After his arrival to the Kibbutz Antonio’s head was not in the right place according to his own assessment. He could pinch himself! The first night, after an amazing tour of the place, he went to bed thinking about what was going to happen when the Catholic authorities in his Augustinian order found out that he had disappeared from his assignment at the Church in Peru. Will Luis tell them that he had finally learned that “The just shall live by faith.” That he was looking for a further understanding of God’s will and trying desperately to live it?

That morning, he woke up with the smell of coffee and the noise of footsteps and people talking nearby. He slowly half-opened his door and saw the big room full of people doing different things. Some were having breakfast, others just talking or putting on their jackets to go out. He rapidly dressed and went to locate a bathroom.

All cleaned up he joined the crowd hoping to find somebody that spoke Spanish or at least French. To his surprise as soon as he approached the scene several guys and girls came to great him both in Spanish and French! Wow!

Antonio rapidly integrated into the group of young people while having breakfast. However, he hesitated to tell his story. He just said he was born in Chile but had travel from Peru where he had been working for a while. When asked what his work was, he said that he mainly did handyman work. Several listeners had an interesting reaction looking at each other and nodding fast. We need handy men in here, they say.

After breakfast Antonio went back to his room, sat on his bed, and started praying. He had done this big jump of faith, (and impulse?) coming to Jesus’s land but, he said aloud, “I feel like Abraham probably felt when God said “Go away from your country, and from your relatives, and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you…”. Fortunately, he thought I don’t have a wife, servants or animals that I had to take with me.”

A knock on the door made him jump. Matis came to his room and sat on the only chair there. “Well, Antoine, my friend”, he said, “It is time to put you to work.” Antonio looked at him very intrigued, but Matis continued: “It is time for you to learn Hebrew if you want to stay in Israel and be what God wants you to become.”

So Matis took him, and the three girls from New York, to another Kibbutz where they would stay for six months to a year until they were proficient in Hebrew. The Kibbutz was in an incredible location near Haifa, and the sea, a little more than an hour from Tel Aviv, but less than an hour from Matis Kibbutz.

However, they were there, not only to learn Hebrew, but also to work. For “olims” (immigrants,) the deal was: Hebrew classes in exchange for working on the farm and a small Zoo.

Antonio then learned that Matis had told the leaders of this Kibbutz that he was an immigrant. He thought about his grandmother Filomena. Would she be sad if he decided to stay? Something warm and almost liquid in his chest told him: “No, she would be happy to learn that you are staying in the Holy Land.”

Classes and volunteering were intense, but they also had time to study and have fun. Hebrew learning for 24 hours a week, volunteer work another 24 hours a week. Four hours of classes in the morning and then four hours of work in the afternoon. They had to do all kinds of work at the kitchen, a little store, feed animals at the small Zoo, sweep the floors, tend the farm and garden, small repairs, and more. The small Zoo was another way to provide for the Kibbutz allowing citizens and tourists to contribute by visiting the birds and animals.

In class Antonio sat next to Maya, the girl from the Bronx who had a funny way to speak English. They both advanced in learning how to write and read Hebrew amazingly fast.

Soon Maya was telling Antonio “meh shlomch, ohev lir’ot otech” מה שלומך, אוהב לראות אותך, which means “how are you doing, love to see you” and he would answer: “uto dvar kan, ani ohev lir’ot otech bekal pa’am shani ro’a otech” אותו דבר כאן, אני אוהב לראות אותך בכל פעם שאני רואה אותך or “same here, I love to see you every time I see you”. They started, as a group, going with the other girls, Rachel and Joana, to the different events at the Kibbutz, to the beach, parties, tours, but soon Maya arranged to study together with Antonio and going to places by themselves.

One of the favorite activities at the Kibbutz for Antonio was the Shabbat which is different in Israel because the entire country goes on pause for 25 hours, before sundown each Friday through the completion of nightfall on Saturday. During the Shabbat people remember the biblical stories describing the creation of the heaven and earth in six days and the redemption from slavery and the Exodus from Egypt. Maya, who was familiar with the traditional ceremony taught Antonio how to participate starting with lighting candles and reciting blessings over wine and bread. Usually the students also sang and danced after the meal and before sundown.

Atonio was amazed by what he was feeling about this unexpected friendship with Maya. The fact that Maya and he could not speak in their corresponding first languages to each other seemed to make them learn Hebrew faster so they could communicate.

Soon the other girls that came with Maya, and the other students, started noticing this unexpected and cute “romance.” Everybody was happy for them, teased them and encouraged the flirting.

Antonio was soon able to show his handy work during volunteer hours and they assigned him to do, first small repairs, but then, the Hebrew teacher asked the maintenance team at the Kibbutz to teach him how to repair furniture, plumbing and electrical appliances. He had to learn about how the electricity worked in Israel and many other details to become a “handiman” הנדימן in that country.

Maya was extremely impressed with his work. She told Antonio that her grandfather had come from Germany to the United States as an “handiman” and established in the Bronx where he met his grandmother, a young Jew coming from Russia.

Antonio told Maya about his grandmother Filomena that became a widow noticeably young and how she managed to raise his mother in a small town in Chile. He also told her about his father, working at the phone company and taking his mother out from the small town only to abandon her when she became pregnant. Then when his mother was back home working at the pharmacy, after having his sister, his father returned to her, without a job. However, soon, his father’s first wife died, he inherited three trucks, and had to move to Santiago, the capital, to tend to the business. Then his father married his mother, and he, Antonio, was born.

In fact, to say all that in Hebrew was exceedingly difficult and Antonio decided, and told Maya “I will explain the whole story again after we are married.” Maya started jumping and hugging him and said: “Yes, yes, yes.”

Antonio suddenly realized he had proposed.

Everybody celebrated the announcement and started making plans for the return to Matias Kibbutz after finishing their studies. The wedding had to be there!

To Antonio’s surprise, the leaders of the Educational Kibbutz offered him a job after graduation. He consulted with Maya, and she asked if she could also come and work there after the wedding. The answer was yes, she could manage the little store and the small Zoo, if she were interested. She was, of course.

Antonio wrote a long letter to Filomena and his parents explaining the situation. In about three weeks he received a letter, this time from his sister, saying that they were not impressed by the fact that he had “escaped” from his Catholic assignment in Peru, but they were so happy to learn about his wedding that Antonio’s parents, his grandmother Filomena, and she, and her Jewish boyfriend, would plan to attend the wedding. “Just let us know the date and where we can stay.”

Antonio knew that he was learning how to follow the Lord in much deeper ways than he imagined when Maya asked him about Jesus.

Isaiah 51:11 and 16
So the redeemed of the Lord will return
And come with joyful shouting to Zion;
Everlasting joy will be on their heads.
They will obtain gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.
I have put My words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of My hand, to establish the [renewed] heavens and lay the foundations of the [renewed] earth, and to say to Zion (Jerusalem), ‘You are My people.’