Shevet Sunday

  Dear coworkers, This is a weekend of solemn and painful remembrance. It was three years ago yesterday (on the Hebrew calendar) that Hamas terrorists burst into Israel, on the biblical holy day which follows the Feast of Tabernacles, and massacred over 1200 Jews, Arabs and foreigners. Not only Israel but the whole world has… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Israel goes to the polls one month from today; and as we so often feel in our home countries, for many Israelis too it is “the most important election of our lifetime” and “the last chance to save our nation.” When will we ever learn that nations aren’t saved by elections? But… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, As the sun set this Yom Kippur eve, the people of Israel entered into 25 hours of afflicting their souls (most are fasting from both food and drink) and seeking atonement for their sins, after a ten-day period of soul-searching and repentance. Much of the public discourse during these days centered on… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, In the middle of the night in the US Wednesday I cried out to the Lord in pain and frustration. Three-week-old Mohammed was on a ventilator in Ramallah, needing urgent heart surgery unavailable in the West Bank, and for two days had been denied permission to reach the hospital in Israel. The… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, For nearly three long years we’ve mourned the growing division between Jews and Arabs in the land of Israel. It seemed the Hamas massacre had quashed the hope of brotherly relations between the ancient sons of Abraham. But this week the counteroffensive began. Like the kingdom of God, it looked small and… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Have you seen this video of one house that stood firm in the path of the sudden, terrifying and devasting flood in northern Nepal on Wednesday? No one who know the words of Messiah could see that and think of anything other than his parable: Everyone then who hears these words of mine… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, In an evil and adulterous generation, the place of a righteous man is in prison. Think Joseph, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, Paul, John the Apostle, James (Yakov) the brother of Jesus. They couldn’t keep quiet about what they knew. And even now in the turmoil of war in modern Israel… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, This week in Jerusalem we buried David, the only child of our founding board member Jim and his wife Leslie. David grew up in Israel, and had only recently found the cause he wanted to give the rest of his life to. He joined an Israeli group called the Jordan Valley Activists,… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, We were just sitting down for lunch when the loud boom rattled our windows in the center of Jerusalem, 25 years ago today. A Hamas suicide bomber had blown himself up in the nearby Sbarro pizzeria, on the rounded corner at the intersection of Jaffa and King George streets. 15 were killed… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Three years ago tonight a day-old girl named Abeer was rushed out of Gaza to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, for emergency surgery to switch her great arteries. Our coworker Berith was there that night, and wrote these words after watching Jews and Arabs working together to save the life of this tiny… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, All seemed quiet when our four community members set out on Thursday morning for the mountains of Samaria in the northern West Bank. Our ambitious mission was to cover over 300 km (200 miles) and reach three families spread out between Nablus and Jenin. We’ve been learning since October 7 that our… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, The release this week of a new blockbuster film version of The Odyssey has prompted comparison between Homer’s epic and the historical books of the Hebrew bible, which were composed in roughly the same period. Here’s the way one Jewish academic describes the difference between the “wounded boar” Odysseus and the heroes of the Hebrew bible: Fundamentally,… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, The secular-minded editor of The Times of Israel had to reach for the biblical prophets this week, as he opened his desperate plea for Israel to turn back before it is too late. And as the previous prime minister Naftali Bennett has repeatedly stressed, we’re now  in the 79th year of the third sovereign Jewish state… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, This week we heard language directed against the Jewish people that was once unthinkable. From the foreign minister of Turkey, a NATO member: Israel is not just Turkey’s problem, nor is it just the issue of our president. But everyone knows it, feels it, whispers it in hidden corners, and occasionally speaks openly. These… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Last week’s letter about Israel’s refusal to help little Hur from Gaza was written from a place of mourning. The same kind of mourning that we ourselves feel when we have fallen short of what God has chosen and called us to be. The good news–for Israel and for us!–is that the story doesn’t… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Little Hur returned to Gaza today. She went together with two other children who were in Israel for treatment when war broke out on October 7, and have ever since been sheltering with us in Bethlehem. Today’s reunion at last with their loved ones in Gaza was full of joy; here’s a… Read more »

