PERSONAL BLOG: My Experience in Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles

I was blessed to speak at my church last night and show 72 pictures of my experience in Jerusalem for Lars Enarson's Jerusalem Sukkot Celebration, October 14-15, 2016. I packed all I could into 50 minutes, but there is still a lot to tell. My blog so far has been a teaching site, but I now would like to change it to a personal blog, another way to fulfill my calling as a "Mizpah" for Israel. I hope you will stay with me as I relate my experiences during my EIGHTH TRIP TO ISRAEL. My new friend, Doris Murdoch, and I had an exciting time!

Background: Curtis and I have known Lars & Harriet Enarson and their children, Josefin, Johanna, and John, since they moved from Sweden to Columbus, Mississippi, where we were pastoring, in 1992. Lars greatly influenced me in my understanding of Scripture in relation to Israel, my Jewish Messiah, and the Jewish people. His world-wide prayer ministry, the Elijah Prayer Army and The Watchman International (thewatchman.org), began to develop while they were in Columbus.

Curtis took six of us from the church to Israel in 1994. After returning, I began to study modern Hebrew, and my first teacher was the Swedish tutor who had come to provide schooling for the Enarson children. God called me as a Mizpah (watchman and witness) for Israel in 1995.  In 1996, I led a mission to Jerusalem with Curtis and four other church members. The Enarsons moved to Israel in 1997. I went by myself to Israel in 1998 and did volunteer work in Jerusalem, staying with two different couples, one of them being Roy and Mary Kendall (more on them later). Then I went to Haifa to visit the Enarsons.  In 2002, I went with two sisters from Huntsville, Alabama, to Israel for Lars Enarson's Passover Prayer Tour -Convocation- and outreach conference. In 2003, my Messianic Jewish friend, Janice Bell, and I were given checks for $3,333.33 each by an anonymous donor for a trip to Israel!! Then in 2007, Janice and I took our husbands, Jack and Curtis, to Israel, on another self-designed tour. You can read about my adventures on all these trips in my book (see sidebar), Jewish Roots Journey: Memoirs of a Mizpah.  In 2012, my friend, June White, and I went to Israel and stayed with Roy and Mary Kendall.

How I got my traveling companion: I really wanted to go to Lars Enarson's Jerusalem Sukkot Celebration this year, but I knew my husband Curtis was in such bad health that I couldn't leave him. After Curtis went to be with the Lord in April, I began to consider it again. (Although Curtis refused to renew his passport three years before, he insisted that I renew mine. He was looking ahead for me, bless his heart!) Strangely, the desire to go to Israel again had faded, and I didn't want to go. However, I prayed that if the Lord wanted me to go, I would do it. I gave Him one condition: I must have someone to go with me!

It wasn't long until I got an email from my publisher at Energion Publications, Henry Neufeld. He said one of his authors, Doris Murdoch, wanted to contact me. Because of my love for Israel, she thought I might provide the answer to a question she had. Doris and I began corresponding, and one day I wrote her and asked if she would like to go to Israel with me. She replied that she had just been to Israel in January, so it would be too soon to go back. Then later she wrote again and said when she told her husband Jerry about my invitation, he said she really needed to think about it! She thought about it and decided to go!

It looked like God had answered my prayer. Yes, He wanted me to go to Israel again. I wanted to be double sure that Doris and I would be compatible, so on a trip through Florida, Janice and I paid her and Jerry a visit at their home in Live Oak. She was a marvelous hostess, and we had great conversation. I felt right about us traveling together to Israel. That was in August. In September, Jerry and Doris visited me in Petrey. On October 13th, Doris and I flew out of Atlanta to Israel! The adventure began.

I could not have had a better traveling companion than Doris. Please continue to check this site for the unfolding of my adventures in Israel!