The Dirt That Built Me: Six Weeks in Israel That Changed Everything

The Youngest on the Dig

When I was 19 and a student at Abilene Christian University, I had the incredible opportunity to spend six weeks in Israel on an archaeological dig. At the time, I was the youngest student allowed to go and earned three college credits while I was there. To call it the adventure of a lifetime would be an understatement.

From City Streets to Sacred Soil

I had grown up in the city around Dallas, Texas, and had never done real manual labor before. Then suddenly I was in the dirt every day, working under the sun, lifting stones that had been resting for centuries. And I loved it. The Bible came alive in ways I never expected, and so did something else in me… including a heart for dirt.

When History Has Weight

We were uncovering structures built by smart, clever, skilled people more than 2,000 years earlier. They weren’t myths or metaphors. These were foundations, thresholds, and walls you could touch. I had read about these places in Scripture, and then I stood on them. What had once felt distant became tangible. History was no longer an idea. It had weight.

Conversations Across Borders

I also met people from all over the world. The little French I knew helped me connect with a Lebanese woman who cleaned our room daily at the Shaleg Halevenon in Metullah along the DMZ. Even that small exchange felt significant. Culture, language, borders, history… all converging in one small conversation.

What Six Weeks Can Change

The before and after photos capture more than a change in tan lines. The first week we were fresh and curious. By the last day, we were leaner, stronger, dirtier, and bonded by shared labor. Archaeology often navigates and speculates about the past, but there is something powerful about replacing abstract curiosity with tangible history. A lot shifted in those six weeks. My worldview expanded. My confidence grew. My physique changed (because work does the body good). My discipline sharpened. My perspective widened. And my faith deepened.

Presence Before Distraction

But it was not just about connecting with the past. It was about connecting with my faith, with myself, with my team, and even with my family back home in the States. This was long before cell phones. Collect calls only. Communication was intentional and rare. Presence was not optional because distraction was not available. We were simply there. Fully there.

The Dirt Still Teaches

That lesson still carries into the work I do today in the dirt. In construction. In companies. In leadership. In Confined Space Coffee. In my own life. There is something about putting your hands to meaningful work that uncovers more than artifacts. It uncovers you.

Companies, in many ways, are like archaeologists. They navigate and speculate about the past. They study trends, analyze reports, conduct surveys, review dashboards. They brush gently around old decisions, inherited systems, and cultural artifacts left behind by previous leaders. They form theories about why performance dipped, why morale shifted, why execution broke down. But speculation is not excavation.

Archaeology becomes powerful when abstract curiosity is replaced with tangible history. When you stop theorizing about what might be under the surface and start putting tools into the soil. When you uncover the actual foundation stones. When you find the fracture lines. When you hold the evidence in your hands… perspective changes as reality brings understanding.

Organizations often do the same thing. They talk about culture without examining workflow. They discuss values without tracing behaviors. They debate strategy without studying the layers of decisions that led to where they are now.

If you want to understand a company, don’t just read the mission statement. Dig into:

• How decisions are really made when pressure rises.

• How communication flows when no one is watching.

• What gets rewarded, tolerated, or quietly ignored.

• Where fear hides beneath polished language.

• What stories the long-tenured employees tell when leadership is not in the room.

That is your excavation site.

Just like on a dig in Israel, every layer in the strata tells a story. The topsoil may look clean and orderly. Beneath it, you may find remnants of old conflicts, unfinished initiatives, abandoned priorities, or cultural fractures that were never repaired. None of it is random. Every layer was formed by real choices made by real people under real pressure.

And here is the beautiful part: once it is uncovered, it can be understood. Once it is understood, it can be strengthened.

Archaeologists do not shame the past. They study it. They document it. They learn from it. They preserve what is worth preserving and acknowledge what has shifted over time. Companies would do well to adopt the same posture.

Because tangible history builds better foundations than abstract optimism.

The dirt still teaches. It teaches patience. It teaches humility. It teaches that what is unseen often shapes what is visible. And in both archaeology and leadership, the goal is not simply to uncover what was, but to build wisely on what is.

A Conversation with My 19-Year-Old Self

Thirty-six years later, I would love to sit down with my 19-year-old self and offer a few words. Stay passionately curious. Drink the coffee and the hot mint tea with Cando and Dr. Humble, and ask to do it again the next day (I did not, and I should have). Ask questions of every gray-haired person you meet because they carry wisdom waiting to be uncovered. Be present in every moment. Share the sweat, the laughter, the discoveries, and the wonder with anyone willing to step into it with you. The dirt will teach you more than you expect, if you let it.

Now it’s your turn: where did life put you in the dirt, and what did it uncover in you?