Mt. Bental, Israel — Standing in a huddle to keep warm against the mountain wind Jan. 4, Hillsdale College students listened to their tour guide describing how Israel had miraculously defeated the Syrian military during the Yom Kippur War in the field below.
Then two booms echoed throughout the valley.
“Those,” guide Jeremy Collins said, “are gun shots from the Syrian Civil War.”
The group fell silent for a moment.
The 43 students and two professors on the 10-day trip to the Holy Land sponsored by Passages, a program of the Philos Project and the Museum of the Bible Foundation that sends Christian students to Israel, looked out to the land of Syria on top of Mount Bental. Large storm clouds loomed to the north, making the bordering country mostly dark compared to the Israeli land. Earlier, according to local reports, the Syrian Arab Army had seized several sites from jihadi rebel forces in the Barada Valley near Damascus, less than 40 miles from where the students stood.
“I didn’t realize the Syrian Civil War was so close to Israel,” senior Anthony Ferraro said. “It’s one thing to talk about these things, but to see and experience it made it more real.”
Further exploration of the mountain top led students underground into former Syrian barracks that Israel had taken after winning its war against Syria in 1973, despite being outnumbered 10:1 in tanks. Eventually, Israel had only seven tanks left, but it continued to attack, causing Syria to retreat with the belief that Israel had reinforcements coming. The reinforcements were actually tied up on the Egyptian border.
“Last time I was here, we didn’t hear the war, so I was surprised how close the Syrian war was,” said junior Hannah Brewer, a leader of the Hillsdale group as a Passages fellow who is partaking in the trip for a second time. “You could hear the explosions, the gun fire, and the Israeli helicopters nearby. It gives you a meaningful connection to the situation.”
Some students also took the time to say a prayer and read scripture on the mountain, facing Syria as they rested on their knees.
Senior Kathryn Lewis read from Psalms on the mount, though the verse she said she kept thinking about was from Luke 12:46: “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required.”
“So much has been given to me,” Lewis said. “I don’t want to live in this abundance, when so much brokenness is there.”
Soon after hearing the initial noises echoing from Syria, the clouds creeped over and covered the mountain, becoming too foggy for the students to see the country bordering Israel to the north.
“I’ve been keeping up with news,” Lewis said. “The photos I was seeing, I was just grieving…I’ve been praying for Syria but actually seeing it definitely really hit me.”
