Pair remember sheltering in hotel during alerts
By Delayna Earley
The Island News
Vonna Allen had stepped outside her hotel overlooking the Sea of Galilee to write a letter of prayer to Israel. The women traveling with her had been asked to write prayers and messages of encouragement to the country.
Allen carried her paper to a quiet hill near the hotel outside Capernaum, looking across the water as she began to write. Then she heard explosions.
“Boom! Boom!”
She looked up and saw smoke rising in the distance. Moments later, she watched a missile streak across the sky before being intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.
“I actually saw a missile get intercepted,” Allen said. “And I thought, ‘Yeah … I really need to get out of here.’”
Within seconds, sirens began blaring. Allen dropped what she was doing and ran for shelter.
The Beaufort resident was staying near Capernaum in northern Israel, about five miles from the Lebanon border, when tensions in the Middle East escalated following U.S. airstrikes on Iran.
From the hotel grounds, missile interceptions could be seen roughly 10 miles away over the Sea of Galilee.
Allen and fellow Beaufort resident Kim Gardner were among more than 100 women visiting Israel on a Christian ministry trip when the conflict intensified, forcing the group to shelter in place for two days before evacuating across the border into Egypt.
Rising tensions across the region
The women’s trip coincided with a sudden escalation in tensions across the Middle East.
On Saturday, Feb. 28, the United States and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes targeting Iranian military, nuclear and missile facilities, triggering retaliatory missile attacks and heightened alerts across the region.
Following the strikes, the U.S. State Department issued warnings urging American citizens to avoid travel to several Middle Eastern countries and advising those already in the region to leave if commercial flights were available or shelter in place if necessary until it was safe to travel.
For Allen and Gardner, those warnings weren’t something they read about from home – they were already there.
A ministry trip interrupted
Allen and Gardner had traveled to Israel as part of a Christian tour organized through the nonprofit Eagles’ Wings, which promotes engagement between Christians and Jewish communities.
Their group of roughly 115 women arrived in Israel on a Thursday evening and spent their first full day visiting biblical sites including Caesarea and Mount Carmel.
The next morning, the group planned to board a boat on the Sea of Galilee. Instead, they were called into a meeting.
“We had actually boarded our bus to go out on the Sea of Galilee,” Gardner said. “Then they called us into a meeting room and told us about the war breaking out.”
Organizers told the group it would be safest to remain at their hotel while leaders worked to figure out how to get everyone out of the country.
Despite the danger, Gardner said the group remained calm.
“The place where we were staying was called David’s Harp,” she said. “And honestly, the whole time we were in that hotel there was just a major peace.”
Bomb alerts and shelters
Allen said missile alerts quickly became part of their routine.
“This is their life,” Allen said. “This is what breaks my heart, is they live this every day.”
Hotels across Israel are equipped with bomb shelters, and alerts are sent to phones warning residents of incoming missiles.
“The first alert gives you about 10 minutes to prepare and know where your bomb shelter is,” Allen said. “Then you get another alarm and you have about 30 seconds to be there.”
Sometimes that meant rushing to the shelters in the middle of the night.
“We had to do that in our pajamas,” she said.
Inside the shelters, the women prayed, sang and encouraged one another.
“Our whole group handled themselves with faith,” Allen said. “The whole time we were in the shelters we praised and worshipped and sang.”
Gardner said even small moments during the ordeal stood out because even though they were sheltering in place, they were still in a hotel.
“One night we were eating dinner when the bomb alert went off,” she said. “So, everyone grabbed their plates and carried their dessert down to the bomb shelter.”
Evacuating south
After two days sheltering in place, the group began evacuating Monday morning.
They boarded buses and traveled roughly 12 hours south through Israel toward the Egyptian border.
Security accompanied the buses, and travelers were asked to turn off their phones while passing through sensitive areas.
“Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were major targets,” Allen said. “They told us to turn off our phones and pray as we went through that area.”
At the border, the group had to cross on foot.
“We had to walk from Israel into Egypt carrying our luggage,” Gardner said.
From there, they boarded different buses and traveled another 13 hours through Egypt to Cairo, passing through numerous checkpoints along the way.
“We had police escorts for a while and went through many checkpoints,” Allen said.
Once the group crossed into Egypt, the women said they were given another piece of advice.
“We weren’t allowed to tell anyone we were Americans,” Allen said.
The instruction was meant to help avoid drawing attention while the group moved through checkpoints and airports.
“We didn’t stick out already or anything,” she added with a laugh. “But they told us not to say it.”
Waiting for flights home
After arriving in Cairo, the group stayed several days while waiting for flights back to the United States.
Allen said one concern was the possibility that airspace could close before they were able to leave.
“I remember thinking I didn’t want to be stuck in Egypt,” she said.
Ultimately, members of the group departed on different flights over several days as seats became available. Some used the time to briefly visit sites including the pyramids and the Nile River.
A mission, not a tour
Although the conflict disrupted their planned itinerary — including visits to Jerusalem and the Western Wall — Allen said the experience ultimately changed her perspective on the trip.
“At first my heart sank because we weren’t going to get to see everything,” she said.
“But almost immediately I felt like the Lord said, ‘You’re not here on a tour. You’re here on a mission.’”
Gardner said the group spent much of their time praying for people on all sides of the conflict.
“This trip started out positive and it ended positive,” Gardner said. “We felt like we were supposed to be there for such a time as this.”
Allen said the women prayed not only for Israelis but also for civilians in Iran.
“It breaks our hearts for the Iranian people too,” she said.
‘Calm in the chaos’
After returning home, Allen said one of the group’s leaders told them their response during the crisis stood out.
“She said our group walked in faith and strength more than she had seen in the last few conflicts,” Allen said. “She told us we were a calm in the chaos.”
For Allen, the experience reinforced her belief that the trip served a purpose beyond tourism.
“We just want people to know that God gets the glory for this,” she said.
Then she paused.
“And honestly,” she added, “I would do it all again.”
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
