In 1966, a young woman from Minnesota took a trip to the Middle East with a tour group from her church.  At the time, she had no idea her life would be changed forever.  ​

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In Jerusalem, their group was greeted by a young Palestinian tour guide who delighted them with the stories and histories behind some of the world’s most sacred sites.  The tour guide, Michel Kawas, found himself smitten with the young American, Sharon Matthees, and pestered her relentlessly for a date over the course of the next week.  Sharon politely declined each invitation until finally giving in and agreeing to go out for dinner on the group’s last night in Jerusalem.  

 

Michel treated her to an elegant dinner at the Cave du Roi where, the story goes, Frank Sinatra’s classic melody Strangers in the Night serenaded the couple from the background.  From then on, it would forever be their song.  

 

Before Sharon’s departure the next day, a frantic Michel met the group of Americans at the airport and pressed a piece of paper into Sharon’s palm through the galvanized steel mesh of the chain link fence that ringed the tarmac. After boarding, Sharon gazed longingly at the address scribbled on the crinkled scrap with a short note below: ‘Please write me.”

 

For nine months the two corresponded via mail, pouring out their hopes and dreams in ink. Keep in mind, this predated the advent of cell phones, email and text messaging so getting a letter in the mail took weeks.  But they both persisted, until one day Michel asked Sharon to marry him in one of his letters. 

 

With her heart singing, she accepted in her next handwritten letter and plans were made for her to travel back to the Middle East where they would get married. Fate intervened, though, in the form of the Six Day War which ravaged the Middle East in June of 1967.  Plans were delayed, but the pair remained undeterred and Sharon eventually made her way to the Middle East in July of that year.  On September 3, 1967, Michel and Sharon were married in Jerusalem and planned to continue living there.  But life had other plans.  ​

 

After the war, jobs for Palestinian Arabs were hard to come by, so the two made a bold decision to move to Sharon’s home of Minnesota.  In January of 1968, the two were greeted by a biting blast of icy winter air as they stepped off the plane in Minneapolis.  When asked about his first impressions of Minnesota, Michel would laugh and say, “What have I gotten myself into?”

 

What he’d gotten himself into was a new life in America.  Three-years later, U.S. citizenship arrived followed closely by the pursuit of a long-held dream of owning his own business.  The realization of that dream was Holy Land Handicrafts, a small business specializing in the sale of jewelry and religious items hand carved out of Olivewood by Michel’s family in Bethlehem.  Since then, the legacy of the family business has thrived, even after Michel’s passing in the Spring of 2014.  

 

Today, his dream continues as Sharon and her adult children carry on the tradition of promoting the artistry behind the jewelry and hand carved Olivewood figures she offers at various craft shows and fairs.  All due to a chance encounter in the heart of the Middle East in 1966.