As part of the Bible College course I am doing I had the opportunity of applying for a study tour of Israel. In order to go I also needed a travel scholarship and recently I learned that my application was successful. The tour is in November.

For some time I had not wanted to go to Israel since I was worried that historical sites had become mere tourist attractions and that much had been compromised for the convenient of attracting the tourist dollar. I was also worried about the infiltration of other religions in the country. Yet after hearing and reading of others who have been, and the impact it had on their spiritual lives, I had a growing desire to also visit the country that I have read about so much in the Bible.

The study tour is offered every second year and two years ago I became aware that I could apply. Yet it was not a convenient time as I was trying to get a job and I had a limited time window in which to apply so after a few enquiries I decided to wait until next time – which is now!

I attended the information session recently. I was pleased to learn that our tour guide is very knowledgeable about the historical sites and will be pointing out what is tourist hype and what is archaeological fact.

I will be travelling with a group of about 25 students.