As you know, I’m writing this blog while traveling through Israel as part of a Rotary International Foundation Group Study Exchange. I’m traveling with four fabulous young professionals from West Texas; we’re moving through the country with another great group of young folks from The Netherlands.

A big part of the program’s success is the friendships it develops between the GSE participants and the hosts who put them up in their homes and care for them.

This is my way of setting up a marvelous moment I witnessed this morning in Be’er Sheva.

We drove from Eilat in southern Israel to Be’er Sheva, where we had spent the first few nights “in country.” Our bus pulled into a gasoline station, where we were to change buses for the ride to Tel Aviv.

Out of a car came a couple, Shlomo and Liora Blieberg, who had hosted several members of our GSE team when we arrived on May 10.

Aida Almaraz of Amarillo spotted them first and fell into Liora’s arms, saying something like, “I feel like I’m seeing my own mother.”

Then someone stuck his head into the bus to tell two more members of our team, Fernando Valle of Lubbock and Shirley Davis of Levelland, that “there was someone out here they need to see.” Fernando hollered “Papa Shlomo!” Shirley came running out of the bus giggling like a schoolgirl at the sight of this marvelous couple, embracing them both tightly. Shirley had sprained her ankle early in the trip and Shlomo, a physician, took very good care of her.

We had been away from them only for three days!

The point, I suppose, is that the beauty of a trip such as this are the relationships we can develop in such a short period of time. Staying in people’s homes, partaking of the contents in their refrigerator, sitting around the table talking to each other like family makes us, well, like family.

That moment this morning was one for the books.

And, oh yes: I embraced them, too.