When I was 21, I attended the Fall 2000 semester at Brigham Young University’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. I was a history major and loved exploring a land that held so many stories. We traveled and learned Hebrew and Arabic and studied the New and Old Testaments with wise professors and ate so...
There were three holiday concerts we prepared the students to perform during the three Decembers we served in Israel. We spent many hours rehearsing for each of these and the students were as enthused to sing, dance, and play their instruments as we were to direct and accompany them. Imagine our shock when our first...
The night before leaving for Jerusalem in fall 1992, my now-husband “officially” proposed. Anticipating our upcoming separation, he wanted to make sure everyone knew I was already taken at what he called the BYU Jerusalem Center “Love Boat.” I’m sure his concern was overblown, but being engaged did help me focus more on certain aspects...
A favorite teaching moment for me happened in Shepherds’ Field. It was late in fall semester. I think we were getting into December and it was early in the evening. The wind was blowing enough to be noticed, and purple clouds were rolling in over the horizon. The lights were coming on from the top...
It was early December of 1993. The memory is vivid. I have considered the circumstances of that morning often throughout my life. I stood in my room at the BYU Jerusalem Center, overlooking Gethsemane and the old city of Jerusalem as I wept and plead with my Father in Heaven to help me understand the...
Beginning in August of 2011, my wife, Elaine, our children, Rachel and Samuel, and I lived in the Holy Land for a year while I taught at the Brigham Young University–Jerusalem Center. Experiencing that land and being able to teach the Bible in many of the very places where its events took place was a...
