SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Vacation photos from a church trip to Israel fail to tell the story of the harrowing end of the journey as war broke out around them. That group from Grace Point Church is finally home in San Diego.
It took several days for them to find a way out of the country, and the group detailed their experience to ABC 10News.
Kate Jolson flipped through the photos on her phone. She showed ABC 10News the various locations she was able to visit with her church tour group during their trip to Israel.
"From the north to Jerusalem to Caesarea to all over," she says.
About 40 people from Grace Point Church flew into Tel Aviv on Oct. 3.
Four days later, Hamas carried out unprecedented attacks on Israel.
"It was very much... 'What do we do next? How do we stay safe?' But everybody else at home... They are not knowing where we are, what we're doing... If we're staying in the hotel, if we're safe," Jolson says.
For the next few days, the group traveled to different parts of the country, looking for safe places to stay.
ABC 10News spoke to Jolson on Oct. 11 while she was in Jerusalem.
"On Sunday, it started to really become real... We heard sirens, and we had to take cover, and on the other side of the hill, we could hear screaming and crying and freaking out," Jolson told our reporter at the time.
The main hurdle for getting home was finding flights, since they were being canceled across the region.
"Everyone was saying 'Hunker down — stay safe and do your best to get out' on the 12th, but flights were being canceled, so we had to make the decision to not wait for any more flights out of Tel Aviv," Bob Johnson said.
Johnson is the senior pastor at Grace Point Church. He says the group went from Israel to Jordan just before the border closed.
They were able to catch a flight back to the U.S. out of Aman.
"I was really grateful at the quality counsel came our way every step of the way -- there were so many critical decisions on what we need to do where to go when to go how to go," Johnson says.
Jolson says she's grateful to be back home with her family.
"I missed them very, very much," she says.
However, her thoughts are still with everyone who can't leave and is impacted by the war.
