Innovative tour guides

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Tuesday, August 20th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Light in dark spaces.

As the Israel-Hamas war continues, the focus is on Hamas, Israel, and the international mediators trying to put an end to the conflict.

But what about the civilians whose lives and livelihoods have been uprooted by the war?

BROWN: I met two brothers from a tiny, forgotten Israeli community who are trying to rebuild with help from Christians in America. Here’s their story.

AUDIO: [Tea brewing, chatter in background]

MYRNA BROWN: Standing in their spacious kitchen, Carmen Mayfield and her husband Kim, are serving tea.

AUDIO: Alright, one more coming… [children at play]

Just a few steps from the Mayfield’s wrap-around-porch, their three grandchildren play hide and seek under a canopy of oak trees.

AUDIO: [Child’s play]

And nestled on the opposite side of their five acres, the family’s 89-year-old-great grandmother. She lives in a two-story brick cottage.

KIM MAYFIELD: We built my parent’s house first. And my middle son calls and said, “Dad I want to move home. Can we convert your barn into a house?” And so we said, “Well, are you bringing our grandchildren?”

Multi-generational living is an uncommon family dynamic in the United States. But in the Middle East, it’s a way of life.

TONY MOUBARAK: In the Old City of Jerusalem. When you enter, it’s one shared courtyard and there could be about six, seven families all around. And there is no privacy at all. Can smell what they’re cooking, we can hear them snoring.

That’s Tony Moubarak.

ANDRE MOUBARAK: In our culture and our communities, how we live together, we’re all relational. 

And that’s Tony’s 49-year-old identical twin brother, Andre. Between the two, they speak five languages.

ANDRE: Arabic is my mother tongue. My second language is English. Third language is Hebrew and the fourth language is French.

TONY: Add to that, Aramaic language, the language of Jesus, because we belong to the Aramaic community, the Maronite Christians of Jerusalem, of which we are only 25 families. Not more than 100 people. It’s a mega church in Jerusalem.

Tony and Andre never imagined they’d be having tea with the Mayfields, nearly seven thousand miles from their home in Israel. They first met Carmen Mayfield in 2018 on a short-term mission trip in Israel.

CARMEN MAYFIELD: Tony was our tour guide, and because they were Christians, we knew we would go on a tour with that Biblical perspective.

The Moubarak brothers started Twins Tours in 2000. As boys, the Via Dolorosa was their playground. That’s the street in Jerusalem’s Old City, believed to be the path Jesus walked to his crucifixion. Andre says that’s where their journey as tour guides began.

ANDRE: Walking to school everyday, I’m going find a tourist who would tell me, “How can I get to Jaffa Gate,” or “How can I get to the church?” It’s became our destiny to be teachers and tour guides and teach people from all over the world.

AUDIO: [Sound from Hamas attack]

But all of that ended abruptly on the morning of October 7, 2023. Hamas-led terrorists attacked Israeli civilians, communities and military bases. The attack happened at the height of Israel’s tourism season.

ANDRE: The whole country was depending on that month and all of a sudden from the peak of tourism to zero in a week. No tourists at all.

Tony says they prayed about next steps and believed God gave them a vision.

TONY: To use Western technology to bring Eastern Christianity from Jerusalem to the entire world.

VIDEO: Day number one…

Twins Tours Academy was born. Andre began recording hundreds of hours of online teaching, helping people understand first century culture and customs. Tony produced videos offering virtual tours of Israel.

VIDEO: Welcome everybody… from Jerusalem…

But in an oversaturated and competitive eLearning market, the brothers needed a way to stand out. So, they reached out to the Christians they’d met as tour guides.

CARMEN MAYFIELD: When it started I was one of their first members.

And when Mayfield found out the twins were traveling and speaking at churches around the country…

CARMEN MAYFIELD: I immediately thought, ok, I need to go talk to our pastor and say, this is an opportunity of a lifetime.

AUDIO: [People coming and taking their seats…]

On a recent Sunday night about 50 people gathered in a small church auditorium.

TONY: We’re going to help you understand how we do church in the Middle East…

In a room full of millennials, boomers, and Gen-Xers, Andre and Tony spend the next 45 minutes talking about their heritage as Aramaic-speaking Christians and their Arab ethnicity.

ANDRE: There’s a misconception in the West here that when they hear the word Arab they think of Muslims of Islam. But you have to know that Christian Arabs existed all the way back from the beginning of the church in Jerusalem. We read that in Acts chapter 2 verse 11.

They provide statistics on the dwindling numbers of Christians in the Holy Land.

TONY: We know that the church started in Jerusalem and spread throughout all over the world, but now sadly I say that in Jerusalem the Christians are less than one percent.

And they say while they are small in numbers, they are mighty in purpose.

ANDRE: We want to be a good bridge for the Muslims and the Jews. Despite that, it's very hard. They make fun of us and call us the Hallelujahs wherever we go. But, you know, whenever there is war, they come to us. Why you are happy? Why you are staying? And what is this joy in you? And then we can build a relationship with them and we tell them about Christ.

At the end of the twin’s talk, a circle of friends from the church gathers to process what they’ve heard. 25-year-old Katie Kemp, 60-year-old Amanda Beyer, and 77-year-old Al Cook.

MYRNA: What did you hear tonight that surprised you the most?

KATIE KEMP: I had assumed that there were more believers in Israel than what I realized.

MYRNA: How were you challenged by what you heard?

AMANDA BEYER: To really step back and remember that they are people and loving them no matter what.

AL COOK: More fervently pray for people like these twins. And then apply it to our country and what God would have me do here.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Fairhope, Alabama.

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