Israel Faith-based Trip February of 2024

My church recently announced that they will be going to Israel as a group for 10 days in February of 2024, and I’ve been encouraged to step out in faith that God will supply for my trip.

The final payment, however, is due October 23rd of this year.

I want to walk where Jesus walked.

This is not a missions trip but a personal faith journey to deepen my relationship with and knowledge of God.

I am the oldest brother of three incredible younger sisters and the proudest of sons to a wonderful and godly father and bonus mom.

Currently, I am a Respiratory Care Practitioner. I love my work, I love my patients, and I love my role as an allied health professional.

Here is my faith story:

In 2011, my family endured an utter catastrophe.

I was 13 years old at the time, and my sisters and I were each born two years apart.

In May 2011, my father became very ill and drove himself in the night to the ER nearest our home only to discover that his appendix had ruptured. My mother was an RN, who was working multiple nights in a row at a facility hours away from our home.

My father was immediately taken to surgery and a large incision was made into his abdomen in an attempt to cleanse the infection that had spilled out from the rupture. The surgery was thought to have gone well, but my father unfortunately became septic, meaning the infection persisted despite his surgery and it entered into his bloodstream, compromising his entire body.

When my father’s condition became most critical, my mother, being a healthcare professional with multiple years of experience across multiple areas of the same hospital my father was staying, knew that he might not make it, so she took me aside at our home and told me that she was going to take my sisters and me to the river and explain that our father may not make it through the night.

I remember her telling me, “I’m only telling you this right now because you might have to be the man of the house. And I need you to be strong.”

I got ready to go to the river, and I remember watching SpongeBob while my mother was getting ready and thinking, “Why is it taking so long?” When I went to check on her, I found her laying on the bathroom floor, in the fetal position. I remember dragging her out and laying her flat on the floor. I remember her face being white, grayish, and blue, and I remember seeing the bursted purple veins in her cheeks. She was not breathing, but I, being only 13, really had no conception of death and what it really, truly looks like.

Not knowing what was happening or what to do, I went to my room and grabbed some pillows from my bed to prop her up. As I positioned the pillows underneath her, I heard a gurgling sound. I shook her, trying to wake her up, as my two youngest sisters were frantically crying and the middle of the three attempted to call 911. I attempted CPR, but my knowledge at the time only came from what I had seen in movies.

I remember having to stop trying to recover my mom to give the 911 service our address.

When the emergency services arrived, I remember seeing them attempt to administer some sort of services, but it wasn’t very long at all until my grandmother approached me in the kitchen; shaking and slightly stumbling towards me, she said, “She’s gone.”

I wish I could explain the level(s) of pain, ache, horror, anger, shame, defeat, and devastation that I felt at that moment. Being only 13, it came out as anger, so I threw my arms against Granny’s embrace.

I still carry that gut-wrenching, soul-tearing, and altogether-compounding feeling.

My oldest sister, who was staying with one of her closest friends finally came, and, immediately, my grandparents took my oldest sister and me to the hospital. I remember my sister calling our mother’s sister in Florida, and then I received a call from my nana and hearing, “Please, tell me my baby isn’t dead,” over and over.

My mother was the youngest of three sisters, and her oldest sister passed traumatically back in 2001.

My sister remembers the physician counseling my grandparents to plan two funerals. My father, who was in a very critical position and heavily sedated, does not remember my mother’s passing, and his fever spiked to 106° that night, at which point the body’s temperature becomes potentially lethal.

That night, we stayed with my grandparents at their home, and I remember overhearing my family members discussing which of the aunts and uncles would raise each child, because no one family was capable of taking all four of us together.

My father was taken to a second emergency surgery to, once again, attempt to cleanse the infection. I remember it being discussed to potentially have him transferred by ambulance to my mother’s funeral, but it was decided his condition was far too critical. He does not remember my mother’s death, and he remained in the hospital for weeks afterward. His healing journey has been nothing but a miracle, and I remember many mornings finding him knelt beside his bed in prayer.

