WESTFIELD — An Indiana mom and her son who were separated in Israel when the war with Hamas started are relieved to be home.
Emily Keeley and her son Nathan were traveling to Israel with Keeley's mom and her church.
Keeley called it a trip of a lifetime, a pilgrimage through the Holy land.
"It doesn't really come to life until you are actually walking where Jesus walked," Emily Keeley said.
But that trip of a lifetime soon turned into something no one could have expected.
Hamas' bombing of Israel. She found out about the attack when a friend texted her.
"I was scared," Keeley said.
But the panic from Keeley was even more because she was separated from her son.
Keeley stayed back at their hotel with her mom because the day before she was dealing with heat related illness.
The rest of the touring group, including her son, went on to visit Jericho and swim in the Dead Sea.
When the bombings started the group continued to Bethlehem for safety.
That meant Keeley would be separated by a border and three checkpoints.
"By the time that we were on our way the prime minister had declared war," Keeley said. "I was scared and he's our only child. You don't know what to expect."
After hours of being separated from her son they were reunited. But the threat was still there.
"I hate that I can put a sound to that. Like I now know what real bombs and missile sound like. It's kind of like one of those things where it was like boom, boom, boom, and you can picture it in your head what's happening as you are hearing those things and it's devastating," Keeley said.
Keeley says at night the sounds were worse.
At times Keeley says she didn't know if they were going to make it home.
"How can you predict that we are going to be safe? It was a fight or flight reaction," she said.
The flights they had scheduled were canceled, Keeley says.
"You don't know what to expect. It's unexpected the unexpected," Keeley said.
Keeley, her mom, and Nathan made their way to Jordan. Her husband got them a flight to Dubai, then Chicago.
When she landed in the United States she says it was a sigh of relief. Seeing her husband, she says still gives her goosebumps thinking about it.
"It was an experience that you really did have to put your faith in God," Keeley said.
It was a full circle moment for Keeley, on a trip meant to grow her faith.
"The irony is not lost on me that Jesus went through so much and we ended up going through something that tested our faith," she said. "The experience has change my outlook on a lot of things."
