My wife and I first met Brother Blair and Sister Regina at the Ranch in Colorado. We were two young Israelis in our early twenties traveling the world.
Though we grew up in Israel in the Galilee, we did not believe in God or the Bible, and we tried to stay far away from Christianity. Nonetheless, something happened in that first visit to the small community in Colorado. Hope slipped into our hearts from their happy faces, their joyous life, their fellowship, and their work together.
A baby boy was born that night to Brother Blair and Sister Regina. They named him Simeon (after the man in the Bible waiting for the consolation of Israel) and Shavar Leomi (Hebrew: “the birth of My people”). What a prophetic name it proved to be, two years later, when we were born into the kingdom. Indeed, something was born in all of our hearts that night as well.
Later, when we told an Israeli friend about our visit, he asked us, “How do you know they didn’t just play a game for you, and when you left, they became normal?” Well, we came back a year later and stayed for three weeks. When we left that time, we said to one another, “If they are playing a game, they are playing it very well. There is something real here!”
Brother Blair and this small discipleship community laid down their lives to build a bridge of love between two irreconcilable worlds—secular Israelis and the loving, humble Jewish Messiah, Yahshua. They bridged the fears that made us perceive Christianity as the Inquisition, pogroms, and Nazis, whom we mistakenly thought were “Christians.”
As our relationships deepened with the community and we visited more over the next two years, our hearts yearned for more. We asked many questions, trying to comprehend how people can live so close, loving and serving each other, creating a community but with no common purse (like the kibbutz). They lived out personal responsibility within each family yet felt much closer to one another than we ever experienced. We discovered the power that made community possible, which we never really knew about. Brother Blair encouraged us then, “When you are ready, call on God, and He will answer.” We did do that and called on the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, asking Him to reveal Himself to us—and He did. Jesus became a reality in our lives through a deep, personal experience, and we became part of this beautiful community.
Brother Blair married us 35 years ago, and a wondrous journey began.
As a young married couple, we lived close to the Adamses on the Ranch. They were always there, as parents, to help us in our new beginning. I remember Brother Blair’s wise counsel directing me to learn to pray. Once, praying in the middle of the night, God spoke to me directly and gave me victory. I was so excited; I could hardly wait for the morning to call him and tell him. He was so happy. Nothing made him happier than to see people become right with God, feeling the faith and love to move forward and then doing it.
I asked him in my excitement, “Can I do something for you?” (I felt grateful for God’s liberating Word of truth).
He said, “One thing you can do for me: give yourself entirely to God.” There was no greater reward for him than to see his children walking in the truth, embracing a relationship with Jesus.
I had the privilege and honor to know Brother Blair for 37 years, as a father in my life, a friend, and an example of love, care, selflessness, and much more.
He was someone who never asked you to do or be what he didn’t require of himself, someone I will forever strive to emulate. We’ve all witnessed this vision’s reality birthed, not only here but all over the world, through the sacrifice of a great man with a great wife. And this vision will not die. Twenty-three years ago, Brother Blair said in our twenty-fifth-anniversary: “If the death [of our early pioneers] seems incapable of canceling out their lives, this really shouldn’t be too surprising, since all this began 2,000 years ago with an empty grave, with life overcoming death.”
How true those words ring today as we mourn Brother Blair’s passing. Still, worldwide, we are devoted to keeping this torch burning and carrying this vision and mission forward by God’s grace.
