Last Days

Heather and I are getting ready to take the shuttle to Tel Aviv airport - 11 hours to New York, then 5 to San Francisco. BIG travel day. Looking forward to being back home, but coming back changed and with some good direction in our hearts.

Yesterday (Wednesday) and today were spent processing on the conference and seeing a few more "history of Jesus" sites like Nazareth, Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River.

This morning, we talked about the times we have experienced most intensely the presence of God's Spirit on this trip. Here's the short list:

- At the western wall, reading the commandments from Exodus 20, and Jesus statements in Matthew 5 that he had come to fulfill the law and the prophets. This was such a strong desire from the Lord that all woould know Jesus as Messiah.

- The final night of the conference, there was a powerful worship time (worship team members were from Gambia, Israel, South Africa and American working in Czech Republic). There was heartfelt and dynamic praise - awesome.

- Singing the Doxology and Amazing Grace in St. Annes Basilica near the pools of Bethesda, just after beign on the temple mount in the midst of the islamic religious atmosphere. This was a huge contrast moment.

- Heather reaffirmed her baptism in the Jordan. I got to do the baptism.

- On the "southern steps" which were the entrance to the temple mount in the time of Jesus, we had a Bible study on pentecost with the whole conference representing 53 nations, then sang a worship song.

Young Multipliers are Inspiring Us

A big part of our time here has been meals, one on one and table discussions with the leaders from various areas of the world.

I listened to and shared with Sebastian who is starting a youth group in Slovenia targeting 11-13 year olds because "by the time they are 14, they won't listen" There are only 2500 Christians in this country of 2 million people.

At lunch today, we spoke with Andreas from Germany, Connix from Malawi and Daniel from Zambia. Amazing how we could listen and learn from one another.

Tonight, we are at coffee with Kyle who leads a youthgroup at Lighthouse Church in Kuwait City and Nathan in the Czech Republic.

Heather has prayed with the prayer team for each speaker, as well as for the participants.

Pray for more opportunities to serve as the confernce comes to a close.

wow... what else can we say?

right now we are at the aroma cafe across from the hebrew university... can you say FREE internet. not much different than the u.s. after an armed guard searched my purse on the way in, and a teen soldier walks in to order a coffee to sip with the hand that is not on his fully-automatic assault weapon.

yesterday we were privleged to visit the temple mount and see the grounds of the house of the LORD! the place is obviously in enemy hands right now as the sight of the el aska mosque and dome of the rock, and we could sense the darkness and spiritual blindness of the youth as they bowed in prayers facing the mosque. we also went toured the rabbinical tunnels which brought us to layers of the original temple built by Herod... cool!

favorite memories:
~drinking pomogranate juice in the christian quarter in the old city
~worshipping in my heart "jesus is the lord" on the temple mount
~communion with our bros & sisters from 53 countries at the garden tomb (possibly Jesus' tomb)
~seeing caiphas' house and dungeon where most likely Jesus experienced His trial
~looking across the kidron valley from the garden of gethsemene toward the Eastern gate where Jesus will enter the temple mount at His 2nd coming!
~hummus

jeff says i have to wrap this up... sweet dreams

Day 3… but it seems like WEEK 3

We have seen so much in these last 72 hours, and yet we haven’t even scratched the surface of the history and learning there is to be discovered here in Israel. We started the day on the Mount of Olives which provides a glorious view of Jerusalem and the temple mount from the east side. Then we headed into Palestinian territory to Bethlehem and saw Herod’s fortress there- the Herodian. We then ate lunch and listened to a Palestinian Christian professor who currently teaches at the Bethlehem Bible College. It was unique to hear his perspective of living and ministering in this turbulent religious & political environment. Last stop, we visited the mini scale model city of Jerusalem…very cool to see the old landscape of the entire city in that way. The model was not so mini… it was a 1:50 ratio scale of the real city if you can imagine…if not, it took up about ½ the length of a football field.

