10 years ago.. I had a HUGE beard

"It is in the minds of adults that war and hatred develops. It is in the minds of children that peace and love must endure." unknown

A decade.
It sounds so ominous.

(Cue 2001 A Space Odyssey soundtrack).

10 years

520 weeks

3,652 days (2 leap years)

87,648 hours

5,258,880 minutes

315,532,800 seconds

10 years ago this month I returned from the Middle East (Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, + 2 weeks of travel in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and France). A life changing experience, scratch that - a worldview changing experience. Frightening at times, I imagine, for mom and dad (and not just that I didn't shave!). I remember calling them from a hotel in the Arab quarter, just outside the Old City of Jerusalem. I told Mom that there was a armored vehicle nearby, with young Israeli soldiers armed to the teeth. She was… nervous, I think. Somehow I felt safe. Certainly I was safer there than in Cincinnati. Was it youthful ignorance?

Certainly that played a part. Was it God’s hand leading us? Certainly. Or… Was it because I was an American? Possibly… Though bullets and bombs don’t discriminate, I felt safer there than I do walking through downtown Cincinnati... Here are a few pics, not great ones mind you, but the only ones I scanned in ten years ago… I need to scan them all in… and share them… time to relive the experience and relive the journey – a journey through a beautiful land with broken hearts…

Salam

Trent