In the fall of 1984, I took the trip of a lifetime. I had just turned 18, and before leaving, I cast my very first vote — an absentee ballot in Ronald Reagan’s re-election. The election supervisor even waived the normal 30-day waiting period so I could participate before our group left for Israel. A few days later, I boarded a flight in Miami, connected through Montreal, and headed to Tel Aviv.

The journey started with an education in international security. El Al, the Israeli airline, has its own security team, and they prescreen every passenger. Our tour group was mostly people over 40 — except for a young woman named Judy and me. That made us prime suspects, apparently, because we were pulled aside and grilled with dozens of questions: Who did we know in Israel? Were we carrying anything for anyone there? Who was meeting us? After our bags were searched, we were finally released to board. Oddly enough, the ordeal made me feel safe. If they were that thorough with us, they’d be that thorough with real threats.

Our tour was led by my stepfather, who was the rector of our church, and my mom. Our guide’s name, if memory serves, was Amas Yerushalemi. Together, we crisscrossed the country: standing at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, placing prayers between ancient stones; gazing at children guarded by fathers carrying rifles, a jarring reminder of Israel’s ever-present dangers; floating in the Dead Sea; and taking the cable car to the top of Masada. I was struck by how small Masada was and yet how long its defenders held out against Rome before choosing their own fate. We saw abandoned tanks from the 1970s war, visited Jericho and the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and marveled at crops growing in desert soil.

Some memories still make me shake my head — like the time I walked through a town where soldiers were watching Rambo. They carried the same weapons Stallone did on screen. I remember thinking, “I hope this movie doesn’t give them ideas.”

Other moments were deeply spiritual. We visited Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity and Galilee, where we crossed the Sea of Galilee by boat. At the Jordan River, my dad performed baptisms. Even though I had already been baptized, I stepped into the water and asked him to baptize me again. It was a moment I’ll never forget.

In many ways, the trip felt like walking the last 24 hours of Christ’s life: Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper Room, the Via Dolorosa. We stepped into the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s holiest sites, and then into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where tradition places the crucifixion and resurrection. But that church felt loud, cluttered, and chaotic. There was no peace.

The contrast came at the Garden Tomb. That place — quiet, serene, surrounded by greenery — felt like the Gospels come alive. To my right, just outside the grounds, was a noisy bus station. To my left, the rocky face of a hill shaped like a skull, topped by an Islamic cemetery. Death on one side, chaos on the other. But inside the garden was calm, life, and the reminder of hope. On the tomb door hung a sign: “He is not here. He is risen.” Whether or not this was the historical site, it felt like the place. That half-hour in the Garden Tomb may have been the most meaningful of the entire trip.

The trip ended on a lighter note: a few days in London. After Israel, it felt almost like an afterthought. On the plane back, we read the newspaper reporting Reagan’s landslide win, and I felt proud that my very first vote had counted for something.

But the real ending came in Washington, D.C., on our connecting flight to Tampa. The people-mover that docked with our plane damaged the aircraft door. Instead of switching planes, the airline simply jammed the door shut, taped off the rows of seats nearby, and assured us it would hold. “Just in case,” they said, “no one will sit there so no one gets sucked out.” We flew the whole way to Tampa wide awake, staring at that door in semi-terror. Quite a way to wrap up a trip that had started with El Al security!

All these years later, it remains the farthest I’ve ever traveled from home — in miles, but even more so in meaning.

What about you? What’s the farthest you’ve ever traveled from home, and what did that trip teach you?

Copyright © 2025  Doug DeBolt.