Day 10 - We're Back

Sunday morning we had to leave the hotel at 1:30 AM (Israel time) in order to be at Ben Gurion Airport at 2:30 AM for our 5:30 AM flight. After getting everything packed, and trying to make sure our suitcases were not over weight, some were able to get about an hour of sleep while others didn’t sleep at all. Yes, it did rain on us as we headed to Tel Aviv.

Flying back to the U.S. is the hardest part of the journey. We didn’t want to leave in the first place, and add how tired we were with the 13 plus hours of flying was not too appealing. The flights were very smooth and the planes were much more comfortable than our previous trip. But by the time we reached Chicago my backside was pretty tired of sitting. We arrived back in Des Moines at about 4:15 PM on Sunday, November 20.

Final Thoughts

In the blogs I mentioned that we had rain almost every day. This was unusual for the November rain patterns in Israel. Typically, they may get rain for a couple hours but then sunshine. And it was cooler than normal. Israel gets on average about 30 inches of rainfall per year, so they are thrilled when they get so much rain, especially in the northern Galilee area. One third of the nation’s drinking water comes from the Sea of Galilee but due to seven years of drought conditions the water level had dropped considerably. So while we got rain, YHVH always stopped it when we had plans to be outside. Our boat ride on the Galilee was beautiful after waking to rain. That whole day was beautiful. The day we spent walking in Jerusalem was almost perfect after waking to rain. Abi was amazed at how that always worked out. And the fact that we did not allow the rain to dampen our spirits also amazed and impressed him. Such as when we walked out into a terribly muddy field to plant our trees. It had been raining just before we got there. The rain stopped while we planted and started back up after we finished cleaning our shoes. Rain when we arrived at Jerusalem did not stop us from blowing our shofars over the city from Mount Scopus. Abi videoed us so he could put it on his website (when/if he gets it set up).

One of our purposes for going to Israel is to bless the nation and the people we come into contact with. We want to leave a deposit in the land. We do that by planting the trees and by our actions and our words to those we come into contact with. This shows the people that Shofar is not a typical tour group and that often opens up doors to us that are not opened to other groups. We go to learn from our guide, to receive a deposit as well as leave one. We want to be different when we come back; we want our love and passion for Eretz Yisrael and her people to be even stronger. I believe this was accomplished on this journey, as well as the previous. As we continue to take more groups to Israel we will be developing contacts and relationships with people there which will open even more doors. This will allow Shofar to build bridges with the Jewish people, abroad and at home, so we can begin to mend the breaches that have been created.

Thank you to all who prayed for us and followed our blogs. We hope others will have a desire to go back with us in the future. As our hope and prayer we say, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

Shalom!