“I want you to fully appreciate the tremendous sacrifices a lone soldier has to make. For many of them, this is their first time away from their family. The culture, the environment, the language–it’s all very new to them. And every few weeks, when the other soldiers go home to their families and eat a home-cooked meal and get some well-deserved rest, these lone soldiers return to their apartments or military hostels and stay up late into the night for a chance to Skype with their parents.
“Towards the second half of my service, I was “adopted” by a local family. They took me in and treated me like a son, and it meant more to me than I’ll ever be able to put into words. That’s when I made my second life-changing decision.
I never forgot the hardships I faced at the beginning, alone in a new and exciting world, thousands of miles away from friends and family, and I was going to make sure no other lone soldier would have to go at it alone.
“I soon got my chance; an old friend contacted me and asked me for a favor. He had founded an organization with a mission to provide a home away from home for soldiers from overseas, and he wanted me to hold the fort while he was on a fundraising trip to the US. I jumped at the opportunity, and, well, you know the rest”
Source: Humans of Jerusalem
