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"That's what I mean. This young man, Saul, sat at the feet of Gamaliel two thousand years
ago. One day on this very road [we were outside the Damascus Gate] this young Jewish zealot was
riding on a great white horse and in his hand he had a document, given to him by the Sanhedrin,
authorizing him to go to Damascus and kill all the Jews that believed as I do. It was at high
noontime when this fiery young Jew was knocked from his horse, was blinded by a great light, and
heard a voice saying, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?' Someday, young man, God's going to
knock you off your high horse. Just as Saul, two thousand years ago, followed Jesus as the
Messiah, you will too. You had better fall off your horse, Saul."
"You're sick, Lady," he retorted, "you're sick!"
"I'll still have to say, you're going to fall off your horse."
"You need to see a psychiatrist," he said haughtily.
"You'd better fall off your horse," I insisted.
He started to run away from me down the street, but he kept yelling back, "Go home,
Yankee; you're sick, you're sick."
And all I could say was, "You're going to fall off your horse. You're going to fall off your
horse."
About Christmas time I received a letter from a friend whom this young man had
approached, wanting to know whether I was still in Israel. She said he looked very gloomy and
downcast. She told him I had returned to the States and asked if she could help him. He turned,
muttering something about falling off a horse. Of course she did not know what he was talking
about. But this told me that the seed of God's Word had surely taken root in Saul's heart. He had
not fallen off his horse yet, however, or he would not have been so gloomy. The sequel to this
incident came three years later.
* * * * * * *
28
TO THE SEED OF ISAAC. . . AND OF ISHMAEL
Again by faith, in the spring of 1971, God marvelously provided for me to go to Israel. My
husband did not go with me. "Dear," he said, "you are the missionary. I don't feel that we ought to
waste so much of the Lord's money as it would take for me to go."
I made all my travel arrangements with the AAA. On the Saturday before I was to leave on
Monday, the AAA called me and said, "We're sorry, Mrs. Hanley; we've waited until the last
moment to call you because we've been cabling back and forth to Israel. But we cannot find you a
room within seventy miles of the Lod airport. We don't know where you'll spend your first night in
Israel. All the hotels are double-booked."