Hebron Springs Community Team

     Little Back Story

When HaShem speaks to you, you listen. I remember one day, after we got our first herd of Long Horned cows, watching Tim standing in the corral just watching and day dreaming. This man, felt something pulling him, but had no idea what and in what direction. Prior to us getting these cows, he learned about his heritage. Over 500 years ago, his family was caught up in the inquisition. Upon more research he learned what happened. At first, he didn’t know what to do with this information. So many chains of events had happened that brought us to this point, and now, here we are. He decided to start asking questions. He had a conversation with one of his cousins who was working on building his research on the family story. It was confirmation! He had the same information that my husband was finding. Tim started asking questions. He wanted to know what he didn’t know. Little did he know, where that spark of research would lead him. All the while we were learning his heritage, we started really researching the Torah. It was amazing how much information was being thrown at us in such a short amount of time.  

While he was staring at these cows, he told me, these cows are going to bring us home. There was something about that moment that we both felt a shift. By the next year, He and our oldest took a trip to Israel. I remember him telling me that he didn’t feel anything when he finally landed in “The Land”. He was told to embrace the feeling when your feet hit the ground, but he felt nothing. It was as if he was just a tourist visiting another country. He felt disappointed. “What’s wrong with this picture?” They got to their room and went on tour. They enjoyed the people and the land, the shops and the scenery. But...When they finally went to the Negev, everything changed. He felt what everyone told him he would feel when he landed. An over whelming sense of “this is who I am, this is where I belong”. Flashes of a dream he had years before, surfaced.  

When he came home, we spent hours catching up. He told me all about his trip. Yes, we kept in contact all throughout his visit. But he came back a different man. A look in his eyes that I have only seen on major events in our lives like the day we married and the birth of our children. He found who he was, he found his Jewish soul. It's hard to explain to people who have never experienced it. Everything from the day he got back was different. We were met with many trials. We were experiencing this middle ground that no one seemed to know nothing about. Felt as though we were walking through an uncharted forest. There were no paths, no signs, no people. We felt so alone. We didn’t feel like we fit anywhere anymore. My husband would spend days making calls and was met with answering machines or people who had no answers. Then...there was a brake. He reached a Rabbi who was willing to talk to us. We scheduled a meeting and that’s where we finally were able to start creating our own path through the forest. It wasn’t easy. We were met with struggles from both sides of our families. Our family, mine especially, had a tough time with the changes we were making in our home and lives.  

After we went through our conversion, everything felt good. Even with the lack of support, we felt we made the right decision. Everything was going well. We were planning our Jewish wedding and so excited to finish everything. Then...everything changed. A chain of events led us to another direction. Without going into detail, there was a lot of scrambles and a lot of conflict, that did not involve us. We did have our wedding and it was beautiful. I believe everything turned out just as it was supposed to.  

Within a year's time, we started our paperwork to move to Israel. After months of back-and-forth talk, and paperwork and just conversations, we were denied. It was devastating to us. We did everything right. We fought fights that were unbelievable. But...apparently there was talk behind the scenes and though everything was done correctly and there should not have been any issues, the woman who was handling our case, decided we did not need to go. When we questioned why, we were met with resistant, then we found out that she retired and we no longer were able to get any answers. No one we spoke with understood what happened. But since we were denied, there was nothing anyone could do.  

About 6 months later, we received money from an accident we were involved in when I was pregnant with the twins. We decided it was time for us to leave. Our plan was “simple”. We will sell everything, buy and RV and move to NY. From there, we will try again while we continue our studies and become a member of a congregation there and prayerfully be accepted. That was the plan. We did sell or give everything away, we did buy an RV and a small camper for our son’s truck, and we did hit the road. We decided, we would travel around a little. I mean, if we were leaving the country, let’s see everything we have always wanted to see. We knew where we wanted to end up, let's have a little fun before we get there.  

We had so much fun traveling throughout NM then west TX. We decided to go visit some family and friends in east TX. A couple week visit turned in a month visit, to two months. Just when we decided we were going to move on to our next destination, we found ourselves at crossroads. We were torn with following our dreams or staying with our friends and family. We decided to ask our Rabbi what we should do. He suggested that we should stay here. He said we should stay with community rather be alone. So, we stayed.  

During our first couple months here, we were contacted and asked to come back to NM to take part of a documentary. As excited as we were, we were also confused with HaShem. Why after we finally leave, are we being pulled back? Long and short of it, we took a quick trip back and it was the fasted most productive trip I think we have ever made in our lives. We realized, we weren’t being pulled back to stay, just pulled back to tell our story and come back. Little did we realize how far our story will travel. But that’s another story.  

We, at this point, had to figure some stuff out. This was not part of the plan and we were not prepared for being stationary. Some friends of ours hired us to help them prepare some land for them to move there. During conversations, it was suggested that my husband talk to the owner of the land to see if we could work out a deal for us to buy our own piece of land. After some negotiations, they worked out a deal. HaShem was in total control of this because it all seemed to be unbelievable. We were given a price and were allowed to work off the land. We had to clean other land that belonged to this gentleman and while we cleaned his and ours, we were allowed to stay on his property in our RV. Once, we paid it off and received the deeds to all the lots that were included we moved onto our own land. It was so exciting and humbling. We knew this is where we were meant to be in this time. Slowly we continued to fix up the run-down building that was still standing, and clean up the land. We are still fixing it all up, but we are happy where we are. Every year, we see how far we have come and look forward to see what’s next.  

We have connected with other families, people, and Rabbis. We have continued our studies and though we have hit brick walls in some directions, we have hit open door after open door, and have been met with open arms. We continue to pray and allow HaShem to lead the way.  

We have shared our ideal plans with people, and have been met with like-minded people who have the same dreams. My husband and I have talked many times about what we felt what HaShem has planned for us keeping us here. We had to do something, but what? Conversation after conversation with other people, have increased our circle of people who have the same dreams we have. People who have connections and who share these connections. Now here we are with all this information and people and still wasn’t sure how to go about with it all. We did try moving forward with something last year, but nothing came of it. Now...a year later, things seem to be coming together.  

Our contacts connected with new contacts and before we knew it, we have been the talk of many circles. We finally decided to start moving on this dream and prayed that if this is the right timing, then HaShem will continue to Bless us with all that we need. We are now opening our little piece of land and working toward building a community. Not just a community for seasoned Jews, but also a community for new Jewish souls. What I mean is, those who decide to convert into or back into Judaism, have traveled a long road. Not many seasoned Jews can fully understand what a convert goes through when traveling this G-d given path. It's not an easy path and can feel quite lonely. When feeling rejection from both ends of the coin, one can feel, not necessarily regret but more just rejection. It's not easy and it's not meant to be easy, but not meant to be met with resistance.  

This is only a chapter of our story, join us to see how the book continues.  

Shalom 

Tim “Yitzach” and Kristina “Rivkah” Herrera 

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