A Double All-Nighter: Evacuation of Students
It was just a week ago . . . On Friday, July 14, a group of us went shopping in Tiberias; Stephanie and I got cash from the cash machine outside the bank. Jessica found a new camera and SMILED. Andrea and Cameron poked around for some gifts needed for family and friends. Irene and I browsed the bookstore, and we all strolled around like tourists and had ice cream on the waterfront. Twenty-four hours later Tiberias was hit by a Katyusha rocket fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon. In the early afternoon on Saturday we gathered everyone together in the lab room, and Mark announced that all the students would be evacuated as soon as possible; adults wishing to leave at this time could also go. Darryl, the ex-cop and I were designated as escorts for the group. And I thought Steve’s lost passport was a big deal!
At 4 pm we gathered again in the lab for a hastily prepared communion service led by Pastor Jim Rogers from St. Louis. Jim was scheduled to lead our Sunday worship the next day, so he was the logical one to led the service; there were tears in the eyes of many as he and Bill Meyer communed the circle of people jammed in the room. Then we all loaded on to the bus Mark had arranged with Monika, his Palestinian travel agent. She had also booked rooms for us at a guest house in Jerusalem. It was a quiet ride down the Jordan Valley. Jessica shared her peanut butter on pita bread sandwich with me. I had forgotten to ask someone to pack supper for me—one of many blunders I would make over the next couple of days.
We arrived safely in Jerusalem, and several students noted the irony of coming there for "safety." In previous years the trip to Jerusalem was considered the riskiest part of the dig adventure and was subject to cancellation at the last moment. We were very close to the Old City, so Darryl and I set out on a reconnaissance trip. I wanted to know what time the English congregation at Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer worshiped (9:30 am) and what time the doors to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were locked at night. I thought the latter might be a good "field trip" for the students while we awaited in Jerusalem for flights out. Another blunder on my part! We did make it to church at Our Redeemer in the morning, and Darryl was planning to lead the group on a tour of the archaeological park on the south side of the Temple Mount while I checked with Continental about re-booking flights. Nothing doing! The students were uncomfortable in Jerusalem, so following a discussion at the guest house after the service at Our Redeemer, we checked out and moved on to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. One taxi ride, 2 bus stations, 3 bus transfers and a couple of hours later, we made it! My big blunder of the afternoon: I purchased 13 tickets from Jerusalem to Tev Aviv (which took us to the central bus station there) rather than from Jerusalem to Ben Gurion. How much schlepping of luggage we might have been spared!!! I do wish I had a video of 13 people, 11 with a month’s worth of luggage, cramming into 4 small taxis for the first leg of that trip.
Once in the airport, the students were visibly more relaxed. They had all they needed: free wireless for their laptops and a MacDonald’s for comfort food. I made a beeline for the cell phone rental office—my smartest move of the day, perhaps of the entire 3-day ordeal. I passed the phone around and told the kids to phone home; I e-mailed Mark, who relayed my phone to the parents via his e-mail at En Gev, so parents could phone us, if needed. I tried talking to Continental Airlines to get the students on a waiting list. THEY WERE NICE BUT ABSOLUTELY NO HELP AT ALL!!! Within a short time, parents were making arrangements to get their children out of Israel. Amanda had travel insurance and so got booked on the midnight Continental flight that night; Jessica’s family somehow got her a ticket as well on that flight. Kristina’s family got her as far as London on British Air, where she met friends who housed her until she could make it back to the US. Stephanie’s parents got her on Monday morning flight to Frankfort, then Montreal, then O’Hare. A crazy route, but she was out of Israel less than 24 hours after the rocket hit Tiberias. And so we spent the first of 2 nights in Ben Gurion Airport. I was never without something to do; the Israeli security people were actually quite nice and let me accompany each student through the interrogation process, luggage search, and check-in with the airlines. When I wasn’t doing that, I was checking with other students about their status. Andrea and Cameron, among others, were searching the net for cheap, available flights in the coming 24 hours. Arny, one of the 2 adults, got a flight out to Brussels Monday morning. Nancy’s family, the other adult who had decided to leave because her family was so worried, joked about her husband’s efforts. For $1600 he could get her on a flight out on Monday; she said, "I’m worth $1600 to him; I’m not sure he’d go to $2000." Between the time the 3 left on the midnight flights Sunday and the 2 people left at 6:30 Monday morning, everyone else got their tickets purchased. Once we saw Stephanie off through passport control Monday morning, the remnant of 7 made our way to the taxi stand.
