Echad

May 28th, 2024

This was the day that God made it perfectly clear to me that we did indeed hear his voice! You see, weeks before we left for this trip people asked me so many questions and made their fears known. Some of my friends and family members were very scared for us and some disapproved of our reasons for going to support Israel all together. The things we kept hearing were “Why in the world would you willingly go into a war zone.” and “Is it even safe?” And of course, the arguments by some who have clearly fallen for the misinformation all over social media and television. But I will refrain from quoting any of those misguided attempts to “educate” us on the history.

On this day our team set out for the Gaza envelope, the area of the land of Israel closest to the Gaza strip. We stopped at a little gas station for coffee and a restroom break. That was the first time I heard it. The sound of war. But was it? I didn’t feel as I expected I would, fear did not set into my heart. It was almost as though I had just heard distant thunder. As I got back on the bus, I pondered this in my heart. The weeks leading up to this trip I had wondered what it would be like and how I would react. I fasted and prayed for 40 days leading up to this trip. I asked God to prepare my heart for things I may see, to protect us from any danger, to guide our words and to place us with people who could help us to understand what his plan was for us. I asked him to help me to understand what it was like to be Jewish and how to be a comfort to them. God did just that. He placed Michael and I in a group of people that we would come to love and respect. People that we have learned so much from. At the beginning of this day, it seemed as though we were just a mixed group of Christians and Jews who didn’t really have much in common. But by the end of the day our hearts were forever connected. We truly felt each other’s pain. We saw things and heard stories that one cannot fathom. We saw the burned cars and memorials from the Nova site where so many young people lost their lives. We shared more than just words that day; we became one, echad, just as God intended us to be. These people are forever a part of our lives and hold a such a special place in our hearts. 

As we reached Sderot, a kibbutz less than a mile from the Gaza border, we stopped at an overlook. I hadn’t quite had an answer before to the many questions people had asked us, I just knew that God put a desire in our hearts so strong that nothing on earth could quench it. He provided a way, and we went! Standing there on that overlook I knew that our discission to come was straight from God. When we heard and felt the thunder beneath our feet, this time there was no mistaking, it was the sound of war. But at that moment the world stood still. I watched an IDF soldier standing there staring off into Gaza. I felt a sense of peace like I have never felt before in my life. I have tried to explain the feeling I had that day several times but there are no words strong enough. Standing on that overlook it became completely clear to me. We were there for the simplest tasks, to love and to be loved. 

What happened on October 7th, 2023, was pure evil. We must believe that God will take what was meant for evil and use it for his good. I don’t know when we will be on the other side of this horror. But what I do know is only through LOVE and understanding one another can we begin to heal. Silence is louder than words!

“If we just speak, will we be heard?

Or is there silence to our words?

If mercy moves, why would we wait

Until the time comes, and it’s too late” -Lauren Daigle, I Will