hometown visit

Today I got to speak about my trip to Israel with my mom's class.

It started out as a request to share with her class and the next thing I knew, I was speaking in front of the entire lower school at Greenville Classical Academy.

I feel as if I'm still processing through my time in Israel, and may be for years to come as new passages are brought to light.

How can I describe the wonders of the trip. The brand new experiences and yet a familiarity that almost makes you feel as if you've been there before. I like to describe it this way;

My college roommate was from New Jersey and she would often tell me stories of her hometown, how it was a small town, but population-wise it was big. I felt like I knew it, just from the stories she would tell. Most of the people in her town lived close enough to walk to school. Parents often commuted into NYC and if you go on this one hill in town, you can get a panoramic of the New York skyline.

I heard the stories, but it wasn't until I went home to visit her family over fall break that all the stories came together. I got to see firsthand what she'd been telling me. The proximity of her house to her local high school and the Seven Eleven down the street that she used to visit after school.

My time in Israel felt like visiting a friend's hometown. I knew the familiar stories and the familiar settings, that until now were nothing more than a name. Suddenly they came together and were a place. An actual location. A tangible reality. We would drive down the road and see a sign for "Mt. Carmel," which was crazy to see, but so normal at the same time.

Maybe it's because I need the visual and kinesthetic to make sense of things, but standing in locations that I'd read about my whole life, was indescribable.

God is still teaching me things about the trip every day. Today's aha moment came when I was reading Acts 10 in preparation for the chapel presentation. Caesarea was a city right on the edge of the Mediterranean and a booming Roman port. We really don't hear much about the city until after the death of Christ. Paul is imprisoned for a time in Caesarea, Herod's death takes place in the city, but more importantly, it's one of the first locations where the gospel crossed the border of the Jewish people to be brought to gentiles. Peter is in Joppa, a Jewish port town when the Centurion seeks him out and God reveals his will to Peter in a dream. The beauty of Caesarea begins with the gospel's intention for both Jews and Gentiles alike!

God chose a booming port city. A direct link to Rome. A place where large ships come and go and  travelers frequent. A city that worshipped other gods. He chose for a high official, a Centurion, to hunger after the gospel and seek out the truth. Truth that would spread quickly from a sleepy Galilean countryside to the ends of the Earth.

I thank God that he's opened the doors for a gentile like myself to be part of His kingdom. When I often feel like a foreigner in my own hometown, somehow this trip felt like going home. Home to a place I'd never visited before, but one that I knew so well.