It’s a Small World

And then suddenly I’m back home, seasoning pork loin, scrubbing potatoes, watering plants, teaching Junior Sunday school, and it’s all normal. I’m all normal. But back in Israel our friends are still exhausted. Still worried. Still stuck on hold. Lena says she’s so tired and says she can’t even really pray. I have no trouble…

Ok, remember what I said about Egypt’s charm disappearing? I totally take that back. We rested at the hotel till 11:30pm, then boarded the bus along with all our luggage, suit-coats (only 2), the immeasurably talented Abdul and headed off, horn tooting, lights flashing and attitude galore. If we’d had a tail it would have…

We’ll just flex on all these peasants. -Avery Standing at Giza Main Entrance, our hectic security entourage around us, we felt a tiny bit conspicuous. While a few other groups have one or two suit-coats along, we seem to be the only one with suit-coats, police and plainclothes. Tapping our inner VIP, we tried to…

Africa never disappoints. “Someone” has declared us a high security risk group and we have been gifted an entourage of gun toting, suit wearing security dudes. It started small, with just Hassan, but when we walked to supper at Abu Tourek, we suddenly triggered some policeman’s alarm system, and we were cautiously escorted out of…

It’s mid afternoon and most of us are sacked out in the hotel lobby doing things. The kids are playing, Jordan working on tickets and our personal bodyguard Hassan just finished skunking Avery and Bryce at arm wrestling before strapping on his gun and taking the three single boys on a walk. After a night…

We’re at our hotels in Cairo. Heath and Daidre went with Ray and Carol to the Hospital. We’re hoping they can really help him feel better. He’s miserable. So glad we’re finally here. Almost midnight. We’re tired and a little weird.

Eventually, like 4 hours eventually, we made it across the border to our waiting bus. It’s a nice, modern affair with cushy seats and blue curtains. We were given our mineral water and then our convoy headed out. We’re traveling with another tour bus and two police escorts. A tourist police rode in our bus…

Night was good. Now we’re slowly, slowly crossing the border into Egypt. It’s a typical overseas border experience. Four stations to exit Israel. Get this paper, get that paper, pay the exit fee…. Meanwhile Ray has been feeling really sick so he fainted on us. We continued to exit Israel with him in a wheelchair,…

We’re safely (we think) ensconced in our hotel rooms in Eilat. Well, the guys who dropped off our rental cars aren’t, as they were having some trouble finding exactly where to drop them. With the country all at half mast, nothing is as straight forward as it should be. We tried to visit Old City…

We had a good day. In the morning some of us hiked up Mt Arbel and explored the fortress and caves. It was a little cooler, thank goodness, so that made it much more enjoyable. Israel heat is brutal in the summer. Our boat captain friend David decided last minute that we could risk going…

We slept well, only interrupted by one missile attack. But it was nothing half. We are much closer to the action here, and the booms sometimes shake the ground. Also the very real threat of falling shrapnel is always on our minds. Some of the group ended up in the shelter for a while, but…

We got the all clear at 3:00am and it lasted till late afternoon. That was blissful! We packed all our belongings, scrubbed and buffed the apartments and headed North. Is that stupid? Who knows. We don’t know anything anymore. The roads had a decent amount of cars on them, so that felt good. We arrived…

Ugh. This is getting so old. I know, I know, we’re not suffering, we have everything we need, including but not limited to water, and everyone is doing an excellent job of being cheerful. We can get out and about and can stay in our beds if we want during the attacks, but we’re getting…

And so it was a normal day. Normal is relative, but we left town, got fierce hot and sweaty, ate delicious food at Bethlehem and successfully crossed four checkpoints with no issues. We’re all so grateful to be in a non targeted area. The minibus picked us up at 8am and we headed down the…

It’s morning and the sun is already blazing on the house, slowly turning our bedroom into an oven. The roosters are crowing and I just fed the sleepy looking kitties. Heath and Matt are cooking breakfast and the world is slowly coming alive. I am hugely grateful for the mundanity of it all. Not everyone…

There is something absolutely breathtaking about watching a large orange moon rise over distant mountains right after a missile attack. The contrast is almost jarring. It’s almost 11pm and time to get off the rooftop and go to bed. There were two major waves, with hundreds of missiles flying overhead and we stood on the…

But experiencing a radical “firework” show. Not very much fun. A little bit interesting. Iran’s 100 or so latest missiles were intercepted and we watched the orange tracers seeking them out and exploding in the air. Not quite above us, but nearly. This caused way to much cheering in our town, and now the IDF…

I’m sitting on my bed in Abu Dis, bored out of my mind. We’re supposed to be going through Hezekiah’s water tunnel, strolling through Jerusalem streets munching falafel, but no. Sirens woke us at 3:00am and that’s when we first found out about Israel’s attack on Iran. It’s also when Israel basically went into Lockdown,…