Day 40— Israel in Crisis
Yesterday, we ended our day at the Moshav you have been supporting. Every night, they feed soldiers dinner. They started this without any support as the IDF commandeered part of their neighborhood to house soldiers. You have given these beautiful folks $5000 so far.
They wanted to say thank you to our donors, so they arranged for several soldiers to be available to make a short video. At the end of the video, they told me to interview a young man named Shimon. “He has been here since the very beginning,” they told me. I spent about 3 minutes interviewing him, and then I told him that there are believers all over the world who are praying for the idea of soldiers. I told them, “They love you—they love Israel.”
He then asked me, “So you are a Christian?” Those of you who know me know that I don't use that word to describe me. Primarily because of 2000 years of Christian anti-Semitism. The word Christian does not communicate to Jewish people what it does to others. I told him, “I am a Messianic Jew” (I had no idea if he even understood what that term meant). I wanted him to understand that I am a Jewish believer in Jesus. His response was not what I expected.
“I am a Messianic Jew too!”
Wait, there is more!
As I walked away another soldier came up to me and asked me in Hebrew in a whisper, “Atah Maamin?” (Are you a believer?) I told him that I was. With a big smile, he told me that he was too. He's from Petah Tikvah, near Tel Aviv.
It was the perfect ending to an amazing day of serving and ministering to soldiers. I'm going to keep telling you, these young men and women are not who the media is making them out to be. They are some of the most sweetest, humble people I have ever met. They have no desire to be in a war, and yet they're completely committed to destroying Hamas and protecting Israel. They are quick to tell me that they have nothing against the Palestinian people—just Hamas.
With you, Elana and I are committed to serving them and loving them. We have only been able to do this because of your generosity. And we're not asking you to do what we aren't doing personally. Amid this great tragedy, I believe the Lord is so pleased with how believers are reacting.
Liberty University
I don't know if I mentioned, but I am getting my doctorate from Liberty University. The other day they brought two Israeli students on the stage at their Chapel. They had been affected by October 7th. After each one of them shared, the president of the school asked the student body to let those Jewish students know how they felt. The place went crazy with applause. What a witness!
When I chose Liberty, I had no sense of loyalty or camaraderie. It was just the best program for me. But seeing how they have stepped up when so many universities have turned against the Jewish people lets me know I made the right decision. They bussed in hundreds of students yesterday to DC to be part of the 300,000-strong rally in support of Israel.
Elana and I are off to Tel Aviv to pick up the computer that we bought for Oded. We can't wait to give it to him tomorrow. His family does not know what to make of us, why do we care? We just keep telling them that everything we do is on behalf of the generosity of Christians around the world.
May the Lord bless you greatly!
P.S. Channel 11 in Israel has been documenting the stories of Oct. 7. These short videos are subtitled in English because they want the world to know what really happened - and never forget.
We are going to share these Stories from Israel with you each day for a while and we hope that you will share them with others. Here is the story of Neta and Iren.
