We had no desire to go to Israel as we had seen the slides of so many people who had visited the Land - many of them had no idea where they had been and so often had difficulty identifying their photos. They were glad they had been but there seemed to be no real excitement about it and no desire to do any follow up.
However, in 1992 a member of our congregation told us that a work colleague was urging him to go and hear a man called Lance Lambert from Israel speaking in Derby. Would we like to go with him? So we did. Well Lance started telling us about what God was doing and how Prophecy was being fulfilled now. He made it all sound so exciting that we really began to feel a great desire to visit Israel. Not knowing what kind of tour would be best we thought we would ask the advice of Clifford Hill of ‘Prophecy Today’. Much to our delight he said they were doing a tour next year and suggested we went with them. So in April 1993 we set off for the Old Testament study tour “From Dan to Beersheba”. Not everything went smoothly on that tour and it must have been a nightmare for the organisers, but we all had a wonderful time. There were two coaches - we were on the blue coach with David and Jenny Forbes, but of course always met up with Cliff and Monica and those on the red coach at each destination. We have many happy memories of that tour - not least acting out the story of Gideon defeating the Midianites at the spring of Harod. Also we are thankful that Cliff had organised
Barry and Batya Segal to be after-dinner speakers one evening. They shared their vision for the Joseph Store House and we signed up as supporters. What an amazing couple and what a tremendous work they are doing. I think Cliff had lined up other after dinner speakers but soon realised that after a day’s intense teaching we just couldn’t keep awake for anything in the evening.
When visiting the Elijah site, on Mount Carmel, I well remember Cliff telling us about the stone that had been found there.
We didn’t venture forth on the camel to spend the night in the Bedouin tent. (To tell you the truth it was quite a rare treat for us to stay in a hotel, so we opted for that rather than the tent!!!)
(While volunteering at Christ Church, we had a “volunteers day out” when amongst other things we were taken to Genesis Land where we “met Abraham” in his home and we made bread there which we consumed with olive oil and Zataar.)
Another thing I remember about the 1993 tour was “no room at the Inn”, when the poor organisers tried to get us all accommodated in Jerusalem, but the only other place they could find was the Dan Panorama in Tel Aviv so we had to pair up with two others on the other coach and have half our time in Jerusalem and half in Tel Aviv. I also remember our visit to the copper mine area - Tinmar Park - in Southern Israel not far from Eilat.
We were not able to visit Israel again until 2007 and then again in 2010. Since then we have been blessed by visiting Jerusalem each year until Len’s health and Covid prevented us going in 2020. (Our best ever time was as volunteers at Christ Church in 2011 - hard work but the best time of our whole lives).