I had booked 2 rooms (that turned into 3 once we arrived) at a cheap hotel in Yahuda, someplace near the airport. We road in a comfortable, huge taxi at a fair price to this old, tired hotel. The doors had only push-button locks—not exactly secure! The carpeting looked like it carried a dozen different diseases, but the sheets on the beds appeared to be clean. Frankly, I didn’t much care; it had been decades since I had "pulled an all-nighter." I think it was about 8:30 am when Andrea, my roommate de jour (Saturday night had been a girls’ slumber party with 4 and 5 to a room) and I crawled into our beds. At 10:30 I was awakened by the pool party music; it sounded like the 80s hit "YMCA" was floating up 4 stories through an open window (this in spite of the AC working well). I got up and checked. No, the windows were closed; the music was just that LOUD. I went back to bed, only to be up less then 2 hours later. Darryl was at the door; did I know check out time was noon? I made my way down the rickety elevator to the lobby and had a heart to heart with the desk clerk (not the man who had checked us in). I must have looked really pitiful, because she let us stay into the evening, no additional charge. I also complained about the music and the lack of AC in the men’s room. They sent someone right up, and Darryl sheepishly admitted later that they had simply not pressed the right button to get the AC on! They turned down the music at the pool, and everyone got one more good nap in during the early afternoon.
Around 5ish pm on Monday we returned to the airport. There was nothing to do at the hotel, and we all remembered the leeks and garlic left in Egypt—I mean the comforts of Ben Gurion: free wireless and MacDonald’s. I had my second meal in 24 hours at Mickey D’s; this time I super-sized my fries and Diet Coke and scarfed down every bite and sip. There were no tickets to go in search of, no one to shepherd through security until about 2 am, so Nancy and I had a drink together while Darryl kept an eye on the "kids," as we lovingly referred to them. They were sweet to him; Tabitha brought him a beer, and he was happy. Over our drinks Nancy said to me, "I don’t know how you’ve done this." "Adrenaline," I answered. I was only half right; I didn’t realize it at the time, but friends and family all over the place were holding us in prayer. Those prayers sustained us all through a tough ordeal, me especially.
The worst moment came when Nancy, Kody, and Tabitha checked in on the same flight but only got boarding passes for the first of 3 legs of their journeys: to Brussels. When this has happened to me, it’s a sign that the connecting flight is overbooked. I fast-talked my way through Israeli security and spoke heatedly to the El Al airline supervisor. I got nowhere, but my fears were unfounded. They all got on the Brussels to O’Hare flight (along with Arny, who managed to get bulkhead seats for himself and Nancy) and even made their connecting flights to their final destinations from O’Hare. The last two to check in were Andrea and Cameron on their Olympic flight to Athens. No snags there.
Finally, Darryl and I waved good-bye to them as they went through passport control. We had breakfast in the airport before splurging on a taxi back to En Gev, rather than saving a few shekels traveling via bus and/or train. I should have known it would be a bad trip when the driver seemed to have no idea how to get to Galilee or what the fare was. I did get a price to Tiberias before we left the airport. Darryl and I both fell into a deep sleep for the first hour. We woke up just in time to get the driver on the road to Affula (I’ve only been to Israel twice, and even I knew that much!) Fortunately, Darryl had purchased a good map at the airport, and so we guided the driver along a shortcut that by-passed Tiberias completely and took us directly to En Gev. As we neared our final destination, the driver asked if we were married. "NO!" we both answered in quick unison—making us sound like an old married couple! At En Gev, the driver wanted to charge us over a 100 shekels more than the stated price to Tiberias. I blew my stack: "Absolutely NOT," I screamed. I gave him the agreed upon fare and no tip. I felt totally jet lagged and every day of my 50 years, and I hadn’t moved across one time zone!
