One of the main practical initiatives of Derech Avraham has been to sponsor Middle Eastern believers to come for a week-long study tour of the land. This initiative has grown out of our At the Crossroads conferences, where participants usually have a short 3-day tour as a part of the conference program. In listening to feedback over the years from these regional delegates, one of their main comments was while they really enjoyed their time in the land, it just simply was not long enough. “We want more, we need more!” was often their main request.
So in response, we began hosting leaders from different Middle Eastern nations here in the land for an in-depth 7-8 day study tour on the geographical and historical context of the land of the Bible. Over the years, we hosted several groups comprised of Muslim background believers (MBBs) and Middle Eastern Christians (CBBs). Our goal was to host ministry leaders from different countries each year to do such study tours. However, due to the pandemic, we had to take a break from this.
This year we plan to sponsor 30 ministry leaders from SE Turkey (mostly husbands and wives), both Kurdish and Turkish leaders, for a week-long study tour here in the land. Most of these are from areas that were hardest hit by the devastating earthquake this last February, and this would be a needed break for those who have been serving survivors tirelessly over the last five months. We need your participation financially for this to happen. While participants from Turkey will pay their own flight expenses, we host them when they are here and cover their in-country expenses, such as transportation, hotels, park entrances, etc., while they are here. For them, the fact they pay their flight costs is a real sacrifice. Many local economies in the Middle East have still not recovered from the fallout of the pandemic, preventing most of them from being able to pay the full cost of the study tour.
To make this tour affordable, we have worked with Shoresh Study Tours (here in Jerusalem) and Christ Church Jerusalem in order to accommodate our guests from Turkey to make the tour a blessing that will honor them and their work as ministry leaders in very challenging conditions.
We aim to raise 25 scholarships at $1200/per person. Please pray about partnering with us practically for this important and timely initiative.
To give, please select the sub fund “ATC Scholarships” on the donate page. Thank you.
§