  “Unfortunately, the health care system is collapsing in the West Bank.” We received this shocking warning from a cardiologist there a month ago, when we asked if a child’s heart surgery couldn’t be done in the West Bank, rather than coming to Israel. And a second witness has now confirmed it, with the exact… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, In 2012 a representative of our community attended the International Congress of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiology in Beirut, which drew children’s heart doctors from all across the Middle East. Our goal was to stretch out a hand of friendship, by offering them collaboration with the advanced medical centers in Israel. On the… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Some 35 years ago a young Jordanian pastor was invited to a large gathering of believers in Jerusalem. When he arrived and realized there were also Jewish followers of Jesus participating, he leapt to his feet with a fiery denunciation, and led a walkout of other Arabs present. To his great surprise,… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Waiting is hard. A young couple from Jenin has been calling us every day this past week. Their son Watan needs an urgent, life-saving heart surgery that is not available in the West Bank. Watan is now almost nine months old. His parents waited a long time for the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, What on earth happened to the United Arab Emirates? In 2020 this group of seven small Muslim monarchies, right across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, broke with the longtime Arab consensus to establish full, warm relations with Israel via the Abraham Accords. In 2023 they opened the beautiful Abrahamic Family House:… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Ali’s father cried for a week when he learned that his newborn son had a serious heart defect, and would not survive unless he traveled to another country for surgery. Local doctors suggested three Middle Eastern countries that could possibly help, but Ali’s father refused them all. He wanted the best for… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Today started beautifully, as sleepy newborn Obeida was awakened and wheeled off for the high-risk surgery which, medically speaking, represented his only chance to live in this world. How sweet it is to see the people of Israel extending this blessed opportunity to Obeida’s desperate young Palestinian parents. How bitter it would… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Some cardiac interventions are no-brainers. When we heard about newborn Sila stuck in a West Bank hospital last month, we knew she had to come to Israel. If the surgery here to switch her great arteries would succeed, she could go on to have a perfectly normal life. And indeed, that’s Sila… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Maybe it comes from our own experiences of standing alone and rejected at the side of the road as cars go speeding past. Or maybe it’s the words of Messiah: As you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did to me.  For whatever reason, our community has a long… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, We’re sometimes asked if bringing a child to Israel for heart surgery also produces a change of heart back home in their family and community. That’s something that would be difficult to measure, and we’re not sure that we should. We want our visiting families to know that we’re motivated by God’s… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Our little community gathered early this morning in Lod, the day after the Shabbat of Passover week, in honor of what the Torah calls the Feast of First Fruits. Yes, the Hebrew bible long ago singled out this day that we Gentile Christians call Easter, the day Messiah was raised from the dead. He… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, On this day nearly two millennia ago, Jesus of Nazareth entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey. Crowds of faithful Jews, stirred (according to John’s account) by the recent resurrection of Lazarus, greeted him with palm branches, crying out from the messianic Psalm 118: Hoshiah na! Barukh haba beshem Adonai! The religious authorities, recognizing they were… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, One of the major nightly newscasts in Israel has begun signing off in a way we may never hope to see in our home countries: …until the end of the war, we will give thanks every night to God for the miracles and wonders that He is doing for us and our… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, First thing this morning arrived an unusual text, which is an illuminating sign of the times in which we now find ourselves: Friends, how have we arrived at the place that there is no longer public consensus even on basic statements of fact? A textbook case was highlighted this weekend under the… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Whatever else the ongoing Iran war achieves, it is certainly pouring fuel on the fires of anti-Semitism which have recently re-emerged among many Christians, particularly those who strongly identify with church tradition. On the popular, mass-podcast level, these traditional Christians are told of a Jewish cabal manipulating America into pouring out its… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, It’s been hard not to live online for the past two days, as seemingly seismic shifts in the Middle East unfold before our stunned eyes. And among those trying to make sense of it all, some of the most discerning voices come from Muslims who’ve one way or the other been touched… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, The little town of Bethlehem has become ground zero in the great propaganda war. An influential US podcaster, who’s lately laser-focused on inciting Christian hatred of the Jewish state, this week devoted a nearly-two-hour interview to the thesis that Christians who support Israel “should know that your views, and in some cases your money,… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, I’m just back in the land tonight from two weeks (and 65 lecture hours) studying the Quran with senior Islamic and Christian scholars. The key moment in the encounter came Wednesday.  We had just read through an early Islamic commentary which offered nine acceptable interpretations (“faces”) of a Quranic text questioning the crucifixion… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Another wall came tumbling down this week for our community. The first one was 30+ years ago, when a small group of us volunteers went into Gaza, and to our surprise found people just like ourselves: open-hearted, seeking God, loving their children. What had we been so afraid of? Our Father then… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, The season we’re in may seem cold and harsh, dark and long. But this week the red anemones are blooming again in the holy land! For our community they are a perennial picture, given by our Creator to teach us that new life must be born from above. We’ve tried and failed to… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, A messianic rabbi followed in the footsteps of his master today, by asking a leading question designed to provoke his disciples to think: If even those chosen by God are vulnerable, this implies that the deception will appear to be a work of God. A leader arising whom the people of God… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, It’s been a chaotic week for all those in the Middle East who put their trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. Iranians yearning to be free were encouraged to keep protesting, since “help is on its way.” Many thousands believed this and went out in… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, We approached the “Tunnels” checkpoint into Jerusalem with some apprehension last night after the Shabbat ended. Sheba Medical Center had asked us to bring in three-year-old Jabal at that unusual hour from his home outside Hebron, in preparation for a big and difficult surgery today to switch his great arteries. Normally Palestinian… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, To you who’ve walked with us, prayed with us, wept with us, endured with us–it is a glad relief to share that our Father has shown us his favor at year’s end, and all of our hospital commitments from 2025 are now fully funded. The Rock of Israel has even released another… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, As the year draws to a close, and I look through news items I’ve bookmarked over the last week, I realize I could write pretty much the same letter I’ve written week after week, month after month, year after year, since October 7, 2023. I’d just be providing the latest examples of… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Christian views on Israel seem to divide over just one question: who are the people of God? The way we answer will determine whether–in this time of testing–we love and honor the Jewish people, or despise and resent them. The predominant view is that the Gentile-majority church is the true people of… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, It was during Hanukkah 31 years ago today that the state of Israel recognized our community as a non-profit association; so it was especially poignant tonight when Linnea lit the first candle on our hanukkiah. We had just read the stirring portions of 1 Maccabees which describe the moment one courageous priest began to fight… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, A bill recently arrived at our community home in Lod, which was intended for the “Shevet Achim” synagogue just two blocks down the street. So at the end of this Shabbat I walked down to the synagogue, where I found a group of some 20 orthodox men gathered around a long table… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Around the dinner table in Lod tonight, the hospital crew marveled at the transformation of the beautiful kids who came in from the West Bank today for follow-up after their heart surgeries. We remember so clearly when the doctors in Israel were fighting for their lives as newborns, and now look at… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Many of you care deeply about the peoples of the Middle East, as you know from the scriptures that the salvation of the world is connected to events in this region. You also love Shevet Achim and the children we serve, and pray for us and support the mission to bring children… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Five weeks after the fighting stopped in Gaza, the tsunami of global Israel-hatred is only growing exponentially. Chief agitator Tucker Carlson, the Father Coughlin of our era, doubled down yet again this week, with an anonymous, unsourced quote he claims came from an IDF officer: “In the current political climate, in the state of… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, On October 7, 2023 Hur from Gaza was a month-old baby in the ICU in Israel. After her discharge we moved her to Bethlehem to await the war’s end, and three times she was allowed back into Israel with her aunt for further heart treatment. But for the last year we haven’t… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Well. In last week’s letter we thought we’d reached peak antisemitism from the conservative Christian right. Then this weekend all hell broke loose. The Heritage Foundation, once the gold standard of principled conservative thought, dropped the following video, after commentator Tucker Carlson was criticized for his friendly platforming of a racist neo-Nazi… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, For the past 11 months this weekly letter has sounded the alarm about a surge of antisemitism on the conservative Christian right. (Although anyone who hates his brother has in fact no legitimate claim to the name Christian). Yet many well-meaning believers, particularly those who stay off social media, seem puzzled and doubtful that this… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, As a community we’ve prayed consistently that the terrible war of these past two years might end with freedom for the people of Gaza from the violent oppression of Hamas. That hope looked closer a week ago than it does tonight. The agreement to disarm and exile Hamas has so far been… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, What must the neighbors think of us foreigners, sitting in a sukkah this week on our quiet street, and celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles by singing songs in Arabic about the Messiah? The arrival of Ben and Kerstin and their three daughters in Lod marks a turning point for our community in Israel…. Read more »

