Heading home again......

Greetings from somewhere over the Atlantic. I can’t believe I am able to head back to Israel so soon after my last trip, it has been barely six months since my last visit. I consider this trip a true blessing and is one I am extremely excited about.

This trip is the first time I have gone to Israel without a formal reason. In the past I either went for a group mission or for a meeting. But this trip is truly pleasure and just about me. I am going to celebrate plums, turning 40 and my new lease on life. And I can’t think of anywhere I would rather have that celebration.

I am also going to visit two very special people in my life, Laura and Irwin. Both of whom were “happy accidents” that have turned into treasured friendships. And it is rather ironic to be visiting them both in Israel of all places.

Laura I met for the first time on my trip to Sderot in February 2009. She is a documentary film maker (if you haven’t seen Refusenik you should btw) who left California to come to Israel to make a film about the lives of the people of Sderot and how living within target range of Gaza has impacted them. In making the film her life took some great twists and she has now married to one of her characters, become an Israeli citizen and is expecting her first child soon. I met her at her home where she was sharing the trailer to the movie.

There was no real reason, other than fate, why we should have ever spoken again after that short visit. But her movie, Sderot: Rock in the Red Zone, so moved me that I maintained contact with her after I returned home. And since then she has visited Minneapolis and we have become friends and she will be the smiling face waiting for me at the airport in Tel Aviv. Isn’t fate wonderful.

Irwin (and his wife Iris) are an even more interesting story for me. Irwin came into my life on probably the worst day of my life. The day I woke up paralyzed on my right side after the botched surgery. He was the nurse assigned to help care for me. Again, that should have been the end of it once I was discharged, but we were brought back together again when I ran into him at the Synagogue I became part of during my conversion. He was a teacher and a member there. Irwin and Iris were there the day I completed my conversion and as I grew in my faith, I spent my first Passover in their home and Irwin taught me much about Israeli history. After I moved from Syracuse I kind of lost touch with them, but through the miracle of Facebook we were able to reconnect last year. When I found them again they had just made Aliyah to Israel and were living outside of Jerusalem. I was able to visit with them on my last visit and they will be there to celebrate my birthday with me this year.

Having these amazing people waiting for me in Israel makes it feel even more like a trip home. This is the first time I don’t feel like I am heading there as a tourist and really am going to where I belong!!!!!