A DAY IN THE LIFE: Bema Trip

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the second week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

I have recently returned from my third student trip to Israel and Turkey. I call these study tours “BEMA Trips” as they are a part of my larger BEMA Discipleship program. I try to lead study tours every other year as an opportunity to allow students to engage the world of the Bible experientially. If you followed the other series on my blog this year, you might remember this post on MODE for Impact Campus Ministries. The BEMA Trips are a great example of how I try to pursue MODE with my students.

This year (2018) was the final instance of a combined trip to Israel and Turkey. The three-week experience was an incredible time — designed for students who only had one opportunity to do this and limited funding, the bang-for-the-buck of one trip ($5800) was something that couldn’t be beat by the price (and time commitment) needed for two separate trips ($4300 each). However, as my job has taken me further from students, and as I have lost a scholarship fund that allowed me to give out $50,000 of support to students who wanted to go, I have needed to shift my focus.

In the future, we are planning for two groups on separate trips to Israel and Turkey. While this will be more expensive, it will be much more feasible for the typical participant who has a job and can’t get three weeks off of work. It will also enable us to have different focuses for each trip. Everything being said, the trip participants are pretty tired by the time they approach the end of a three-week adventure where we hike 7–12 miles a day with over 1800 feet of elevation change. We are beat up physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Oh, but we are also filled up like never before. It is an opportunity that I thank God for every year. It really is my version of living the dream and I am blessed beyond belief to have the opportunity to do it!

But if this is something that only happens once every other year, is it really something that belongs in the A DAY IN THE LIFE series? The answer is yes, because of all the ongoing work needed to make these trips a reality.

After I return from a trip, I commit to my participants one year of focused, pastoral follow-up. I want to use my experience and the experience of my past alumni to help students make the most of their opportunity, so I will offer them some provocative guidance to help stimulate growth and appropriate responses (e.g., new habits, new community, new disciples) in their lives. I will also be available to them should they need to ask questions or wrestle with new efforts to become a more devoted follower of our Rabbi.

As that year comes to a close (and even a little before), I begin recruiting for our next trip. When we are ten months out, we open official registration and I am busy collecting information, paperwork, funding, and sending our preparation videos for those participants. Simply put, I am always doing something in preparation for or in response to a BEMA Trip.

Want to experience a little taste of our trip? I made a video with some snippets from each day of our last time in Israel and Turkey. (I even remembered to shoot a few introduction videos in Israel!)