Quick update. As you may have read in the news, there is much craziness in Leh right now because of a “cloudburst”. We didn’t have a team in Leh at the time, we are all fine, and God’s grace has continually been shown to us in our travels. Everyone on Massah is doing great! Thanks for your prayers.

Aaron

I have more questions for our tour guides than they have time to answer.  I want to know who was where, what was when, how things were, what is going to be.  I love geographical history quite a bit like I love Chicago architecture.  We have been up tels and down tels; in caves and out of caves; on plains, valleys, David and Goliath territory.  And still I am looking for biblical characters to walk out of the mountains and proclaim a message or ask to share a meal with us.

Let me tell you about a few real-life encounters.  I met Anna at a bus stop and she asked, “Can you help me find peace?”  It was way too open a question to not try to answer it.  We talked about different things she had done to find peace, but none of them were working.  Though she did not want to give me her name for me to send her any literature, she said she honestly wanted to know what I had found because “nothing was working” for her.  I was taken aback by her honesty.

Yugal met me with the widest Israeli smile and told me his parents and sister were believers but he “was not there yet, but almost.”  I asked him what was keeping him from committing his life to the Lord and he said, “the world.”  At least he was honest!  He did give me his name and address so that we could send him something further about Y’shua.

Judy was a woman walking by who looked sad, sad, sad.  She told me that her husband was very sick and that the doctors had given up on him.  She allowed me to pray for him right there.  Then she said that two years ago, two women like me had come to her house and talked to her about Y’shua, but she hadn’t been ready to hear about Him at that time.  Now she was.  She asked for someone to come visit with her.  I am sure someone will, soon, from our Israel branch.

By the way, this all happened in one morning.

I have been to Israel numerous times since ‘78, but it seems that this time my vision is sharper, my hearing is more attuned and my interactions with the people and the Land are more intentional.  When I speak to an Israeli about the Gospel, I come to them with a respect for their culture and not just with my own agenda.  This is a determined people.

Ariel B., our tour guide for the day in Jerusalem, says we hiked about 3 or 4 kilometers, but I’m sure it was more like eight. But what ground we covered! We started on a promenade facing the Old City and ended up in the Old City…several times. Jerusalem is sort of like the Bronx, where the propensity to meet someone you know is pretty high. Somehow, Paige Olson and Netanya Sigler found us in a square in the Jewish Quarter, and the Goldstein Wedding Ensemble walked past our lunchtime felafel restaurant and we enjoyed hearing and seeing their excitement over Rachel’s upcoming wedding this week. Praying at the Western Wall always has a bit of an unsettling effect; you want to believe that God honors and hears all the bits and pieces of prayer uttered or stuck in the Wall…but it’s difficult not to see it as little more than myth for most. GOD HEARS EVERYWHERE THERE IS A CLEANSED AND OBEDIENT HEART. Still, the sight of the Wall always brings up something bordering on magical/ethereal/beautiful/spiritual for me, and an Italian friend from NYC had given me a prayer of hers to place in a timeworn crack, so I did. The day ended with a huge dinner at the Focaccia Bar, followed by an 11pm tour of the excavations under the Wall. If it weren’t so claustrophobic down there, I think some of us could have done the tour twice and pumped our guide, David, for even more bits of ancient history. 2:30am bedtime? Yes.

Getting used to the idea that, here in Israel, the week begins on Sunday and not Monday.  Hebrew lessons…Gay Pride Parade…mall after mall after mall for Gospel visibility…learning how not to be afraid of handing out tracts or talking to the perfect stranger about how Yeshu=Yeshua.  “Cold” calling in a language not your own can turn into a heated discussion, which often ended quickly because the language was, after all, not my own.   Most of all, the week reflects 12 Massahniks+the leaders (both American and Israeli) coming together as a community of witness, bonding together in a remarkably short amount of time.   I have eaten more hummus and pita in one week than in one year at home.  And today Jhan asked, “Do you think you’re losing weight here?”