When Ben first started to attend Tikvat, Rebecca was away, traveling on an eleven-month Christian medical mission trip to Ethiopia to witness to and physically help the Falasha Jews who were preparing to make aliyah—immigration to Israel. Rebecca took this trip along with her parents and her younger siblings. When they returned to the United States they resumed attending Tikvat.
Ben was captivated the first time that he saw Rebecca. Who was this young woman who sang and played the guitar so well? Both Ben and Rebecca soon joined the staff of the Youth Group. They became fast friends and spent a lot of time together during Youth Group meetings and activities. Ben found Rebecca to be grounded in her faith, confident, intelligent, and well educated. She could speak knowledgeably on nearly any topic, especially apologetics, history, politics, economics, biblical prophecy, natural science, creationism, and biblical law. She was much more conversant in Hebrew than Ben.
Along with Ben, Rebecca had taken the Messianic rabbi’s biblical law class, in which they had studied all of the ancient biblical laws in the book of Leviticus and also Talmudic law studies. So she had learned to discern circular logic and fallacies, and to recognize the original intent of the law and its later overamplification in modern Jewish life.
Ben found Rebecca to be vivacious and funny. He soon began to learn about her dreams and aspirations for the future. She wanted to be a midwife, a wife, mother, and a homeschooling mom, raising a family out in a rural area, living a homesteading life. Even though much of that was foreign to Ben, he was beginning to think she was a wonderful young woman.
Rebecca’s father, Ron Emerson, was a dentist and had led a medical mission team into Gondar, Ethiopia. Because he was a dentist going into villages free of charge, the Ethiopian government allowed him and his team in. Her father said that his family was “part of the team,” so they were also able to get visas and accompany him for the year they were there. Rebecca and her siblings quickly learned the Amharic language once they were in Ethiopia. They helped both her father and the doctors on the team with language translation and doctoring. She even witnessed and assisted with some childbirths. Even though her skills as a dental assistant and her knowledge of midwifery were rudimentary, she was considered an expert by the Ethiopian people. They assumed that anyone with white skin was a trained expert.
When Rebecca’s family returned to the United States and Tikvat, Rebecca’s family was asked to lead a Chavurah. These groups—based on the Hebrew word root chaver, which means “friend”—are study cell groups. Their Chavurah met on Thursday nights. Every year the groups switched around their congregants so everyone could eventually meet the other folks in the congregation. Propitiously, Ben was assigned to Ron’s Chavurah. A typical Chavurah meeting began at 6:30 and went until 9:30. They usually consisted of potluck dinner, dessert social time, and a Bible study on various topics such as health, hermeneutics, creationism, eschatology, and prayer—followed by more general talk.
During the Chavurah study on biblical health Ben noticed that Ron began questioning the group members about their personal health issues. Ron seemed to be subtly sizing up Ben’s health history. It was not until then that Ben realized how obvious Ben’s and Rebecca’s interest in each other had become.
One time while visiting the Emersons’ home, Ben was walking in their backyard and noticed an old well. At first he thought it was merely a decorative wishing well. But then Ron mentioned that it was a hand-dug well from the 1800s that had never been filled in, even after city water had been provided to the neighborhood. The well shaft was more than forty feet deep and three feet wide. Ben pointed out that in the eyes of the law the well was considered an “attractive nuisance.” He advised Emerson to put a locking cover over the well’s mouth, to prevent any neighborhood children from falling in. Ron thanked him. The following weekend, Ben helped him construct the hinged cover and install a lock hasp. It was through this experience that Emerson’s opinion of Ben moved up a notch and they began to think of each other more as equals.
As the months passed, Ben’s parents realized Ben was not just infatuated with “this Jesus” and with Messianic Judaism, but was completely embracing Yeshua and the Messianic lifestyle. This new faith of their son’s began to alarm them and was unacceptable in their eyes. They were beginning to feel like Ben had been brainwashed and drawn into a cult. They tried to talk him out of being a Believer. They asked him to renounce “Yeshu” from being his Savior. They consulted their rabbi on what they should do. He said to send Ben to him for a meeting. Ben refused to go. Next, their rabbi suggested a clandestine gathering at their home to which they would invite a group of rabbis from the New York branch of an Israeli organization that specialized in “deprogramming” Jewish people who have come under the sway of missionaries. They invited Ben home for dinner and “to meet some friends and have a discussion.”
Ben didn’t stay even long enough for his mother to serve dinner. The agenda of the four strangers became immediately apparent. Ben tried reasoning with them. They refused to listen to him, even when he quoted biblical prophetic passages from Isaiah that clearly foreshadowed Christ’s First Coming. After answering several of their questions, and after it became apparent that they had no intention of rationally debating him—only browbeating him—Ben said, “Well, it was nice meeting you all. I have to go now. You will be in my prayers.” He bolted out the door.
His parents never spoke to him again.
As two of the oldest members of the Youth Group and designated “staff,” Ben and Rebecca joined Tikvat’s group trip to Israel for a combined one-month missionary trip and celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem with the International Christian Embassy. After the feast, the Youth Group traveled to Tel Aviv and assisted a couple of the Messianic Jewish congregations in a joint broadsiding campaign on the Tayelet—a boardwalk along the shore of the Mediterranean that continues for about five miles from the north of Tel Aviv south to Jaffa. There are many restaurants and hotels along this stretch of sandy beaches and rocky outcroppings.
Four large Messianic Jewish congregations and outreach organizations of Tel Aviv and Jaffa (Adonai Roi, Trumpet of Salvation, Beit Immanuel, and Tiferet Yeshua) would, on a regular basis, go out together on the Tayelet to witness and to hand out tracts and Bibles in many languages—not just Hebrew. They also put on street dramas which included worship and dance that depicted the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Afterward they would sing praise and modern Christian worship songs in Hebrew, hand out tracts, and talk to and pray with individuals who had questions about Yeshua Messiah.
One morning later in the Israel trip, Ben had woken up early and, as was his practice while in Israel, he went out for a brisk walk on the beach for his prayer time. Some of his prayers had been asking God for a godly wife. Ever since meeting Rebecca, he had been asking in his prayers if she was the one for him and when it would be appropriate to ask for her hand in marriage. He greatly enjoyed her friendship. He felt incredibly alive in her presence. She had become precious to him, but he had been biding his time, patiently waiting for the Lord to confirm if she was to be his bride.
This particular morning, Ben felt a special need to fervently pray about and for Rebecca, asking that God give him a sign that she was the wife that He had chosen for him. As he walked and prayed he looked down at the sand. Suddenly, he saw a small pearly white donut-shaped seashell fragment that had been worn smooth by the tides. He picked up the ring-shaped shell and slipped it onto his pinky finger. It fit perfectly, stopping at just above the knuckle. Just then he heard God’s quiet voice in his heart say that this shell was for Rebecca’s engagement ring and that he was to ask Rebecca to marry him that night.