The Valley of Dry Bones — James Berry

It is dark. The sea is calm. Overhead stars are sparkling with the rhythm of soft, background music. Nature gives its best while a large darkened freighter waits in international waters for two hundred men, women and children being smuggled from the shores of a country known for its Holocaust history. Those boarding will carry the memory and scars of the Romanian Holocaust, now a country denying exit visas for its Jewish population. The atmosphere onboard the waiting ship is laden with fear, the kind that entertains the unknown, the unexpected. Systemic forces of anti-Semitism that brought on the Holocaust still lurk in the shadows raising the level of danger. Brave and experienced men directing the operation bear a common burden: all carry painful memories of relatives and friends buried somewhere in unmarked mass graves. Tonight they will use they're pain of history to forge new beginnings for many. Those in the radio room are reporting to the central figure responsible for this operation, a man of great wealth whose family perished in the Holocaust and whose mission it is to bring life to Ezekiel's dry bones by delivering members of the Diaspora to the shores of Israel. Sudden flashes of light alert seamen that a vessel is nearing. Fear of the unknown tightens its grip. A foreboding eerie silence hangs heavy. Each knows the consequence of failure. Is the vessel coming toward them the new immigrants destined for Israel or coastal authorities preparing to intercept the mission…?