Of course, the story is really about eleven happy homecomings, not the traveling travails of Regina Logistica and her personal bodyguard, Darryl. We thank God for everyone’s safe return and for the opportunity to get to know each of these special young people (and the special people with more life experience—Arny and Nancy), even though our time together was cut short.
At 4 pm we gathered again in the lab for a hastily prepared communion service led by Pastor Jim Rogers from St. Louis. Jim was scheduled to lead our Sunday worship the next day, so he was the logical one to led the service; there were tears in the eyes of many as he and Bill Meyer communed the circle of people jammed in the room. Then we all loaded on to the bus Mark had arranged with Monika, his Palestinian travel agent. She had also booked rooms for us at a guest house in Jerusalem. It was a quiet ride down the Jordan Valley. Jessica shared her peanut butter on pita bread sandwich with me. I had forgotten to ask someone to pack supper for me—one of many blunders I would make over the next couple of days.
We arrived safely in Jerusalem, and several students noted the irony of coming there for "safety." In previous years the trip to Jerusalem was considered the riskiest part of the dig adventure and was subject to cancellation at the last moment. We were very close to the Old City, so Darryl and I set out on a reconnaissance trip. I wanted to know what time the English congregation at Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer worshiped (9:30 am) and what time the doors to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were locked at night. I thought the latter might be a good "field trip" for the students while we awaited in Jerusalem for flights out. Another blunder on my part! We did make it to church at Our Redeemer in the morning, and Darryl was planning to lead the group on a tour of the archaeological park on the south side of the Temple Mount while I checked with Continental about re-booking flights. Nothing doing! The students were uncomfortable in Jerusalem, so following a discussion at the guest house after the service at Our Redeemer, we checked out and moved on to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. One taxi ride, 2 bus stations, 3 bus transfers and a couple of hours later, we made it! My big blunder of the afternoon: I purchased 13 tickets from Jerusalem to Tev Aviv (which took us to the central bus station there) rather than from Jerusalem to Ben Gurion. How much schlepping of luggage we might have been spared!!! I do wish I had a video of 13 people, 11 with a month’s worth of luggage, cramming into 4 small taxis for the first leg of that trip.
Once in the airport, the students were visibly more relaxed. They had all they needed: free wireless for their laptops and a MacDonald’s for comfort food. I made a beeline for the cell phone rental office—my smartest move of the day, perhaps of the entire 3-day ordeal. I passed the phone around and told the kids to phone home; I e-mailed Mark, who relayed my phone to the parents via his e-mail at En Gev, so parents could phone us, if needed. I tried talking to Continental Airlines to get the students on a waiting list. THEY WERE NICE BUT ABSOLUTELY NO HELP AT ALL!!! Within a short time, parents were making arrangements to get their children out of Israel. Amanda had travel insurance and so got booked on the midnight Continental flight that night; Jessica’s family somehow got her a ticket as well on that flight. Kristina’s family got her as far as London on British Air, where she met friends who housed her until she could make it back to the US. Stephanie’s parents got her on Monday morning flight to Frankfort, then Montreal, then O’Hare. A crazy route, but she was out of Israel less than 24 hours after the rocket hit Tiberias. And so we spent the first of 2 nights in Ben Gurion Airport. I was never without something to do; the Israeli security people were actually quite nice and let me accompany each student through the interrogation process, luggage search, and check-in with the airlines. When I wasn’t doing that, I was checking with other students about their status. Andrea and Cameron, among others, were searching the net for cheap, available flights in the coming 24 hours. Arny, one of the 2 adults, got a flight out to Brussels Monday morning. Nancy’s family, the other adult who had decided to leave because her family was so worried, joked about her husband’s efforts. For $1600 he could get her on a flight out on Monday; she said, "I’m worth $1600 to him; I’m not sure he’d go to $2000." Between the time the 3 left on the midnight flights Sunday and the 2 people left at 6:30 Monday morning, everyone else got their tickets purchased. Once we saw Stephanie off through passport control Monday morning, the remnant of 7 made our way to the taxi stand.
