The last day of our Israel trip began with a 5:00 AM wake-up call in order to catch our 10:00 AM Turkish Airlines flight. We were to land in Chicago at 5:40 PM, losing the eight hours, but of course we were delayed in Istanbul slightly. With favorable winds we arrived by 6:00 PM. Luggage was excruciatingly slow (our group was the last set of bags off the plane) and one girl lost her bag. One of the group headed home from Chicago (bye Kaitlynn). Even though our bus was on time to pick us up at O’Hare, it was nearly 8:00 by the time we finally hit the road. It was nearly midnight before we arrived at GBC, so something like 27 hours of travel.
Since all electronics larger than a cell phone are now banned on flights from Turkey to the US, I needed to buy a book to read on the plane. The Steimatzky bookstore in the Ben Gurion airport has a very nice selection (better than any US airport I have seen). I ended up selecting Tom Bissell’s Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve. This book is part travelogue, part “lives of the saints” and part New Testament introduction. I read about half of the book on the plane; even if he is not right on some of the New Testament material he is an excellent writer. Since Bissell is not a religious person he is able to report some of the more legendary aspects of the lives of the apostles more objectively than these sorts of books often do.
Now that I am back in the office, I will edit the previous posts and add some pictures. I plan on moving the posts to the “Israel Trips.” Thanks for following this trip, I heard many positive comments from people who vicariously traveled to Israel and Jordan with the Grace Bible College group.
Maybe you can join me for a Pauline Missions trip in 2018 (students) or 2019 (Alumni), or the Grace Bible College student trip in 2019.
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