Privilege

We believe reviewing is important. In an attempt to wet your appetite for things to come, we will be posting portions of past blogs. The following is from our last trip in November of 2008. We had just arrived and were driving from the airport to our hotel in Galilee. These were the first words our guide spoke to us.

"Meir was speaking to us as we were driving to Galilee. He shared one simple statement and I began to weep. He said, "Welcome to Israel. You have been invited here. Invited by God. This is a place for pilgrims people have been coming to this land for thousands of years. Something you need to know is that for all of the people that have visited here there are millions that longed for this day and did not live to see it." Part of Jewish daily life was repeating, "Next year in Jerusalem." I began to think of the Jews of the Holocaust and the War for Israeli independence even further back to the children of Israel building the pyramids in slavery knowing there was a Promised Land. Then the Jews of the Diaspora who were taken from the city in 70 AD and sent all over the world. They did not return here as a people, as a nation until 1948. Almost 2000 years! Anyway.... all of these faces and names and lives came before me. And here, we, a bunch of crazy Americans, getting to do what others have died for. The importance of this priveledge hit me hard. Please pray that we truly grasp this significant invitation with the same gravity in which it was purchased."