I had booked 2 rooms (that turned into 3 once we arrived) at a cheap hotel in Yahuda, someplace near the airport. We road in a comfortable, huge taxi at a fair price to this old, tired hotel. The doors had only push-button locks—not exactly secure! The carpeting looked like it carried a dozen different diseases, but the sheets on the beds appeared to be clean. Frankly, I didn’t much care; it had been decades since I had "pulled an all-nighter." I think it was about 8:30 am when Andrea, my roommate de jour (Saturday night had been a girls’ slumber party with 4 and 5 to a room) and I crawled into our beds. At 10:30 I was awakened by the pool party music; it sounded like the 80s hit "YMCA" was floating up 4 stories through an open window (this in spite of the AC working well). I got up and checked. No, the windows were closed; the music was just that LOUD. I went back to bed, only to be up less then 2 hours later. Darryl was at the door; did I know check out time was noon? I made my way down the rickety elevator to the lobby and had a heart to heart with the desk clerk (not the man who had checked us in). I must have looked really pitiful, because she let us stay into the evening, no additional charge. I also complained about the music and the lack of AC in the men’s room. They sent someone right up, and Darryl sheepishly admitted later that they had simply not pressed the right button to get the AC on! They turned down the music at the pool, and everyone got one more good nap in during the early afternoon.
Around 5ish pm on Monday we returned to the airport. There was nothing to do at the hotel, and we all remembered the leeks and garlic left in Egypt—I mean the comforts of Ben Gurion: free wireless and MacDonald’s. I had my second meal in 24 hours at Mickey D’s; this time I super-sized my fries and Diet Coke and scarfed down every bite and sip. There were no tickets to go in search of, no one to shepherd through security until about 2 am, so Nancy and I had a drink together while Darryl kept an eye on the "kids," as we lovingly referred to them. They were sweet to him; Tabitha brought him a beer, and he was happy. Over our drinks Nancy said to me, "I don’t know how you’ve done this." "Adrenaline," I answered. I was only half right; I didn’t realize it at the time, but friends and family all over the place were holding us in prayer. Those prayers sustained us all through a tough ordeal, me especially.
The worst moment came when Nancy, Kody, and Tabitha checked in on the same flight but only got boarding passes for the first of 3 legs of their journeys: to Brussels. When this has happened to me, it’s a sign that the connecting flight is overbooked. I fast-talked my way through Israeli security and spoke heatedly to the El Al airline supervisor. I got nowhere, but my fears were unfounded. They all got on the Brussels to O’Hare flight (along with Arny, who managed to get bulkhead seats for himself and Nancy) and even made their connecting flights to their final destinations from O’Hare. The last two to check in were Andrea and Cameron on their Olympic flight to Athens. No snags there.
Finally, Darryl and I waved good-bye to them as they went through passport control. We had breakfast in the airport before splurging on a taxi back to En Gev, rather than saving a few shekels traveling via bus and/or train. I should have known it would be a bad trip when the driver seemed to have no idea how to get to Galilee or what the fare was. I did get a price to Tiberias before we left the airport. Darryl and I both fell into a deep sleep for the first hour. We woke up just in time to get the driver on the road to Affula (I’ve only been to Israel twice, and even I knew that much!) Fortunately, Darryl had purchased a good map at the airport, and so we guided the driver along a shortcut that by-passed Tiberias completely and took us directly to En Gev. As we neared our final destination, the driver asked if we were married. "NO!" we both answered in quick unison—making us sound like an old married couple! At En Gev, the driver wanted to charge us over a 100 shekels more than the stated price to Tiberias. I blew my stack: "Absolutely NOT," I screamed. I gave him the agreed upon fare and no tip. I felt totally jet lagged and every day of my 50 years, and I hadn’t moved across one time zone!
Of course, the story is really about eleven happy homecomings, not the traveling travails of Regina Logistica and her personal bodyguard, Darryl. We thank God for everyone’s safe return and for the opportunity to get to know each of these special young people (and the special people with more life experience—Arny and Nancy), even though our time together was cut short.
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