Day Thirteen: Flight Home, 7/22/11

Everyone was up by 3 a.m. to get their luggage ready to be loaded onto the bus and be on our way to the Tel Aviv Airport by 4 a.m. We arrived there at 5 a.m. thinking 3 hours for security should be plenty. Well, it worked but several in our group arrived at the gate 5-10 minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart. John & Reg were questioned separately about our trip and we assume security personnel compared their answers. There were many, many security checks and many from our team members were required to go through extra security. We were all a bit tired of luggage since we had packed around 300 school kits for the students in Zarqa besides all of the food we had packed for the ladies to cook while we were there. We loaded that luggage onto and off from the tour bus more times than any of us care to count. Many of us also carried it up several flights of stairs since elevators were small and often slow. I guess it seemed fitting that we haul this luggage around a bit more on the last day. Sheila McCauley's dream (nightmare) on Saturday night after returning home spoke volumes: she was waiting at the luggage carousel only to find her clothing arriving one article at a time with no suitcase in which to put it! The flight home was fine and we were all happy to see the U.S.A! We arrived in Richland Center around midnight. It took John & I (and it sounds like many others) several days to recover from the jet-lag and long, hot days of work and touring while in Israel/Jordan.

A few days after the trip we were discussing how it was difficult to find the right adjective to describe this work & witness trip to Israel/Jordan. I think we decided one adjective wouldn't be sufficient and settled on the description that it was a wonderfully fulfilling trip in every way, socially, physically, mentally & spiritually. We met many new Nazarene friends and got to know others at a much deeper level. Unfortunately, for safety reasons, I can't share names and pictures of the people we met in Israel/Jordan. We were certainly challenged physically with all of the work at the school & the walking tours. And our brains are definitely on overload from all of the information we took in during the trip. I wish I could remember it all! Our spiritual lives will never be the same after walking the many places where Jesus walked and seeing how the Nazarene Christians are ministering to the people in the Middle East. What a wonderful privilege to be part of this group!