  Dear coworkers, A man on an electric bicycle chased after our van as I drove into Bethlehem this morning with the visiting Donnelly family. (Anna and Steven married while she served in our community 12 years ago, and they now have three daughters). It turned out to be Abu Abeer, “father of Abeer,” one… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Two months after the war in Gaza started, we filed what we thought was a routine application for an Iraqi Kurdish patient to return to Israel and continue his heart treatment. To our surprise Hezhan’s application was refused, on the grounds that he was over the age of 18. How many times… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Earlier this month there re-emerged on social media a stunning visualization of the last two thousand years of history: The greatest story ever told has indeed spread from Jerusalem to the very ends of the earth. But the verse used above to introduce the video is taken out of context; Paul in… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Our newest coworker (Ruth from Texas) and I are just back after safely delivering Shifaa and her mother to the Amman airport for their trip home to Kurdistan, northern Iraq. A sweet girl and a sweet time. And these are the farewell words from Shifaa’s mother, after nearly five months in our… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, I had a call just now from a Gaza mother who spent many, many months in the ICU in Israel with her baby daughter after a heart surgery. It was her husband who, before he was killed, called us with information about the location of hostages in Gaza, putting the lie to… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, The UK-born rabbi Leo Dee was remarried this evening in the settlement of Efrat, alongside Bethlehem, two years after his wife and two of their daughters were killed in a terror attack while driving in the Jordan Valley. Since then Dee has spoken widely about turning grief into positive action; recently he… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Just about everyone agrees there is a double standard going on as the Israel-Gaza war grinds on and even appears ready to intensify. But the argument is whether Israel is judged by too strict a standard, or too loose. Consider the blazing online battle waged this weekend by Mike Cosper, a progressive-leaning Christianity… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Tonight was quite the celebration on a hillside just outside Bethlehem. Keep your eye on the little guy with a black vest and a big smile: Yes, that’s our old friend Naim, the only child still surviving from his family in Gaza, because he and his mother were with us in Israel… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, With each passing week it becomes more obvious that the world is turning against Israel. This week former prime minister Naftali Bennett returned from a tour of the US and reported that even there Israel is seen as a “leper state” and its status has never been so bad: “American Jews are subject… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, My letter to you last week focused on the “third child that was left behind” in northern Iraq: sweet little Laya whose difficult-to-diagnose medical condition made it so challenging to get her to Israel. So Ron and I went to northern Iraq and poured everything we could into Laya’s case, helping fund extensive but… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, I’m writing you tonight from a Yazidi refugee camp on a barren hillside in northern Iraq. The high temperature here today was 46 Celsius (115 Fahrenheit). It still felt like a furnace when Ron and I stepped outside of the comfortable tent of our host family around sunset. Soon a gaggle of… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Two months ago a friend of our community gave me the personal phone number of Israel’s interior minister, and I texted him a few times to advocate for the admission of the returning Kurdish patients who his office has barred from the country because they are now adults. The last time he… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, If we want to understand what is happening in Israel, a single video this week captured much of the pain and heaviness gripping the hearts of the peoples of the land. This is from the burial of a 31-year-old newlywed named Avraham from Samaria, who was killed by Hamas while operating heavy… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, So many once-unimaginable things are happening in the Middle East that we shouldn’t be surprised by the bombshell dropped by the Wall Street Journal opinion pages this weekend: The idea of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians has never seemed more futile than in the months since Oct. 7, 2023…. Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Brace yourselves. For the third week in a row we may see previously unimaginable news coming out of the Middle East. First it was Israel’s massive preemptive attack on Iran. Then the US bombing of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. Now the Israeli prime minister’s corruption trial has been postponed due to a… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Yes, in the bright light of Monday morning came the worry that the opening of last week’s letter about Israel’s attack on Iran (one of the great turning points in the redemption of Israel and of the world) could be a bit over the top. But one thing does lead to another… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, We didn’t realize it when the siren awoke us early Friday morning. Our generation has been chosen to witness one of the great turning points in the redemption of Israel and of the world. 1948. 1967. 2025. Once again there was the stunning, unexpected military success. And more importantly there was the… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, I wrote you last week about a shift toward prioritizing spiritual needs over physical in our work in Kurdistan, northern Iraq. Within eight hours of sending that letter, the Lord gently reminded me, as he often has to, that so many things in his kingdom are both-and, and not either-or. Our little… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Over the last four days I’ve driven over 1000 kilometers, from the south to the north of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Our two-time heart patient Hezhan is the wingman, periodically recording short bits of songs we’re listening to, so he can find them again later online. We’re going from city… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, The brutal execution of two young Israeli embassy staffers on the streets of Washington DC this week caused the rending of hearts all across the world. The young man, Yaron, who was part of the Messianic community in Israel, was due to bring the young American Jewish woman, Sarah, home to meet… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, One way or the other, the situation in Gaza is about to finally and dramatically change after 590 days of war. Five IDF divisions are rolling in tonight, which will soon result in either a new hostage release and the surrender of Hamas, or further destruction of Gaza cities and the crowding… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, When I wrote you three weeks ago, the blue Yazidi baby Milad was just boarding an aircraft in northern Iraq and starting his high-risk healing journey to Israel. Today the journey was finally completed, as his anxious mother watched Milad wheeled off to the operating room at the Sheba Medical Center. Here’s a… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, When the sirens went off this morning about 9:20, we were in the hospital, or on the bus, or in our morning meeting in the Lod house. And since Israel’s rocket and missile defenses have done such a good job during this war, I have to confess we were all pretty relaxed… Read more »

