By Blair and Linda Wetmore
We realize that many of you who have travelled to The Land of Israel have memories that you treasure.
We would like to share with you some of our cherished memories that we hold dear in our hearts.
In 1999 The Father opened the way for us to travel to the land of Israel, via an invitation given by the pastor of a Christian church we were attending at the time. The invitation was to join with a Christian group from North America to meet in Ephesus, with one of the side trips to Israel…..my heart leapt as I felt The Father was speaking to me that He wanted us to go to Israel.
I immediately prayed ‘Father, if this is from You, please make this known to my husband, as I often was the one who got us involved in many things….. I truly wanted this to be His/ The Father’s doing, not mine!
That evening before we left the church building, it was my husband who gathered the material outlining the details of the tour.
To make a long story short, we travelled from western Canada to New York to meet with one of the Christian groups travelling to Turkey. On this tour we visited the seven churches throughout the Aegean region of Turkey & ending up in Ephesus to join the many gathered there from all over North America for the worship and prayer conference.
Our next stop Israel❣️
We landed at the original Lod airport in Tel Aviv. Walking across the tarmac towards the airport building, everything in me was saying kneel down & kiss the ground to which I responded: Father, these people will think I’m crazy, so I walked on.
As we walked up the few steps into the terminal, the floodgates opened as tears flowed from my eyes. I looked at my husband & saw tears also falling from his eyes. As we entered through the doors and looked around, I asked: what is going on? Blair answered, ‘I don’t know’. Looking around again, observing the number of people … mostly Jewish, I turned to Blair & said: it feels like ‘we’ve come home’ to which he answered: “We have!”
Little did we know that people were coming into Israel to celebrate The Feast of Tabernacles, which I’m sorry to say had never registered on us, even though we had read His Word.
We were told this was a Jewish holiday.
We had so many questions travelling throughout The Land as our excitement continued to grow!
After returning to our home in Canada, we began looking more closely into God’s Word. One question I had asked my Heavenly Father was why He had changed the fourth commandment…I could not find the answer as I searched His Word, but found the answer in the encyclopedia, which states the early church fathers changed the seventh day to the first day of the week and the Roman emperor Constantine made an edict in AD 321 to establish Sunday as the day of rest.
Abba revealed to us His Sabbaths were for all His people, along with His precious Jewish people.
As Blair and I began keeping Sabbath our Loving Abba opened to us the rest of His eternal Feast days.
We discovered a few others living in our area who were also being drawn to keep His Sabbaths & Feast days, with whom we began meeting together on His Set-Apart appointed day, His, not man’s day of Sabbath.
Shortly after this, we were invited to a home who were hosting a dear couple from Israel, through whom our Loving Abba revealed to us regarding Ezekiel 37 of His Two Sticks…..Judah, known as the Jewish people who kept their identity throughout the centuries to present day; and the northern tribes of Israel who were dispersed & scattered throughout the nations who had lost their identity having assimilated into all the nations of the earth.
That evening a fire was birthed in both of us as the realization came that we were of the Seed of Abraham through his son Isaac, and through the twelve sons of Jacob.
Our Wonderful Messiah was drawing us back to Him to understand our true national identity as the lost sheep of the northern kingdom/house of Israel‼️
When I read our Saviour’s words “I came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel….I knew of a surety that I was one of His lost sheep of the house of Israel for whom He came.
Our subsequent trip to Israel was with a Torah group. I could hardly wait to disembark from the airplane, only to discover walking into the new beautiful large Ben Gurion airport…no ground to kneel on there! I felt so disappointed, but as always, our Loving Abba had a much better plan!
On this tour, we were taken by armored bus to Mt. Gerizim, the Mt of Blessing overlooking Shechem.
It was on this mountain that Blair & I left the group who were walking into a building & walked around the building by ourselves…. it was there we kneeled together & kissed the ground together & being still on our knees we raised our faces & lifted our hands towards the heavens to The God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. We both felt His Glory come down over us as the sun penetrated the clouds pouring streams of light & warmth over us.
We knew this Land was indeed The Land promised to Avraham and to his Seed, of which we now belonged.
We are indeed humbled forever as we recall this set-apart moment of time in our lives❣️
Each time Abba has opened the door for us to return & be in His Land, The Land promised to Avraham through Isaac and again through Jacob to us His people/the whole house of Israel, we have experienced blessing upon blessing …at times traveling with precious friends and at times on our own, but always meeting our dear Mishpacha from both sides of Abba’s family.
On one occasion when we were with a special tour group of like-minded ones, we were in Shiloh. Our group dispersed to pray.
As Blair & I were standing praying, I thought how special it would be to have Blair’s tallit/prayer shawl over us. At that moment a precious man, David, draped his tallit over our heads & shoulders and said to us “I thought you might like this over you”‼️ …a precious memory that will be cherished forever in our hearts❣️
How loving our Wonderful Abba is to us🙌
Another time we were staying with dear friends whose home overlooked the beautiful Kinneret/ Sea of Galilee. They took us to the top of Mt Arbel, where our host wondered if that might be the lonely place where our Master went apart to pray; and where in hearing His disciples cry out for help because of a storm that came up, came to them and upon entering their boat they were immediately at shore.
John 6:15-21
So many beautiful blessings & precious people in The Land ….as well as those He is preparing to return to be part of The whole house of Israel along with our brother Yahuda.
Because of the rise of antisemitism & anti-zionism in our day, we need to draw ever closer to our Father to know & understand His Great Redeeming Covenant Love through our Wonderful Messiah, and by His Grace/Empowerment, we can be His vessels of His Love & Mercy to all whom He brings to us.
We long for His timing for Him to join the two sticks of the house of Yahuda and the house of Ephraim(the scattered seed of the ten northern tribes) together in His Hand in The Land‼️Ezekiel 36 & 37.
HalleluYah🙌 What a Saviour🙌
GREAT IS HIS FAITHFULNESS🙌
Blessings to you all and may Abba impart into each heart of us His Highways to Tzion.
Blair and Linda Wetmore
