Dear friends,
Television viewers across the globe have become familiar this week with the Netzarim junction, where a 12-year-old boy was caught in crossfire and died in his father's arms, and helicopters have launched rockets at gunmen in an apartment building.
Just a few hundred meters down the road is the family home of Reem, the
newborn who underwent emergency surgery in September to switch her great
arteries at Haifa's Rambam Medical Center. Reem came through wonderfully,
and had a joyful homecoming ten days before the outbreak of violence.
Rambam's public relations department seems well-connected,for Reem's rescue
was featured on the national television and radio newscasts, and in the
major newspapers, prompting a doctor at the Wolfson Medical Center to
grumble: "We've done a hundred children like her from Gaza, and never
made it onto the evening news!"
Meanwhile many have been praying for five-year-old Aseel, who three weeks
ago was near brain death following a high-risk heart surgery, and was
given "another 48 hours" before the plug would be pulled. After
48 hours some brain activity was recorded, and later in that week Aseel
began to move her
legs. Since then there has been no further progress, and the doctors at
Wolfson now foresee a "persistent vegetative state." Aseel is
the only child born to her parents after 15 years of marriage, and they
are holding on to hope for her recovery.
A Bible translator from a remote Muslim region of the Caucausus mountains in southern Russia has asked us for help with children in need of heart surgery. Ami Cohen, the chief heart surgeon at Wolfson, has agreed to send a team of Israeli doctors in two months to begin screening the children. We were in the hospital yesterday as he told his staff that the Caucausus contact was a Christian and therefore would be a reliable partner; thank God for the good testimony in Israel that comes when we obey Jesus.
Helping with these arrangements will be John and Dawn Lawrence, newly-arrived this week from England to start up an office for Light to the Nations near Wolfson. Dawn has a nursing background, while John has served for many years as an Anglican vicar, and most recently with CMJ, the Church's Ministry Among the Jewish People. (Click on the attached picture at the end of this message to see John and Dawn as they hosted my family this summer at their home north of London).
John and Dawn have come as volunteers, and we are praying that God will move through His people to encourage and support them in this new step of faith. They can be reached at:
John and Dawn Lawrence
Rehov HaBanim 11
Holon 58213
Israel
e-mail: lttn2@netvision.net.il
The LORD bless you!
Jonathan Miles
Coordinator
Light to the Nations