  Friends, brothers, and sisters, Greetings from those of us in Lod. For the first time in a long while, Sheba’s ICU is bursting with Shevet patients. With five children in the cardiac ICU and another in the general, the fullness of the hospital reminds me of our pre-war days, when visiting the hospitalized children… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, We were already waiting on the front porch of our home in Lod on Thursday morning when the sirens went off. Unlike previous years, a community member (Max) was watching the clock, and warned us three minutes in advance. So we were fully prepared to stand in silence throughout the piercing, unwavering… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, It’s been a week of tearful reunions in northern Iraq with families who were with us in Israel for their children’s heart surgeries: Little Asmeen and her mother lived with us twice in Israel (for a total of 17 months!), so when we heard Asmeen had died back home from an infection… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, All Israel gathered around the Passover table last night, including our own community table in Lod, which was decked out through the artistry of the visiting Bagley family: This year not only Elijah’s chair but four others were empty, after an urgent mission of deliverance called us away on Passover Eve to… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, We prayed in our community this morning that God’s spirit would soften the hearts of the authorities, so that after two previous refusals they would allow little Hur from Gaza to enter Israel today to continue her life-saving heart treatment. Just as we finished my phone rang, with word that Hur would… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Accepting repentance is one of the hardest things for us to do. If someone comes to confess their wrong and express regret, we may, in our cynicism and woundedness, push them away. (Other times we’ll become uncomfortable and, without even realizing it, deny their repentance: No it was nothing. Not at all. Never… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, The peace of the Shabbat evening had settled over the Lod community, and we were in the middle of a concentration camp scene from the 1975 film The Hiding Place. Then to our confusion the wail of air raid sirens seemed to come not just from the screen, but through the windows behind us…. Read more »

