Holy Land comes to life via tours

Carolyn Sandgren-Kempf has found great joy and purpose in traveling to the Holy Land. Three trips in the course of many years have provided opportunities to make the country she had only read about previously come to life, and she has the privilege of leading others on this journey.

Kempf started Elite Travel in 1992. She gives tours and said they have touched her deeply.

The Israeli Tourist Board invited her on her first trip to Israel, and she spent 14 days touring the nation. She was more of a participant than an actual guide, as she hadn't been there before. It was training for her, and a man named Michael Rudd was the leader. She said he was concerned about his son, who had taken a fancy to acting, hoping he would find success. That son, as it turned out, is actor Paul Rudd, known for his comedic roles in movies such as "Anchorman." Laughing, Kempf noted that the senior Rudd clearly had nothing to worry about.

But it was her own son who came to mind when she reminisced about that first time in Israel in 1997. Unbeknownst to her, she had been pregnant with him the entire time she was in Israel. She named him Levi David, an appropriate name for someone who had spent two weeks immersed in Jewish culture during a visit to the Holy Land, even if that visit took place in the womb.

The first site visited on that initial trip was the Children's Memorial, where an eternal flame burns in honor of the 1.5 million children murdered during the Holocaust. If she had it to do over, she would not have visited the memorial, which elicited such strong emotions, first, she stated. "Everyone was very quiet for about three days afterwards."

Drawn back

She has returned to Israel twice since her initial visit. So what draws her back?

"Outside of it being my career is my faith journey -- my personal faith journey." As a Christian, she said, it is an "experience that makes the Bible come alive." Television makes Israel look like a pile of rocks, but this is not so, she asserted. Although Israel is just "a dot on the map," she said, "no place in the world has such history."

And each time she has been there, leading tours and taking it in herself, she has been engulfed in that history. Elite Travel routinely takes tourists to the archaeological site of Megiddo; Capernaum, where several apostles lived; Tabgha, where it is believed Jesus fed the 5,000 with two fish and five loaves; Cana, the place of Jesus's first miracle, turning the water to wine; Jerusalem; Bethlehem, the place where Jesus and King David were born; the Wailing Wall; the Dome of the Rock; and the Garden of Gethsemane, to name just a few sites.

On the border

Kempf also has been to a bunker at the border that appeared to be just a sewing factory but underground was a bullet factory that was "right under the enemy's noses." Elaborating, she said, "They would go down underground and build things to help during the war."

On her last trip, the group also went to the border of Lebanon and stood in bunkers of the war. They also cruised across the Sea of Galilee and "ate St. Peter's fish."

"No trip would be complete without going to Masada," she added, offering a history lesson. The Masada is the place where the Jewish people built a fortress in the desert, one that took the Romans years to break through. They did so by "[using] Jewish slaves to move dirt to build a mountain up the side." When they finally conquered the fortress, they found that the Jewish refugees had elected mass suicide over allowing their children to be taken as slaves.

Kempf cited Petra as her favorite part of the trip. A year-and-a-half ago, her last trip to Israel, during which she traveled with a local church, they flew nonstop from New York to Amman, Jordan, and went to Petra. "I loved it there," she exulted. Loved it!"

And a miracle

However, perhaps the most unforgettable experience of the Holy Land was the miracle she received. She shared the story of her son, who needed a second surgery, which he was scheduled to have at the St. Louis Children's Hospital two days after her return to the United States. The doctors had warned her not to delay the surgery, not to rely on her faith to bring her son through. The concerned mother knew she needed a miracle, and there, at the Wailing Wall, she prayed for that miracle, following the tradition of writing her prayer request on paper and leaving it in the wall. While at that historic site, her cell phone rang, and it was her son, still in need of a miracle. He received that miracle, and instead of operating on him, doctors confirmed that he was healed, no longer in need of surgery -- and he remains healed to this day.

"God can heal anywhere, but He chose to do it while I was there at the Wailing Wall," she said.

Kempf said there are many reasons to visit Israel.

Certainly, "everyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ should visit the Holy Land," she said, adding she was rebaptized there, wanting to be baptized where Jesus was.

"Israelis love the arts --dance, theater, etc.," she said.

"There's more to Israel than faith-based travel," she said, citing beautiful beaches, history and Middle Eastern cuisine.