We’ve been in Israel for about a week now. It feels like more than that. So much more than that. My team has been enormously blessed to be staying at a retreat center overlooking the Negev desert. In between working a laundry center and at a soup kitchen here, our contact’s unending knowledge and his expansive library keeps me continually learning, continually striving, and continually questioning more and more. It’s been absolutely wonderful, but also a rough place to be for such a long time. One of the great parts about being here is that our contact has taken time out of his crazy schedule to actually sit down and teach us just a small bit of what he knows.
[our amazing view overlooking the Negev desert]
This morning we were extrapolating the Book of Jonah. In the middle of it, our contact used a real life example to illustrate one of his points. Basically he told us about his second “near miss,” aka the second time he almost died here in Israel. On his way home, his normal bus pulled away right as he got to the stop. Even though he banged on the side, the driver ignored him and left him standing there in his frustration. Not being patient enough to sit there and wait 30 minutes for the next bus, he headed to the train station instead. As he got there he couldn’t believe what he saw. The bus, along with the entire rest of the street was in utter devastation. A bomb had exploded, shattering windows of businesses and homes, tearing away the streets, and leaving the passengers on the bus, in his words, “without the slightest chance of survival”.
Unfortunately he didn’t take the typical mentality of “Wow God saved my life. He kept me from getting on the bus.” Instead he was angry. He wanted to join the Israeli army so he could punish the people who cause such destruction. Instead of running around praising God for saving him, he shut himself up in his home for 3 days and went to the Word. He only left for one thing: to attend the funeral of a 14-year old girl who lost her life in the bombing. The girl was the daughter of a Baptist pastor.
After the attack, a local radio station had called around to all the victims families asking how they felt and their response to what had happened. They were shocked to hear that when they called the girl’s family there were no threats of retribution, no anger, no hostility in their voices. The only thing the family said was that they were praying for the attackers.
In the aftermath of losing their daughter to terrorists, the family was praying for the very people who killed their little girl.
The radio station sat in disbelief. The story spread quickly and soon reached the television stations too. At this girls funeral, over 600 people showed up. News had reached the ear of both the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Education, both of whom not only came, but spoke at the girl’s funeral. Her principal and kids from her class, none of whom were believers, shared her testimony that day which was then broadcast all over the nation.
This young girl preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to the entire nation of Israel. She wasn’t a missionary. She wasn’t preaching from the pulpit every Sunday. She didn’t start any organizations or write a book. She probably hadn’t even gotten past her first year of high school. And yet the Lord used her. The Lord took this tragedy, this ugly example of hate and He used it for His good and His glory. She made His name great, just by living.
[Jerusalem]