  Dear coworkers, We were just finishing a lovely dinner in the Lod house tonight, with visiting partners Wouter and Emmy from Near East Ministries, when the phone buzzed. It was the Sheba Medical Center calling about Aisel, the latest emergency newborn transferred with her father from the West Bank to Israel for heart surgery…. Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Often I’ll try to explain to our Jewish neighbors why members of the Christian churches so often persecuted them down through the centuries. I’ll say that it was forbidden for simple Christians to read the word of God until 500 years ago, when heroes like Tyndale translated the Bible into common languages,… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Gentile visitors to the Sea of Galilee are surprised to find it is but a smallish lake; one could fit 500 such lakes into Lake Superior between the US and Canada. Yet the events which took place on those shores two millennia ago changed all of human history. As Isaiah foretold: Nevertheless, there… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, The call from the Israeli civil administration in Beit El (Bethel) came this afternoon: one-and-a-half-year-old Loai from Gaza will not be allowed to enter Israel to prepare for his next heart surgery. He was in Israel for surgery as a newborn at the outbreak of the war, and we’ve been sheltering him… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, A large Arab family from a village outside Shechem/Nablus is right at the frontlines of violent resistance to the renewed Jewish presence in the biblical heartland. According to media reports, two of this family’s young men have been killed in confrontations with the IDF in just the past year. The online profile… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, I drove down to Ashdod this morning with a mixture of weakness and dread. It was the last day of our long season of moving and downsizing. Zech had already removed almost all the furniture via 30+ vanloads to the new home in Lod. But our two big signature wooden tables (table… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, A Christian Palestinian doctor wrote me in response to this week’s prayer letter, expressing her grief and frustration that we weren’t addressing the deaths of children in Gaza: There does appear to be a cognitive dissonance between saving one child while thousands of others are killed. We celebrate your wins while trying… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, 28 years ago our youngest daughter Elly came home from kindergarten in the Gaza Strip with some troubling news. The school was teaching to their tiny pupils songs that dehumanized the Jewish people and called for violence against them. That was the last day of Elly’s public education in Gaza. It’s not… Read more »

