They were very special. Jerry was also the choir director. They had us visit a Bar Mitzvah service at a local synagogue and took us to a black baptist church. They eventually left to move up to Washington State (where Judy's family lived) to become youth directors of a church there and after that, things changed at the little baptist church. I got tired of the same old thing every week. I felt uncomfortable going to church sunday after sunday. I realize now that I was outgrowing the baptist church and the LORD was leading me away from that. I wasn't satisfied with status quo christianity. I got involved with a college campus baptist group, but it just didn't seem right. I wasn't happy. I was hungering for something more.

As I would read scripture boringly, I kept coming across how Israel was a major part of God's word. Israel, Israel! I realize...Israel is very important! I then prayed "LORD...show me your heritage! Make me love what you love! Make me crazy about what you're crazy about! "

One reason why I prayed for God to show me His heritage was because I didn't see it in the traditional church. It just seemed sooo artificial...the traditional church. I knew that having a relationship with Him was more than church choir, etc. Yeah, I sang in the church choir, but I hated it!! I felt sooo dry inside spiritually.

One day I came home to my dreary apartment, upset about something. I started crying and the next thing I knew I started crying to the LORD "I want to go to Israel!! LORD send me to Israel!! I want to go to the HolyLand!!"

Can you believe that a few weeks later, I came home to my grandmothers, finding a brochure on the table. An archaelogy dig in Israel!!!

"Lara, think good and hard about this. If you want to go to Israel, Granddad will pay your way over there! " Nana told me!

She told me that the friend gave her the brochure to give to me. I immediately sat down and thought...okay, is it the Lord's will for me to go? Then BAM!! It hit me like a ton of bricks!!! I remembered how i had prayed to go to ISrael a few weeks ago!!! It blew me away!! God answered my prayer!!!

We spent a month in Israel! Actually, the first week, we went on a cruise in the Greek Islands, Crete, Santorini, Ephesus in Turkey, got to go to Corinth, Athens, etc. I had an interesting roommate from Canada. She was of Dutch background, homeschooled, from a large family. She could play the classical piano and wherever we went, on the ship, or in a hotel in Greece or Israel, she would find a piano and I would sit and listen to her play Beethoven, etc.

The most awesome thing about the cruise, was how blue the Aegean sea was. A dark blue. And at night, there was a full moon and it reflected in the ocean and was soooo beautiful!! I picked up a cassette tape of Greek music on one of the Islands and listened to the music on my walkman as I watched the moon and ocean in the dark!! I still remember that!!!

We walked among the ruins and pillars of Ephesus one day and I found it interesting that there were ancient toilets!! A slab of stone with holes in it for the ancient Ephesians to 'do their business'...

We flew to Tel Aviv after the cruise, and I remember getting on the bus, that would take us to the hotel in Tel Aviv, as we were waiting to leave, I immediately got my walkman out and turned the radio on. I was curious to find out what kind of music was in Israel. It blew me away to come across some awesome soothing beautiful Israeli music!! I loved it!! It is probably Israeli oldies...I loved it!!

We walked down the street in Tel Aviv that night and had watermelon at one of the cafes!! There's no Dr. Pepper in Israel. But there was Coke and they still used the green coke bottles in Israel!

I don't have time to go into all the detail of the trip! But it was very special. Especially the day We went to Jerusalem for the first time. See, at the time, I struggle with shyness and having to talk with people, etc. Well, what happened on that day!! I woke up with laryngitis!! I never had that happened to me before!! I couldn't talk at all!! It wasn't just a 'frog in my throat!" It was totally nothing!! So I was soooo glad I didn't have to talk!!

On the dig each day, we would get up real early, 4am, get in the van, head out to the dig, and we ended at noontime. We would then returned to the Moshav (sort of like a kibbutz) eat lunch, and shower and rest in the afternoon til 4pm when we would wash pottery shards. It was during those afternoons when I would lay on my bed, and read my bible. BOOM!!! It was like everything opened up to me like never before!! Especially reading about places we had just visited!! Especially in Ezekiel in a part of scripture you never hear anyone preach about in church!! Where it described in the end of days in the millenium when the Dead Sea would be changed to fresh water and fishermen fishing and how the LORD's throne in Jerusalem, there would run living water from under His Throne into the Kidron valley and it would flow all the way out to the Dead Sea, turning the Dead Sea to fresh water!!! I was like..."I"ve been there!!!! The Dead Sea is totally dead...and salty! A result of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah!! It is also the lowest spot on the earth!! You can't swim in the Dead Sea, you float in it! One ancient story...either Josephus or a Roman account has a horse fallen on it's side floating in the Dead Sea!!
The more I read scripture, the more I got excited about Israel and God's plan for her in the end days!! I got fired up on His Word as I had never been before. I was no longer dry and unexcited spiritually.
Also something else happened on the trip. I visited a Spirit-filled Anglican church with my roommate and another in the group! It was unexpected that it was Spirit-filled. My roommate was looking over the church bulletin and pointed it out to me where the bulletin explained that they practiced the gifts of the Spirit. For the life of me, I can't remember the prophetic word that someone gave...it was small, though, I remember I was excited at how real it was there! I was eager to take the communion. My roommate and other one didn't, but I eagerly got up and took communion!

Me and my digging partner at the dig, worked in a small room which was used to store pottery. We found lots of pottery shards and 2 bronze arrowheads from the Canaanite period and my partner found a cylinder seal.

When I got back to the States from Israel, I immediately got ready for college in Flagstaff AZ!! Another big change for me spiritually!! I got to be around people who really were excited and loved the LORD. They were soooo real in Him! I got involved in Intervarsity Christian fellowship. It was nothing like traditional churchianity! For the first time I encountered spirit-filled Believers ministering to each other, etc. We would spend Friday nights sitting on the carpet floor worshipping the LORD with acoustic guitar. I miss that!! I probably drove some of my brothers and sisters there up the wall with my talk of Israel all the time!! LOL.

I would eventually make 3 more trips to Israel. Another archaelogy trip to Israel. Then I went one semester of school in Jerusalem at the Institute for Holyland Studies...I took modern and biblcal Hebrew. Then I made my last trip to Israel back in 96 I think...a month before Rabin's assassination. It was my last trip that was my most awesome trip!! I heard angels singing in my sleep one night in Jerusalem!! I had never had that happen to me before!!! It both excited me and freaked me out, too!!
Also, one day with group, we went to the Western wall, and I took some pictures of this man!! I hope these pictures get on here!! There was not a cloud in the sky when I took the pictures!! As I saw this awesome Jewish man dressed in white praising HaShem I took his picture and the Light came and shined on Him!!! I want to say more but will share later!!