There are so many more things that I could tell, but, now, I want to elaborate on my faith.

I hated God for years after my mother’s passing, and I lived the majority of the days wishing that I, too, was dead.

In October 2016, God began to draw me by the power of His Spirit. I was a junior at Mississippi State University, studying a dual degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology for pre-med. I was intensely depressed and suicidal at the time, but I remember saying to myself, “Before I end this, I’m going to try this Jesus for real.”

I had a Bible on my desk shelf, so I picked it up and dusted it off and started reading the Gospels. Over the next few weeks, my grades suffered tremendously, because all I could do was pray, worship, and study the Word of God.

One day, praying in the shower, I heard the voice of God for the first time in my heart. I thought that I was praying, but I now realize I was just throwing another pity party. I said things like, “Why is this happening to me? Why do I feel like this?”

And He said, “It isn’t even about you.”

I have tried to live every day since then with that at the forefront of my mind.

Then, on February 25, 2017, I called my childhood pastor and requested to be baptized. He gave me a six-hour Bible study and tried to answer all of the questions I had written down in my study journals, but there was only one question that he knew I needed answered: Who is Jesus the Messiah?

I remember him having me read Rev. 1:8, in which Jesus declares, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” When I finished reading—understanding that the red lettering meant that Jesus was speaking and knowing that the Book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ was written years after his death, resurrection, and ascension—I remember looking up to my childhood pastor holding up a single finger and stating, “There is only one Almighty.”

And it all clicked. Jesus is God Almighty.

It has been years of trials and learning how to live by faith, but God has been so gracious to my family and me. More than Good is an understatement.

I left MSU to obtain an associate's in Radiology technology but was counseled to look into respiratory therapy; after which, I applied by faith, was accepted, and graduated. My life has never been the same.

He deserves every breath in my lungs and every beat of my heart.

He has restored my family and blessed and kept us all beyond measure.

We are also now blessed with a beautiful and powerful Christian bonus-mom as well.

I could go on and on.

I want to walk where my Jesus walked.

Below is a brief description and tour pricing.

Additional funds will be used to purchase my passport booklet and prepare for additional expenses.

I’ve chosen GoFundMe as the medium for fundraising to keep track of donations and donors if something were to happen so that all donations will be returned but also to track my story and memorialize how God will make a way whenever we put works to our faith.

The cost of the trip after booking is approximately $6,400.

June 23, 2023 update:

I asked God yesterday before bed after becoming discouraged by looking at booking costs that, if He would provide the initial booking payment of $500 within five days, then I will believe Him for the entire trip to Israel.

Well, here it is less than 48 hours after opening the gofundme and I have $300 in pure donations and over $250 in fundraiser commitments coming Tuesday.

Thank you to everyone who has donated and committed so far! I’m beyond encouraged and my faith is strengthened.

Judges 6:17 ESV

[17] And [Gideon] said to [the angel of the LORD], "If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me…”

June 23, 2023 update 2:

I just had to get on and PRAISE GOD!

Within less than 72 hours of opening my fundraiser for my faith trip to Israel—MY TRIP IS BOOKED!

❤️‍❤️‍❤️‍

James 4:2-3 KJVS

[2] …yet ye have not, because ye ask not. [3] Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss…

June 24, 2023 update:

I just can’t get over how incredibly God is moving in providing for this faith trip to Israel. I wanted to share and be very clear that this is not a missions trip but a personal journey to deepen my relationship with and knowledge of God. I want to walk where Jesus walked.

Gratitude is an understatement for everyone who is bolstering my faith and committing to help me fundraise. I am utterly blown away by not only the goodness of God but also by the willingness of His people to sow into others.

As of right now, I have commitments that will put my fundraiser at over DOUBLE what I prayed for God to supply to show His support.

Ephesians 3:20-21 KJVS

[20] Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, [21] Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

Luke 6:38 KJVS

[38] Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

I pray for abundance and increase for every child of God so that they will be blessed to BE A BLESSING!