Tourists from West Michigan tap into $18 billion faith-based travel industry
Holland residents Ruth and Bruce Hekman look at a photo album of their trips to various religious sites.
GRAND RAPIDS — Whenever he hears the Bible called “living water,” Bruce Hekman recalls an image from personal experience.
Several years ago, while hiking through the Israeli desert under a midsummer sun, he came upon the pools of En Gedi, where Scriptures record the ancient King David once sought refuge.
“Every time I hear that phrase, that’s the place I picture in my mind,” Hekman said. “When you’re dry and thirsty and hot, finding water is an incredible gift.”
The Hekmans stand on the banks of the Jordan River near Galilee in Israel.
When he visited Turkey a few years later, Hekman found sitting in the amphitheater in Ephesus where the Apostle Paul once preached to be “quite a moving experience.” And when he explored the caves in Cappadocia, where early Christians fled religious oppression, “the suffering church came pretty vividly into view.”
Now, the Holland man and his wife, Ruth, are preparing for another spiritual excursion. In September, the couple will travel to Oberammergau in southern Germany.
“Those (trips to Israel and Turkey) actually became a kind of pilgrimage, a way of getting yourself off the hamster wheel of life and getting reconnected in a richer, deeper way with
Article source: https://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/2010/02/local_tourists_tap_into_18_bil.html