LAKE JACKSON, Texas — Parishioners from a Lake Jackson church were left stranded in Israel when war broke out last weekend.
The group was supposed to get home on Monday, but flights were canceled, leaving them scrambling to find their way back.
At home, their church community worried about their safety.
The tour company that was traveling with the church group said they were able to get out of the country safely and they're hoping to be back in Houston on Wednesday.
The community held a vigil on Monday night at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church to pray the rosary for the safe return of the group.
Mark McBurnett is a parishioner of the church and knows a lot of the people who went on the trip. He said it was a pilgrimage that was planned more than a year ago.
He said about 40 people and the pastor went to Greece, Turkey and Israel. The last country on the list is where they were stranded.
Communication was limited. They were scared that they weren't safe and they didn't want to give away their location or plans.
"That makes it more, in some ways, more difficult, to not know. And you'd like to be ... we'd like to be talking to them all the time," McBurnett said. "The horrors we see on the news, it's just tremendous. This is unbelievably horrible. And we just continue to pray for their return."
It wasn't a situation they expected to be in, but the continued prayers are keeping them together.