On Holy Ground

Vic Kennett always had a rendezvous with Israel in his future.

From his beginnings as a professing atheist in the fifth grade, to his years as a cast member in the Great Passion Play at Eureka Springs, Kennett was moving toward a destination he wouldn’t have imagined before his conversion to Christianity.

Now, the founder and CEO of 37-year-old Kerusso, the world’s largest Christian apparel company, has twice been to Israel. His latest trip was a doozy.

Late last year, he was invited to be part of a specialized tour of the Holy Land, recently wracked by unimaginable violence. The Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas prompted outpourings of support from many quarters, including pro-Israel Christian groups in America. One in particular, The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry (FOI), was able to take a small team to places most of us don’t have a chance to go.

In January, Kennett continued the journey walking out his faith in the places where it began for the whole world.

FOI, based in New Jersey, has a history that dovetails with the interests of Americans like Kennett, who has lived his life in Northwest Arkansas. The ministry was founded 85 years ago, in the shadows of a ghastly season of violence against Jews in Europe. By November 1938, Hitler had begun gobbling up territory, and his scapegoat for Germany’s defeat in World War 1 was primarily the Jews. On the night of Nov. 9 and 10, Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues in Germany were firebombed and otherwise, destroyed. Hundreds of Jews were murdered, and 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

Some in America were paying attention. A gathering of pastors and businessmen in Philadelphia met and organized. One of the outcomes was the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. Since that time, the group has worked day and night to advocate for the Jewish people.

Now, a businessman from Berryville has taken up the baton to support the “People of the Book.”

The tour Kennett participated in in January was specifically designed to reveal exactly what Hamas did last fall. The information is disturbing, even catastrophic, but FOI, led by executive director Jim Showers, believes it needs to be heard and seen.

Kennett saw and heard a whole lot.

“Now that I’m a witness to firsthand accounts and the evidence of what happened, I feel compelled to share it,” he said from Kerusso’s headquarters in the Berryville Industrial Park. “We visited with Israelis near Gaza who lived through the savage attacks and lost loved ones. We saw 1,200 cars that were gathered from nearby and held in a field; riddled with bullet holes, or completely burned out. Cars that once had drivers and passengers in them who were murdered at or near the Nova Music Festival. We spent time in the same hotels with more than a thousand Israeli refugee families; a small portion of the 200,000 who are currently displaced from their homes around Gaza and Northern Israel.”

The group toured both the south and north, near the Gaza border where as many as 2,500 Hamas terrorists murdered and kidnapped more than 1,200 Israelis, along with the volatile border with Syria and Lebanon. Near Gaza, the day-long pogrom has been called the darkest day in the history of modern Israel, founded in 1948. The things Kennett saw almost defy description, but he saw it with his own eyes.

Kennett’s tour coincided with his company’s donation of proceeds from T-shirt sales. The money raised has helped Israel buy and install bomb shelters. Kennett explained that it was almost surreal to be able to stand in one of those shelters in a Kibbutz near Gaza.

“FOI works with donors and Operation Life Shield to provide as many shelters as possible throughout Israel. Each shelter can fit about 20 people, tightly packed,” he explained.

There was also a little room for some sightseeing. A little over a year ago, Kennett visited Israel for the first time, but the itinerary didn’t include a visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. This bucket list item was achieved on this trip, however, which was quite a moment for many reasons, not the least of which is Kennett’s time as a teenager in the Great Passion Play. There in Eureka Springs, he walked the streets of “Jerusalem” and stood on the steps of the “Temple,” listening to the Christ figure speak words from the Bible. Now, so many years later, Kennett was walking around the actual location!

“Looking across the valley and seeing the Mount of Olives was amazing,” Kennett said. “To be in the very place where Jesus walked and taught truly is life-changing.”

Only a few years before Kennett worked at the Play, he had his ultimate rendezvous with destiny. Wanting nothing to do with God in his early years, Kennett one day was at a garage sale with his mother. A paperback book on a table caught his eye, so he spent the quarter and took the book home.

Hal Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth” changed Kennett’s life. His story is wonderfully outlined in his 2012 book, “Change Your Shirt, Change the World.” In it, Kennett recalls his own faith journey, and spotlights the work of the team he loves at Kerusso.

“For the first time, I was reading the Bible,” he remembers. “One thing I couldn’t explain away was fulfilled Bible prophecy. From there, I began to have an understanding of all that, and Israel’s place in history.”

He was converted to the Christian faith, “saved” as they say in the South. Not so many years later, the whole experience literally drove him to start Kerusso. The modest beginnings—printing, folding and packing shirts for shipping— soon outgrew a spare bedroom. Kerusso was born and spent the first few years in Eureka Springs. Eventually, the company expanded, and the impressive facility in Berryville now employs 130 people. Kerusso’s sales went global with the entrance into Christian retail. Today, the company daily receives faith stories, from Sarajevo to Sacramento.

It’s almost too much for a former atheist kid from Arkansas to process. But he does, and gladly. Kennett’s team at Kerusso is as dedicated to the company’s mission as its founder.

“Now, I was able to go take our message to the Land of Israel, and that’s something I’ll never forget.”

Neither will the people of Israel forget the life-saving equipment the powerhouse company from Berryville delivered.

It’s a permanent friendship.