The gyi conference officially began last night and Jeff & I were employed into our roles even though we have been able to connect with and pray for many countries and people’s ministry situations in the pre-conference days. Jeff led a table discussion this morning with a question following the speaker’s topic- our religion meets our Master. It was a stimulating question we were each to answer from our respective country’s point of view: “how would Jesus confront the church in our country?”. How would you answer that?

We hope to download pics, but may not get to do that with some problems we are having on this laptop when we try to do that… sorry!

Happy 17th anniversary to us today! J it is a pretty special place to be… celebrating the author of love! May the reality of Jesus’ love fill you today.

We love you… Heather

Incredible Journey

Jeff here - it is definitely my turn to give the update. The group left Jerusalem on Friday after a very brief time in the old city of Jerusalem of Bible study on the southern steps, the entrance to the temple that Jesus walked many times, and the possible location of the Pentecost prayer of the first believers when they were filled with the Holy Spirit. We also went to the Western Wall - wailing wall and prayed with the Jews who were there while Friday prayers were being balred over the loudspeaker at the Al Aqsa Mosque directly above. The city was tense because of the terrorist attack the day before - which was at a school two or three miles from where we are staying - just to clarify.
We took a long bus ride to the Judean wilderness and stayed the night at a Bedouin camp. We studied the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. The whole day we "buddied up" - I was with a youth pastor from Kuwait and Heather was with a leader from Colombia. In the evnign, we walked out in the wilderness to look at the stars with Kyle from Kuwait and Anna from Latvia, and took some tim eto worhsip thae maker of the heavnes and the earth.
Today, we went to En Gedi and studied Jehoshaphat, as well as David. We walked in a canyon with the streams that the Ibex (PS. 42) thrists for - saw the Ibex as well. We also went to the Dead Sea and had a mud bath and float - strange, but wonderful. Tonight was the first session of the conference. 53 nations gathered and at one point we all prayed in our native languages. I am at "table 13" and there are 24 tables total. Heather prayed with the prayer team beforehand and over our speaker Dann Spader.

Final note - sorry about the lack of pictures, I am having trouble uploading them!

we are here!

jeff & i had an uneventful flight...but very long! we are here at the regency hotel in jerusalem after getting through security with no problems. the sights and smells are unique to israel already. the mood at the tel aviv airport waiting in line for passports was orderly & quiet... lots of orthodox and hessidic jews around. my heart longs for them to know the grace of JESUS... i sense the weight of their vows and oaths without the hope of a present and indwelling
Spirit. "Lord, may our very presence show some of your love and beauty."

don't know if you heard on the news, but there was a terrorist attack on a jewish seminary outside of our hotel last night. pray for those greiving the loss of life- 7+ casualties, and some injured. we heard lots of sirens throughout the evening, but thought it was a normal night in jerusalem. our gyi leaders have some experience here in israel, and noted that this was a targeted attack, and we need to be cautious, but not fearful. we are not fearful at all! we sense the Lord's presence and joy here as we get ready to board the buses for our day touring jerusalem and going throught the engedi to have a full bedouin experience- sleeping in tents under the stars with the nomadic wilderness people. we will swim/ float in the dead sea tomorrow.

the conference will officially begin tomorrow night (sat). we are praying for you and especially the boys...feel free to post here.

with love and shalom, heather

On our way...

9:15am wed, march 5- right now we are at best western near the sfo airport reevaluating what we packed... what really can we take with us, what do we need to leave behind.

i left the boys in good hands with mom & dad k last night around 11pm to meet jeff in granite bay (he taught at wju last night until 10pm) and it was a quiet ride to sf. we both had a full day in thought and in activity. my prayer is mainly for the security of the boys right now. joel has had his 1st tooth loose for about 10 days now... and i asked the Lord to let him loose it while i was home, & i yanked pretty hard several times this last week. it is not ready, and someone will get to enjoy w/ him his 1st gift from the tooth fairy! (its going to be an extra special visit, i think ;) ).

thank you for all who BLESSED us with giving time in prayer and finances to support this mission trip. We do not know the final count, but we exceeded our goal to raise 50% of the total cost. thank you so much.

finally, love you all, and we will hopefully be able to post pics on the blog... still learning how to do this. :) heather