We had a splendid lunch then, before heading for the airport.
Security at Ben Gurion is always extremely tight. We arrived four hours before our flight. The group waited a while and was then directed into a “lane”. One of the senior security staff came over to quiz our leader about where we had been and what we had done. As we were on a Christian pilgrimage and most of the people were from a single church, we were quickly through security. Checking and and passport checks were routine, so we had quite a while to wait in the departure lounge. The Easyjet flight was fine and we landed at 11:15pm. Our coach was waiting and brought us back to Crowthorne, exhausted but filled with all the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the Holy Land.
The closing prayer from our Eucharist yesterday seems appropriate as the closing prayer for this blog:
Blessed God,
help us, whom you have fed and satisfied in this eucharist,
to hunger and thirst for what is right;
help us, who have rejoiced and been glad,
to stand with those who are persecuted and reviled;
help us, who here have glimpsed the life of heaven,
to strive for the cause of right and for the coming of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.