My grandmother, Aida Bebbington, came to the Holy Land in 1935. It was called Palestine then; it was after the signing of the Balfour Declaration but before the days of World War II. Little would my grandmother know of the dark days ahead as she traveled in the footsteps of Jesus.
After those dark days of the war, I wonder how she felt about seeing before her very eyes Biblical prophecy being fulfilled, the creation of the State of Israel and the return of the Jews to their homeland. I don’t know if my grandmother was a Zionist.
My grandfather was a lay Methodist preacher, so I like to think they were very Bible-based in their theology. I also like to think that they would be very proud of me working in today’s modern-day Israel as a journalist. (Something that surprised me too).
When my father recently got engaged to be married and decided to sell his house in Carlisle, he went up into the loft to sort out all the things that he had acquired over the years. That is when he found my grandmother’s photographs. Knowing that I love Israel, he gave them to me.
It was a privilege to receive them, because they are a wonderful history of a bygone time and an excellent window on what the Holy Land was like in 1935.
For someone who has been living and working here for 18 years, to receive a treasure like this is just amazing. They are amazing to hold; they are 85 years old and in wonderful condition.
I should tell you a little bit about my story of coming to the Israel. I first came in February 1996. We flew in to Ben-Gurion Airport on a Friday and a bomb went off on a bus on the following Sunday. A week later, another bomb went off, which I heard in my room and went out to see on Jaffa Road.
The turbulence and trouble didn’t put me off. I came many times after that, but it was in, I guess ,2000 that I came for a short trip and was praying “God, where do you want me to be?” I was sitting at the top of St. Paul’s Church on Shivtei Israel Street when I really felt God spoke to me. It was like a deep impression of these words, “Come build the walls of Jerusalem!” Could it have really been God? I was with a friend and we wanted to go to a museum.
We were going to go to a museum that I had already been to, but I thought let’s go to a museum that both of us haven’t been to. So we decided to go to The Tower of David Museum at Jaffa Gate, just inside the Old City.
While we were going through the museum I noticed a sign on the wall. It said “Come build the walls of Jerusalem!” It was actually a verse from the Bible but I didn’t know that – Nehemiah 2; verse 17. God was definitely speaking to me. So, I quit my work in Canada and came to Israel, where I have been for 18 years, and the Tower of David Museum has remained a very special place for me.
It was so meaningful to find these photographs after 85 years. I have been in the Holy Land for nearly 20 years now and interviewed many, many people. I keep all my interviews on hard drives. It makes me wonder if generations to come will be excited about my interviews in 85 years’ time.
God has provided me with a visa for all those years and been faithful to me. Israel is a wonderful place to work. I am very privileged to be here, and I am also very privileged to be holding a piece of history – a little story of my grandmother, who, although I have a very vague memory of, I didn’t really know. Her pictures tell a powerful story in themselves.The writer is the grandson of Aida Bebbington, whose married name was Calvert. He lives and works in Israel as a journalist for Christian media.