During preschool, Micah Wittler would dress like one of his biblical heroes, David.
So when Wittler visited En Gedi earlier this month with a group of 40 that included 14 students and two leaders from Grand Canyon University's Spiritual Life group, he quickly envisioned David seeking refuge from Saul.
“Just the idea of seeing fresh, cool water in a desert is physically refreshing,” Wittler said. “But there’s also a spiritual aspect to it where it’s a reminder of how we can seek refuge in the Lord even when we’re in the desert and it feels like there’s no hope, no fresh cool water.
“En Gedi was one of the most wonderful sights I saw, along with Jerusalem.”
But for Wittler and his fellow travelers, this 10-day trip to Israel was not just spiritual but educational as they learned, up close, about the country’s conflict.
They also lived out one of GCU’s tenets – service.
“When you take a college student somewhere, they want to be engaged,” said Dr. Tim Griffin, university pastor, vice president of Student Affairs and dean of students. “They just don't want to stand there and look and take pictures. They want to be involved with people who want to serve people – especially GCU students, they just have a heart for that.
“And so had we not had any service projects, then I think it wouldn't have been as enjoyable and as engaging as it turned out to be for the students. So that's always really important to any of our missions trips. But going to Israel, it's going to have to be a really important component there as well.”
Griffin, students Peyton Christenson and Wittler were moved by experiences they nearly did not get to witness.
Two years ago, GCU officials spoke to Passages, a United States-based Christian nonprofit group that arranges trips for Christian college students to Israel.
Griffin expressed his interest, only for the trip to be postponed briefly. Plans reemerged, but they were suspended after the Oct. 7 attacks in the Israel-Hamas war. But in March, enough funds were raised to help finance the trips.
Hillsdale College in Michigan, Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Upperroom School of Ministry in Texas and selected junior colleges from around the country joined GCU.
The group, which included GCU Worship Manager Jared Ulrich, visited as many sites as safely possible. They saw the Gaza Envelope region, which includes communities in south Israel near the Gaza Strip, and kibbutz areas. They spoke with people impacted by those war zones. And they walked through buildings that had been destroyed and sections that served as temporary memorials for young people who had been murdered, Griffin said.
Plans had to be adjusted during the trip when rockets landed in Galilee a day before GCU students and staff left the States for Israel, canceling one of their stops.
“You can't help but feel the sadness, the intensity of the of the space and what happened there,” Griffin said. “But I don't think any of us ever felt threatened.”
Besides, experiences like floating in the Dead Sea left an indelible mark.
“That was crazy,” said Christenson, a senior finance major. “I’ve always known the stories growing up, but I viewed it in a black-and-white kind of thing. I didn’t have a vision of it, but going to Israel put it in color.
“I read about En Gedi in the Bible but didn’t envision it to this great of detail (until visiting the site),” he said.
The temperature reached 105 degrees when the group saw the waterfalls in the middle of the desert.
“It definitely was refreshing, to say the least, to find cold waterfalls in the middle of nowhere,” Christenson said. “So I can only imagine how excited David was to find those waterfalls while hiking.”
Griffin stressed three main components to the trip:
- Visiting the historical sites, whether they were Old Testament or New Testament sites. “There was that educational component that would reinforce and clarify things they had read about in the Old the New Testament, and to actually be on the site where those events happened was very educational, very inspirational at the same time,” Griffin said.
- Current events in Israel. Students were engulfed in the relationship of Israel to the surrounding Arab countries, the conflict in Gaza, pressure from Hezbollah to the north and Iran to the east.
- Service. “GCU students want to serve, want to be engaged with people and help,” Griffin said.
At each stop, students received a debriefing.
One of the projects was helping students with mental challenges at a learning center.
“They were captivated by the opportunity to serve people that live in Israel,” Griffin said. “So moving forward, that's going to be a really important component of us taking students over there and making sure there's good service projects for us, interspersed with going to these historical sites.”
Wittler, a sophomore in the Barnabas Pastoral Program, appreciated learning about the conflict from speakers sharing the Israeli and Palestinian perspectives.
“It was very valuable,” said Wittler, who described the experience as an honor. “I think in some ways it would be wrong to go to Israel and just experience it for its biblical history and totally neglect it’s a functioning nation right now and also is in dire need of people to understand what’s going on and even support the nation of Israel by just learning about what’s up.”
Christenson said the trip was eye-opening.
"It gave me a whole new perspective on biblical events and now getting to see the context and significance of stories I’ve read in the Bible.
“But I have a greater understanding of the Jewish-Christian relations that are very important to learn from this experience.”
The group spent the first part of their trip in Nazareth before traveling to Jerusalem, where they spent the majority of their time.
With the help of Passages, the group was able to spend quality time at specific sites, instead of trying to squeeze in as many visits from the early morning to late evening hours without ample discussion.
“I want to go again,” said Griffin, who slept well during the 15-hour flight home with a pitstop in Newark, New Jersey. “Because it was my first time there, it was a little bit overwhelming. You're trying to take in all these current events and historical sights. You're just trying to drink it in.
“We've been home just over a week, and it's such a blur, like I need to go back. I need to be able to see again, experience again, and maybe take it in a different way.”
GCU News Senior Writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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