March 24

HOME FROM THE PILGRIMAGE!

Home is the place that they have to take us in, no matter what we smell like, no matter how long we've been gone!

I was too tired to clean up upon arriving home early this morning. I'm glad no one was around because it was some trip back. After more than 24 hours of traveling by feet, bus, tram, plane and car, I was a tired and dirty pilgrim. For most of us it was harder to get out of the Holy Land than to get in. After facing security checks and canceled flights - I prayed a quick, "Thank you Jesus!" and sank into the comfort of my own bed.

I was weary but it has been such a great experience over the last weeks.

We learned. The Bible came alive as never before when we visited the land that served as the cradle of our faith. Galilee, Jerusalem, Mt. of Olives - will never be the same on the pages of a Bible.

We worshiped. Together we sang to celebrate God's love among us. We came together as a group of pilgrims. God transformed us from names on Facebook to faces in one another's hearts.

We grew deeper. We prayed, listened, wrote in our journals, and read. In small groups and on walks we shared not only our wisdom but also our wounds. Our shoes were blessed. Our hearts were blessed.

Yet with each step we not only learned, listened, and grew - we shared with others who were in turn blessed from the pilgrimage as well. That sweet spirit flowed with each pilgrim to young and old, Palestinian and Jew, stranger and friend alike. There were shop owners, pilgrims from other countries, taxi drivers, and school children. All touched by God through each of us. We walked in the footsteps of Jesus by the Sea of Galilee and along the Via Dolorosa - and He walked right alongside in our footsteps.

And in their own way, they all smelled the love of God, the aroma of Christ along our pilgrimage, each and every day.

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us

in triumph and through us spreads the frangrance of the

knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma

of Christ to God, among those who are being saved, and

among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from

death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.

2 Corinthians 2:14-16

I'm sure we're all cleaned up now - but let's keep on spreading that fragrance of Christ!