Arrived in Tel Aviv

A long day of travel that began in the St. Andrew parking lot at 12:15 pm CST and is now ending with this post at 2:00 am local time in Tel Aviv.  We made it safely and with little fanfare.  The flights were full with lots of people headed to Istanbul, Turkey (our first stop) and Israel for spring break.

We met our guide, Hillel, a 73 yr. old Israeli, who served in the Israeli army for three wars.  From his introductory comments, I think he has some ideas about peace that begin with love and compassion.  Our bus driver tonight was Ali, an Arab ,who is a neighbor of Hillel.  We will learn much, I suspect, about the complicated way of life in Israel and the Middle East with so many religious and ethnic groups sharing such a small geographic space.

Already I have tidbits for future sermons.  For example, Hillel mentioned the prophet Elijah and called him the “John the Baptist” for the Jews!  What a great analogy.