The Hurricane Blew Us to Philly

Divine Providence and a hurricane led two Bochurim Dovid Kotlarsky and Yehoshua Greenspan who aer out on Merkos Shlichus to a chance meeting with Mike Eman, the Prime Minister of Aruba.

Hi,

We are now in the ABC islands, and I want to give you a few updates on our trip. We were supposed to leave New York last Sunday, but because of the hurricane we were able to leave only on Wednesday. By divine providence, on Monday we found out that one of the seven known Jews in Bonaire is actually in Philadelphia for medical treatment. So we drove out to visit him. We had a long talk. He had wanted some books that would help him cope with the challenges he was going through. Thank G‑d, we were able to help him.

Once we came to Aruba, we had to pack in as much as we could in just one and a half days! (We needed to be in Curacao for Shabbat, as their rabbi had left this past week, and we were to be covering for him.) We first went to meet the prime minister (who, as you may recall from our last visit, is Jewish). When he heard we are in town, he interrupted his meeting to welcome us! He was full of thanks for the tefillin and matzah that we had sent him from New York. We made up to meet him later that night at his home to install a mezuzah on his door.

After installing the mezuzah, he mentioned that Aruba had just erected a monument to Anne Frank. We talked about some lessons that could be learned from her story. He gave us a book on Anne Frank, and we gave him a book about the Rebbe and the prime ministers of Israel.

During the course of the conversation, we learned that it would be his fiftieth birthday the next day. We wished him l’chaim to a year of leadership and growth in his Jewish observance. Now we are in Curacao, and are planning to go to Bonaire soon–but just for a day.

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