Over the years, I have developed a passion for collecting Holocaust stories. I felt they might someday disappear from the shelves, erasing the memory of the six million Jews murdered, those who survived, and the reality of the horrors committed against them. I have bought used Holocaust books from cities, schools, universities, and even church libraries that are stamped “DISCARD.” The Nazis made Jew-hatred acceptable, the foundation for the genocide they perpetrated, but that did not die with Hitler and Eichmann. I witnessed this personally on one of the saddest days of my life, September 11, 2001. My husband and I were on a business trip in Norway. We headed to a prearranged dinner just hours after learning of this catastrophe that night. Still shaken, I commented that “this is all about Israel.” Why I said that I don't know, but I did. The man to my left started ranting about the Jews, telling everyone the Jews were interlopers in the land of the Palestinians! I answered him directly, “The Jews are God’s Chosen People, God gave them the deed to the Land in the Bible, and that the Gentiles are to be a blessing to the Jews.”

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While I stood my ground and defended the Jewish people and my faith in God's Word for them, I swore I would never be in that position again without an arsenal of facts behind me. I needed to get to Israel to see for myself. The next month, I did. Because of the intifada, it felt as if we were the only tour group in Israel. Our tour guides were Orthodox Jews living in Judea and Samaria. Bombings occurred in restaurants, bars, hotels, buses, etc. Amidst all this, we met true heroes basing their lives and the lives of their families on their belief in the Promises of God to restore them to the Land, Eretz Israel. Their knowledge of Hebrew Scripture stunned us. It was as if they had just stepped out of a book in the Bible. A decade later, the horrific murder of the Fogel family shook me to my core. Two generations were wiped out in what should have been a peaceful Friday night, the Sabbath. I recognized that it could have been my family had it been in another time and place.

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I knew I had to be in Israel and go to Itamar, the town in Samaria where they had lived. I joined Americans for a Safe Israel, knowing that if there were ever a group that would take me there, it would be them. I didn’t know that AFSI was 99% Jewish. If I had known that, I might not have gone, erroneously thinking, as a Christian, I wouldn't be wanted. It was the exact opposite; they welcomed me graciously, drawing me to go again and again with them to Israel. Truly some of them became my best friends. Consequently, it has been my honor to represent them in North Texas for many years.

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When we first began hosting Israelis, the highway to the Jewish and Christian Communities was closed. Number one, we knew no Jews from the DFW area, and almost all the Christians we knew had never heard of interaction with Israel or with the Jewish people that did not have the agenda of missionizing. Today, the road is clearer, perhaps still a little narrow, but navigable. It is not such an anomaly for serious Jews and Christians to agree over the Sabbath, Torah, The Temple Mount, Festivals, Eretz Israel, etc.

In some ways, our home, which we call The Blessing, has become like Longfellow's Tales of the Wayside Inn. The difference is that just about all our guests are Jewish, from esteemed government officials to zealous pioneers and everyone in between. So now, it is not always by necessity that they stop by here, but we hope by choice that they still come for rest and refreshment to tell their stories to our growing group of Texas Zionists. My Great-grandfather would be overjoyed to see prophecies of the Time of Redemption coming to pass, and, in part, in his great-granddaughter's home.