Josh Amstutz, the lead pastor of Lakeland Community Church in Lake Geneva, had been planning to take a group of church members to tour biblical sites in Israel for years.
But the trip kept getting delayed due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A few months ago, Amstutz said they finally got the green light to travel to Israel in late February.
“So we decided, you know what, we’ve just been postponing this for so long, let’s just go for it,” Amstutz said.
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A group of 30 people landed in Israel on Feb. 24 for an eight-day tour. On Feb. 28 — the same day the United States and Israel launched the attack on Iran — Amstutz said their group arrived in Jerusalem.
“We just landed going straight into bomb shelters versus touring the following day and seeing all the sites as we intended to see them,” Amstutz said.
Amstutz said the bus the tour group was on stopped under bridges on the way to the city.
“As sirens were going off and missiles are flying overhead, our bus would pull on over with lots of other cars, and everyone just kind of shelters and hunkers down under a bridge,” he said.
The U.S. and Israel have been bombing Iran for over a week. Iran has retaliated with missile and drone strikes focused on Israeli and U.S. military bases across the Middle East.
People take shelter in an underground metro station as air raid sirens warn of incoming strikes by Iran, in Ramat Gan, Israel, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. Oded Balilty/AP Photo
Sheltering in place became a common occurrence for the group — which included high school students all the way up to people in their 70s — over the next few days. During the first few days of the war, Amstutz said they sheltered in homes, businesses, underneath bridges, in stairwells and in underground bomb shelters every few hours during airstrikes.
“We just kind of did as the Israelis did,” Amstutz said. “We would go out and we would go into the markets, and you’d be with people, but then when the sirens would go off, you would literally just kind of find shelter with whoever was out there.”
Amstutz said they had one close call. One night, a missile landed less than a mile from their hotel in Israel, killing five people, he said.
“And then there was also you know shrapnel that would come down near us and we could feel the blasts of missiles getting shot down,” Amstutz said.
“It’s in those moments when these missiles are getting shot down overhead that you could literally feel the explosion of these things being shot down,” he added.
Amstutz said he wanted to get everyone in the group back home to safety in Wisconsin as soon as possible after the war began. They contacted the United States Embassy and were originally told to shelter in place.
But Amstutz said some tour groups were trying to get out of Israel through Egypt. After spending several hours on the phone, he said they were able to set up ground transportation to get the group into Jordan.
The group booked flights out of Jordan back home to the United States. Amstutz said most of the people on the plane were Americans.
“There was clapping, actually, when we took off,” he said.
“I think there was this big relief,” he added. “When we took off into the air, it’s kind of like, I can’t believe this is finally happening.”
The group arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Friday evening. A charter bus took them back to their church in Lake Geneva, where there was a crowd of people waiting for them when they arrived.
“As we drove into the church parking lot, almost like all the weight of the world just kind of rolled off your shoulders,” Amstutz said.
18-year-old was stranded in the UAE when bombing started
Santiago Muirhead graduated from Shorewood High School last year. Photo courtesy of Santiago Muirhead
Santiago Muirhead, who graduated from Shorewood High School last year, has been taking a gap year in Paraguay while applying to colleges. The 18-year-old recently travelled to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to tour the New York University campus there. He said he arrived in that city just three days before the war with Iran began.
He had an interview scheduled on Feb. 28 with the university. He and others were in a outdoor plaza shortly before that interview started. That’s when he started hearing explosions.
“As we looked up, the ground was shaking, and we could see puffs of smoke right above our heads as missiles were coming down and the UAE THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system was being activated, intercepting these missiles,” Muirhead said.
Muirhead said he and others quickly sheltered in the basement of a building.
“I was ready for my interview, but the world had different plans, and all of the sudden I had missiles coming down right over our heads,” he said.
Santiago’s father, Pablo Muirhead, said his son contacted him shortly after the war began.
“It was jarring, but he reassured me that he was safe at the time,” Pablo said.
Muirhead had been stranded at a hotel in the city with other students who were touring the campus. He said he could see the country’s air defense system intercepting missiles from Iran at night from his hotel room.
He had attempted to get on flights out of the country for several days, but many of those flights were filling up quickly or were canceled or rebooked.
“You get a flight and so you’re on the way to the airport, and all of a sudden when you get to the airport, your flight just gets canceled,” Muirhead said.
Pablo said his son was able to make it safely back to Paraguay earlier this week.
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