Inside Israel

 

Once again, it’s time to hear from our sister in Jerusalem about what she is witnessing there as a believer in Yeshua. Put your prayer shawls on and pray for Israel and Sister J. Now here she is —

To HIM Who is Wonderful, Counselor, Almighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace, The Creator. TO HIM be all glory and may HE be blessed.  May you all be encouraged and blessed and know that you are loved.

GREETINGS!

How incredibly thankful I am that I know Him Who never changes and can’t be moved, because everything around us changes so rapidly and all that can shake surely is being shaken.  Although I do know that some of you get all sorts of reports and know quite well what is happening here, I also know that MANY others of you have told me that you hear nothing and would like to know, so for this second group, I will share some of the things going on as I see it at the end of this letter perhaps…

BUT!

This letter is more to share the path that I am walking and the fruit along the way.  It’s just how wonderful how He can open surprise doors and streams in the desert…and I get to share with you, not one, but TWO such opportunities to rejoice. NOT to rejoice in me for getting the opportunities, but in the fact that HE does such marvelous things.

So, my hand hurts.  No, actually it’s been “killing me big time” for about 2 months.  And it’s my right hand, the one that I use all the time for everything.  Suddenly it really hurt to write, to cut veggies, to do dishes, and forget opening bottles.

My tea cup fell from my hand. The pain went right up through my elbow and shoulder and I kept thinking that it would either go away or well, maybe you know, the body is getting older and things sometimes hurt.  Kudos to you who ALWAYS get healed. I have had miraculous healings. Some very dramatic, and my GOD DOES HEAL, but He also is Truth and the truth is that it hurt and wasn’t healed yet.

My doctor sent me to our health fund’s occupational therapist.  (In Hebrew that is ‘rapooie h’eesook’ רפוי בעסוק.)  I was unfamiliar with this service and was pleasantly surprised to spend an hour with one fun lady from Canada who soaked my hand in hot wax.  She made me a brace that fits and has helped wonderfully.

Of course, we talked about where we came from and why and although I lifted it before The Lord, there was no opening that I found to share there as yet.

BUT OUTSIDE WAS THE SECRETARY!  She was a lovely sabra (native born Israeli) with many of the characteristics of a sabra that I have shared before.  She was DIRECT. There just is NO TIME for beating around the bush with her. But it was a funny conversation that went something like this when I tried to make my next appointment: 

 “OH! You speak Hebrew?  I heard you speaking English.  Why were you speaking English?” she demanded.

I told her, “Well Ruthie is from Canada and English is our mother tongue so it was easy for both of us.”

That was only a door. She continued, “She’s been here 30 years and you speak better than she does!”

NOT! I thought, but thank you.

Then the clincher – “Where do you come from?” she asked.

When she heard, me say, “Alaska,” she lost it.

“ALASKA? WHERE IS THAT? ISN’T IT COLD THERE?”

“It’s pretty there,” I replied.  

“WHY DID YOU COME HERE? WE HAVE SO MUCH STRESS!” she exclaimed.

The more of my story that I shared the more she shot questions at me, especially when she heard that my Husband is not Jewish.

“We HAVE to be here!  We are Jewish and we have no choice but WHY IN THE WORLD would anyone who doesn’t have to be here be here?”

Oh my she was intrigued and quite demonstrative about it all.

“Well, you know that it is written in Yeshi’aho (Isaiah) that we Jews will be brought home from the ends of the earth and someone had to come from there. So it is us,”I told her.

To my amazement her answer was: “Well at least did you bring Messiah with you?” 

Let that question settle a moment.  I didn’t HAVE a moment as she continued to shoot questions.

I answered “Yes…as a matter of fact…yes I did.” 

 But she didn’t take notice of my answer and I’m glad. Perhaps because I don’t think that she was ready to hear the full answer but I have her to pray for now. That her heart would be prepared and that HE would remove the scales.

For me though, it was enough to excite me by way of memory that I MUST be ready in season and out of season to give an answer to those who ask.  And perhaps that prepared me for today’s encounter with Kinneret, the secretary along side of me who works for the other doctor. She is the one who replaced Mali. I have asked you to pray for her before, so perhaps He is answering YOUR prayers?

Kinneret, the mother of 5, has a heart-wrenching story.  I shared some of it 5 months ago when she began working with me, but have learned more since. Her 16 year-old twins have mental problems.  Perhaps you remember that her mother has been in a mental hospital since Kinneret was about 5. She is schizophrenic and Kinneret has the dark fear that she has passed the genes down to her children.

Now her son (twin) who has not left the house in a year says that he is homosexual and so ashamed that he wants to die.  As she tearfully shared these griefs with me, how she tries so hard and nothing she puts her hand to succeeds, she has such a broken heart and so much fear. AND she is religious, an orthodox woman.

SUDDENLY The Holy Spirit said, “NOW!  SHARE MY NAME WITH HER NOW!‘

“YES LORD!’”

And so I did. With not enough Hebrew (she speaks no English), there at work, with work to do, but through the door that He was opening, I shared what I could.  I shared how He came to me and how He changed me, NOT by works that I did but by coming IN and living inside of me and bringing me His peace.  She wept and listened and asked some questions. We spoke for about an hour.

Will you pray for her and her family?  Will you pray for HIM ALONE TO BE SEEN AND GLORIFIED?

Yesterday we heard a wonderful message in kehila reminding us about WHO IT IS to Whom we pray and WHO it Is Who leads us through the wilderness, where we grumble for meat when He has given us manna, where we accuse Him of bringing us to death when He is bringing us to LIFE.  And just when you least expect it, HE appears.

And opens a door or two.

 

Very briefly, an opinion from your sister-of-NO-expertise.

Times are changing here.  Even the silence is different. SOMETHING is happening and Iran is involved.  When the intense rocket fire of last week ended suddenly with a ceasefire that Hamas declared, I thought, “Huh…I don’t think so….”

Friday we were back to “from the river to the sea we are taking back the land,” along with the fires being set by the kites loaded with incendiaries  and then again last night we had more rockets from Gaza into S. Israel.

By the way, the rockets and mortars that we have retrieved were made in Iran.  On our North there has been much tension, and yes, the weather has been mighty strange.

BUT!!  OUR GOD IS! And OUR GOD IS WHOM WE FOLLOW WHEREVER HE LEADS IS WHERE I WANT TO BE.

THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR PRAYERS FOR HIS PURPOSES AND HEART FOR JERUSALEM AND ISRAEL AND FOR OUR FAMILY.

GOD bless you dear brothers and sisters.

Lovingly,

J