Friends & Family: April 2023

Gummy Bears in Israel? Real Stories From a Real Adventure

Last month I shared some photos from our big trip to Israel with 17 people in the Rainey family. In this month’s letter, I’ll tell a few stories. I must say at the start, however, that it’s an impossible task to summarize or chose only a few stories from eight full days of traveling the country with three to five stops every day, all of them memorable. So I’ll try …

I’ll brag first on our five kids, parents to the ten grands who accompanied us. Upon landing in Tel Aviv the parents collected all electronic devices—cell phones, games, and tablets. Rebecca even took her tweens’ books! Just as painful! They wanted their kids to be fully present for this once-in-a-lifetime trip, not distracted by what they were missing back home.

It was GENIUS! Ages 10 to 18, all of them played real games together in the back of the bus, paid attention at all our site visits, and made a million memories at the kids table at every meal. We all delighted in the three teenage boy cousins (17, 16 and 15) practically fighting over who got to carry tiny 10-year-old Rainey piggyback around all the sites!