Patience is a virtue...

My Mom shared a quotation with me that she happened to read this morning. It says, "patience is a virtue that carries a lot of wait".  That is certainly a good way to describe the feeling among the six of us who are still waiting to hear back about our visas and still do not know when we will fly to our country. We've done a lot of waiting. We still don't know when we'll be flying out. We're told that our visas were approved in country, but for some reason it is taking a very long time for them to get stamped here. Everyone we know is doing the best they can to speed up the process but when it comes down to it, if the country and the consulate want to make us wait, then wait we must.

Yesterday the six of us got to go to the ELCA Churchwide headquarters in the north of Chicago. We saw the Bishop's office, got to have lunch with some awesome ELCA folks and we had the opportunity to meet with three Palestinians who now live and work in the United States. It was an enlightening conversation. One thing that really stood out for me was when one of the Palestinians noted that although he was born in Palestine, he can never go to Jerusalem. Even though he is now a USA citizen and carries an American passport, Israel will always consider him a Palestinian and limit his geographic mobility. His situation really put our current visa predicament into perspective. We're trying to get into Israel and Israel is delaying us getting in, but it's likely that we'll get there eventually and when we do we can go to Jerusalem. Our Palestinian friend, on the other hand, has had to deal with this his entire life and will never be allowed into Jerusalem, even though it is his home.

Although our current waiting period is an annoying and frustrating time for us, for our Palestinian friend this is his whole life.

On a happier note, today is the first day of Eid, the three day festival at the end of the Muslim holy month Ramadan. It is a time for feasting and celebration! Therefore, Eid mubarak (happy Eid)!