"Waiting For Apples" oil on canvas by Daniel Botkin, c 1998

  I liked Mexican people, I knew some Spanish, and I had done some work in Mexico when we lived in El Paso, Texas, but I did not sense any calling to go to Mexico as a missionary. The only foreign country that stirred any sense of calling in my heart was Israel.
  I had always harbored a hope of returning to Israel to settle there with my family (which had now grown to five with the birth of Betsy in 1984). With my two closest friends going away to Mexico, I began thinking more seriously about trying to find a way to move my family to Israel. We had been unable to stay there in 1981 because I could not find work, so I knew that it would be helpful if I had some skill that would improve my chances of finding employment there. I had been told that English teachers were always in demand in Israel, and that having a certificate to teach English would almost guarantee employment somewhere in Israel.
  My friends left for Mexico on a Sunday in late August. The next day I drove to Illinois State University, about forty miles from Peoria, and talked with teachers in the English Department about returning to school to get a Certificate in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language). They told me that since I already had my four-year Bachelor of Science degree, I could enroll as a graduate student. Even though ISU did not have a program that offered a formal Certificate in TESL, the head of the English Department said that they did offer courses that would qualify me to Teach ESL. If I would take courses in linguistics, the history of English, and other ESL-related courses, he would write up a certificate for me when I completed the program.
  I signed up that day for my first course in linguistics, and started class that Wednesday night. I had a daytime job, so I took night calsses and drove the forty miles to school. Some of the courses were difficult, but with God's help I was able to complete the program with an "A" in every course.
  During the time I was going to school, it was financially difficult. We not only had the cost of tuition, books, and travel to deal with, but a cut in my salary at work as well. I drove a delivery van, and our company was bought out by another company. When this happened, my net wages were reduced by about $300 a month, which was the amount of our monthly house payment. For a long time we tried in vain to sell or rent our house. We finally had to give it back in lieu of foreclosure, and lost all the money we had invested in it. We moved from a large, eight-room house to a tiny two-bedroom cottage that I rented from a friend for $30 a week. Here we stayed while I finished my TESL program at the university.
  After I got my certificate to teach ESL, I began praying about a way to get the money I would need to move my family to Israel. I sensed a very strong leading of the Holy Spirit to do a lengthy fast. I had done fasts of up to nine days before, but I had never before done what is sometimes called "a complete fast." When a person fasts, the hunger pangs usually disappear (or are at least greatly diminished) after a few days. Then when the hunger pangs later return, this is a signal from the body that the fast is complete, because starvation will soon set in if the fast is not broken. (This is why Matthew 4:2 says that after fasting forty days, Yeshua "was afterward an hungered.")
  The hunger pangs that signal the completion of a fast usually return after three to six weeks, depemnding on the individual's health and activities during the fast. My hunger pangs returned after twenty-three days of taking nothing into my body but water. My delivery job required some physical exertion, which may account for a somewhat early return of my hunger pangs. I give God all the glory for enabling me to abstain from food for that many days, because I could not have done it by my own will power. I was able to do it only because I was so strongly convinced that the Spirit was leading me to do it.
  My main purpose for this fast was preparation for our move to Israel. God never did open the door for us to return to Israel, in spite of my prayer and prolonged fasting. However, He did do something unexpected for me near the end of the fast, when I had what I believe was a genuine vision. The vision was not something that I saw with my physical eyes, like a hallucination. It was an image that came out of nowhere and flashed through my mind just long enough to be seen with the eye of my spirit. In this vision I saw myself sitting between two apple trees. I appeared to be very hungry, and was looking at a tree on my left that had twelve very large apples. The way to this tree was blocked by a picket fence. On my right side and slightly behind me, there was another apple tree, loaded with apples of a smaller size. The gate to this tree was open, but I did not see either the apples or the open gate, because my gaze was fixed on the tree with the twelve large apples.
  I did not immediately understand this vision, but as I pondered it, I realized what God was showing me. The tree on my left was Israel, the twelve apples representing the twelve tribes. The tree with the numerous smaller apples represented the Gentile nations. In Jewish thought, the traditional number of the nations is seventy, and there were seventy of the smaller apples. (I had not had time to count them, but I intuitively knew that there were seventy.) If the door to Israel was not open, then I should look for an open door elsewhere and help to reap a harvest from among the Gentile nations.
  This vision did not diminish my desire to move to Israel, but it did help me to accept the fact that God might have other plans for me. I thought that perhaps if I faithfully labored for a season among the Gentiles, that God would eventually open the door to Israel. So I began looking for an open door to work among non-Jews.
  One of the towns that my delivery route took me to each day was Macomb, a college town that is home to Western Illinois University. One day I happened to see an article in the Peoria newspaper about the large number of international students at WIU.Here was an opportunity for someone to be a light to many different nations, I thought. I began wondering if perhaps I should move to Macomb. I prayed about it and spoke to the pastor of the church we had been attending for about a year. He had no objections to the idea, and said he trusted my judgment.
  One day when I was in Macomb, I picked up a copy of the WIU student newspaper. There was an article about a couple empty houses that the city had threatened to condemn if the owners did not repair them. The thought occurred to me that if the repairs were something I could do, perhaps the owner of one of these houses might be interested in renting me a house at a very low cost in exchange for my labor.
  I checked out the houses, and one of them looked like it had potential. I contacted the owner and he liked my idea. He agreed to make sure there were no gas or water leaks. He would hire someone to do the major repairs that I could not do, and I would move in and do the rest.
  The day before our move, I drove to Macomb to meet the workers from the utility companies so they could turn on the water, gas, and electric. When they turned on the water, the pipes leaked profusely. When they turned on the gas, there were gas leaks. The owner of the house had not done anything he had promised.
  I had quit my job, we had our belongings packed and ready to load, we had rented a moving truck, and had people lined up to help us move the next day. We had to move the next day, but it was obvious that we could not move into this house. It was late afternoon, and I had only a few hours to find a place to move. I prayed. I drove aimlessly around town and prayed some more. Then I spotted it: a house on a quiet street with a "For Rent" sign. It was an old house and needed a good cleaning, but it was in a very nice area, just three blocks from the college campus. It had three bedrooms and a nice, large yard. And the price was right: $150 a month.
  We moved into this house on October 29, 1987. After paying all of our moving expenses, rent and utility deposits, etc., we had around $150-$200 left. I had no income and no job (and would not get a job for almost a year), but we had faith. We started a weekly Bible study and prayer meeting in our home with a few Christians we had met through a friend from Peoria who did campus ministry there with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. I eventually got a position teaching ESL to the international students at the university, but before that, I would travel to India to preach and teach. To be continued...