In the summer of 2004, a farmer from Tennessee stood in a young vineyard on the mountains of Samaria while an Israeli winemaker opened his Bible to Jeremiah 31. This is our story.
Standing on that hillside, Tommy Waller couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The winemaker, an Israeli pioneer named Nir Lavi, had opened his Bible and read aloud the promise that the Jewish people would come home and plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria — and there it was, all around them, growing out of the ground exactly as the prophet said it would.
Tommy felt his knees go weak. This is happening, he thought, and I’m here to see it. In that moment he asked the question that would change the course of his family’s life: “What can we do to help?” Not long after, he and his wife Sherri sold their farm in Tennessee, packed up their eleven children, and jumped in with both feet. As Tommy puts it, “once we jumped, there was no getting back.”
For generations, the idea that Christians from around the world would come and take part in Israel’s restoration seemed impossible. But that’s exactly what has happened. What started as one family’s decision to stand shoulder to shoulder with the land and people of Israel has grown into thousands of Bible-believing volunteers coming to prune, plant, and harvest alongside the courageous farmers of Judea and Samaria.
This short film is the story of where The Israel Guys began — a Bible open to Jeremiah 31, a vineyard on a mountain, and one question we’re still answering more than twenty years later: “What can we do to help?”
If you’d like to join us, get your hands dirty and be part of the prophecy still unfolding on the mountains of Samaria, check out our upcoming volunteer opportunties.
