Day 1.
A sea of dark heads greeted us as we floated into the cabin on a high wave of expectancy. Few of the piercing, brown eyes could have realised we were on our first trip to the Promised Land and even less would have cared. But for us, our bubble of excitement was fit to burst and spray our captive audience.
I’ve seen Jewish people from a distance or on TV and they seem pretty much like you and me, but I couldn’t help staring at the Orthodox Jews with their pale faces and wiry facial locks. Their wives in their elegant wigs with odd strands of their natural ‘crowning glory’ straying from their enclosures. I prayed for Angels all around and for the Lord to bless each traveller; oh that they would know Him as their personal a saviour. They know you God as father God and creator. May they grow to love and serve Him. In Jesus name, Amen.

As our first journey to Israel progressed, I felt more relaxed and was intrigued by my fellow travellers. A lovely, elderly, gentleman called Peter joined us in conversation, a welcome relief for my friend Philippa who nodded politely at my constant chatter. And as Peter expounded about his trip to his Father’s land I observed the tribes of Israel as they passed to and from the public convenience. The men, with their pale faces protected from any sun by their broad brimmed, black hats bore an air of authority and passed with a stately disposition as only a child of the Most High could. While their pretty, demure wives and daughters bore more than a passing resemblance to the images of Ann Frank I had seen on her diaries. And was it my imagination, or was it, is it true, that they appear to bear the weight of the world on their shoulders. I felt the spectre of the holocaust hanging over them as we were imprisoned together in the cabin. How awful, how unimaginably tragic it must have been for their relatives to have been imprisoned and covered in the dark, evil cloak of death in Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Halfway through the flight the steward announced that people could go to the back of the plane to pray for 15 minutes and the devout quickly assumed their positions in God’s waiting room. Humbled, I prayed in my seat.

Christ came not to destroy the law but to set His people free and give them life abundantly. So in that short capsule of time, I felt my joyous laughter jarred with the solemnity of His chosen people. An adopted Child of God grafted into the true vine, I prayed for them to be free as they could be.

If you are Jewish, please forgive my naive observations, no offence was intended!