“It feels amazing,” former Huntsville television news anchor and Kids to Love founder Lee Marshall said Thursday after returning home from a trip to Israel. “I didn't realize how much I would miss America until I didn't have it.”
The group was at a resort on the Sea of Galilee, moving in and out of bomb shelters for two days as conflict broke out with Iran.
Marshall landed back in Huntsville late Wednesday after being extracted from Israel into Egypt, where the Egyptian government assisted in getting the women into Africa and eventually to Cairo, where they boarded a plane to London. They flew from London to New York and finally to Huntsville.
“It's peace; it's relief,” she said.
The trip was supposed to be a 10-day “Esther Awakening” with nearly 120 women. The group of nonprofit and faith leaders had to be evacuated after the U.S. and Israel began conducting combat operations against Iran. However, she said her fear came from more than bombs.
“I think the scariest part of it all was that in America, we're very fortunate as women to have a voice. If we feel called and passionate about something, we can do that,” Marshall said. “While we get blowback, we don't get prosecuted. But when you're in these other countries, just being a woman and speaking up could kill you, and so just to see the oppression of women in these other countries was one of those aha moments.”
Marshall, who was on the trip with Eagle’s Wings, said she planned to wait to share the trip on social media until she got back. She wanted to unplug and focus on the trip. However, that all changed after she got word of the conflict.
“I knew that this trip was going to be a monumental trip in my life, just because I have heard so many things from friends of mine that have gone to Israel and what a change Israel will make in your life,” Marshall said. “I went in anxiously expecting God to do something, and I had no clue what it was.”
Marshall said that while many of the places she visited were modernized, she was amazed to see some landscapes that haven’t changed since Jesus walked on Earth.
“To be able to see the same thing that was seen and then the irony that the exact path we took was the same path that Mary and Joseph took to lead Jesus out to get him to safety, that just, I mean, I haven't even processed everything yet,” said Marshall.
Marshall said she doesn’t plan to return to Israel anytime soon, but she will continue to listen to God’s instructions for her life.
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