The Story of The Israel LIghthouse

As a small child, I was always the one studying how things worked—how signals traveled, how pieces fit, how one unseen movement caused another visible result. When I learned to use the television remote at three years old, it wasn’t novelty that excited me. It was understanding. I wanted to know why the picture changed when I pressed the button. I was already learning that light responds to order, and that clarity is never accidental.

That curiosity grew on the banks of Russell Creek, in an Amish community where life was stripped of excess and rich in meaning. There, I learned that fields do not rush their harvest, houses are built one 2x4 at a time, and communities work when people show up for one another. Barn raisings, wood cuttings, farming with animals—these were not romantic experiences; they were formative ones. They taught me that lasting things are built slowly, together, and usually without applause.

Growing up in a large family shaped me further. I became the organizer not because I sought authority, but because someone had to notice what was missing. I planned. I coordinated. I filled the gaps. Over time, I began to recognize that this instinct to see the whole and serve it, was a gift from God and would inform my life calling.

Years later, that same instinct turned outward. In 2006, I began writing online—not to build a platform, but to share life. I discovered something simple and sacred: people were hungry to be invited into a story that made sense of their faith. They didn’t just want information. They longed for friendship, vision, and purpose.

By 2007, that calling carried me in big red ministry bus into churches across North America, sharing about Israel with my family, opening Scripture, and watching believers encounter the land not as an abstract idea, but as a living witness. From 2012 to 2014, I traveled internationally, teaching and speaking in Sweden, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand, watching the same hunger surface across cultures and continents. Again and again, people would say, “No one ever explained it this way.” That phrase has stuck with me.

Over the years, God entrusted me with deeper responsibility—teaching, shepherding, leading, and building. Through my work with HaYovel, I walked alongside thousands of volunteers from around the world as they served Israel’s farmers, prayed on Israel’s mountains, and returned home changed. Our media platforms reached millions.

Relationships formed with influential leaders. I learned how to steward growth, navigate crisis, and hold vision steady through uncertainty. But beneath all the fruit, an unfulfilled longing remained and grew more intense as the months slipped by.

I kept meeting believers who loved Israel but didn’t know how to carry her in their hearts. They had passion without grounding, affection without framework. They had been moved, but not formed. Inspired, but not discipled. I realized that encounters, as powerful as they are, are not enough. People need a place where understanding is cultivated patiently, where Scripture, land, and lived faith are held together. People need authentic discipleship. “Authentic,” meaning, a truly Yeshua-centered discipleship that embraces the Yeshua-ness of forgiveness of sins and eternal life AND the Yeshua-ness of biblical morality and kingdom vision.

Years ago, a leading Rabbi shared his vision of a learning center for the nations in Israel. At the time, it felt like hearing a melody without lyrics. It was beautiful, incomplete, and unforgettable. That vision followed me through the years as I taught volunteers, hosted a weekly podcast, wrote devotionals, wrote my first book, and increased my theological study. It surfaced in prayer. It returned in conversations. It grew clearer and stronger with time.

In 2023, as I began advanced theological studies, a group whose ministry is to build facilities for other ministries visited our community. They felt God calling them to help build a learning center in Israel. Not only did facility designs begin to take shape, but clarity on how to operate in unprecedented conjunction with the Orthodox Jewish community also began to emerge.

Israel Lighthouse exists to offer believers from the nations a place of steady light, a learning center in the heartland of Israel, where faith is deepened, Scripture is taught whole, and love for Israel is shaped by experience and understanding.

Already, the response has been overwhelming. Leaders ask when the six-week small-group study will be ready. Universities are exploring partnerships. Pastors tell me, “This is what our people have been missing.” Not because it is new, but because it is needed. If you are reading this, you are part of that need being met.

As a donor, you are not just funding a project; you are laying a hearth where future generations will be warmed by truth. You are helping build a place where faith is clarified, Israel is honored, and the nations are equipped to walk humbly in God’s purposes.

Some lights flicker. Others are tended. Thank you for helping tend this one. I firmly believe this is the work of God and that his hand of blessing is upon it. I invite you. Please join us in this holy work!

Zac Waller

President & Founder

Israel Lighthouse for the Nations