Dear Elisha,

I do want to tell you how much I enjoyed our recent tour. It did truly exceed my expectations and I appreciate how safe and perhaps overwhelmed I felt the entire time I was in Israel with you all. My favorite part of the trip was being at Kibbutz Kfar Blum and seeing the battlefields in the Golan Heights that I have read so much about, and as Pastor Daryl suggested, to take off my historical and archeological glasses and think in spiritual terms. I did try! Next year I’ll try harder.

Obviously I need more trips to Israel and what you are suggesting for May of 2008 does sound as though it would satisfy a problem I had with this one, in that there was no time to reflect on what I had just seen and heard. No doubt a more disciplined woman could have done that on the bus on route to the next place, but I was always focused on the beautiful scenery outside the window, not wanting to miss a thing!

I appreciate how knowledgeable was my guide, Yuval Harat, and at least he never lost me. Does this suggest the profit motive trumps brotherly love? Hummmm. And Moshe Malka is such a sweetheart! I love him! Certainly he and Yuval are opposites in personality and application, yet each interesting and contributed so much.

God Bless You, and my best wishes to Merle as well.