by Pastor Patrick Cho
It still hasn’t really set in that I’m on an airplane heading to Israel! Words can’t express how excited and thankful I am for this opportunity. I’m so grateful to the Lighthouse church family for making this possible. Our group met up at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX this morning at 10:30am. John and I grabbed some lunch with Christine and Eden before heading through security around noon. I was also thankful to see briefly my brother and his wife who drove up from Orange County to see me off, and Christine’s cousin who works at LAX.
We were greeted by Dennis Swanson, our trip coordinator, and quickly got checked in at El Al Airlines. I’ve met a number of people in our group now, and some have had some experience travelling to Israel. They all agree that the trip with The Master’s Seminary is going to be much more detailed and educational than anything they have been on before. That makes me even more excited to be going! One gentleman mentioned that after visiting years ago, he could not put down his Bible when he got back. Much of what he read, especially in the Old Testament, really came to life as a result of his experiences there.
Our trip leaders are Dr. Michael Grisanti and Dr. Michael Vlach. Dr. Grisanti actually went out to Israel ahead of us to prepare for our arrival and get our itinerary set. We’ll meet up with him once we land. He teaches Hebrew at the seminary and I can’t wait to see him since he was one of my favorite professors. Dr. Vlach started teaching at the seminary after I graduated, but I have read some of his work and it is very good.
I’m really thankful to be travelling with Pastor John, though we’re not sitting next to each other on the plane. It’ll be great to share in this experience with him. Of course, I’m sad that Christine couldn’t come with me, but hopefully we can save up and visit sometime in the future. It’s been nice meeting the others going on this trip because I don’t know most of them. It’ll be great building new relationships and sharing in the experience – seeing new places, tasting new foods, etc. We land in Tel Aviv in the early afternoon so I should get some rest!