  Dear coworkers, Two days are left in what may be the 2030th year since the coming of Messiah (many researchers place his birth around 6 BC). And exactly 30 years have passed since our little Christian community became a legal body and began its work in Israel. So tonight I ask our Father for just… Read more »

Dear coworkers, As the year draws to a close we have unfinished business. Our two returning Kurdish patients Hezhan and Viyan are still languishing outside the borders of Israel, awaiting permission from the interior ministry to enter for their urgent life-saving treatment. We’re praying repeatedly for them and for the decision makers in the government,… Read more »

Dear coworkers, I was surprised and enthused years ago when I visited the museum in the Negev at the home of David Ben Gurion, modern Israel’s founding father, and saw which book was left open on his desk the day he died. It was Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, the mega-million-copy bestseller of the… Read more »

Dear coworkers, I knew a man who awoke early one morning in 2011 to pray, looking across from Israel to the Golan Heights, who was surprised by the words that came out of his mouth: Freedom for the people of Syria, and the fall of the government. It was the time of just the first small… Read more »

Dear coworkers, It all started with a meme: A German pastor was shocked to receive this from a church member who had moved to Texas, and to learn that through the influence of other Reformed American Christians his former parishioner had become an “avowed anti-Semite.” The German pastor then contacted the man’s new pastor in… Read more »

Dear coworkers, The first thing that took me aback when I drove up to the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi last month was the parking sign: Yes, right there–just 200 km across the Persian Gulf from Iran–was the Hebrew word for “car park” elegantly engraved on a marble pillar. And that was just the… Read more »

Dear coworkers, One year ago today the first of our Gaza families moved into Bethlehem, anticipating a short wait until they could return to their families at the end of the war. How striking it was this week to visit and find the newborns who were in the ICU in Israel on October 7, 2023–still… Read more »

Dear coworkers, Zech, Bethany and I found great joy when we arrived at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv today. Little Sara from Lazarus’ hometown of Bethany was finally breathing on her own, after a month on the ventilator. Today was also her father’s 33rd birthday, and he told us this was the greatest gift… Read more »

Dear coworkers, I’m writing you tonight from the airport in northern Iraq, where I’ve just met with 11-year-old Radhwan and his mother. We’re embarking now on an overnight journey which, God willing, will see us enter Israel Monday afternoon, in quest of healing of Radhwan’s congenital heart defect: It’s the culmination of a whirlwind 11-day… Read more »

Dear coworkers, My hosts tonight in Kurdistan, northern Iraq just told me that Kurds were cheering and flashing victory signs as they saw Israeli jets passing overhead on their way to attack Iran early Shabbat morning. Some of the same fervor appeared on social media this week as well: (And Jews were quick to reciprocate… Read more »