Casey's Israel Journal 2008

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Thursday, May 01, 2008

Today is Yom HaShoah, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day. The theme, so to speak, in Israel is “We won’t forget, we won’t forgive”….so our shirts for today say in Hebrew “Yeshua, we won’t forget, because He forgives”. We wore these shirts for an hour long prayer walk. We split into three teams of 10 or so, and prayer walked different areas. At 10:00am a siren sounded for 2 minutes, and the entire nation goes silent. Cars stop in the middle of street…wherever they are. People stop walking. Nobody speaks. It was the most profoundly sad moment I’ve even experienced. As a team we stopped along with everyone else and stood there in our shirts. I was sobbing, of course, as were several others. Then when the siren stopped, we continued on our way.

Later, as we were praying, an orthodox man spotted us and began to follow us, talking on his cell phone. He tried to follow us to our hotel, so we put on our cover shirts (cover shirts are shirts we take with us to cover up our shirts that have Jesus on them…for our safety) and split into two teams, and went to two different locations to try to disappear inside. Finally, after a few moments, we were then able to go around the block and make our way to where we are staying. We were safe.

The Holocaust still permeates everyone’s mind here in Israel….even in situations where the world at large today might disagree about their policies, and they feel isolated, in their hearts they fear another holocaust. It’s always in the back of their mind. It’s so hard to realize how deep those wounds go in the heart of an entire nation. Everyone here has been touched by the holocaust. Everybody.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Today was our big final test. It was incredibly difficult and pretty much all application as to how to handle circumstances and questions about Tenach (OT), Mishna and Gemarah (Talmud-Jewish Oral law), what Orthodox will ask you, what New Agers will ask, what Hasidim (ultra-Orthodox) will ask. We were given a whole plethora of scenarios which tested our grasp of apologetics and understanding of what they believe. Each answer took about 20 minutes to write. Again, with the claw hand now. Sigh.

However, tonight begins Shabbat (Sabbath) and no more tests!!! Hurray. I leave for a sortie in 5 minutes. I will write more later.

Later

Back from our street outreach. It was so FUN! We did a sweep sortie (meaning walking up and down the street the whole time, not standing) up Ben Yehuda Street. We walked for three hours, passing out gospel tracts….talking to people. Wow. What a great location. I had 5 open contacts who want to meet with people and discuss how to believe in Jesus! One wants a New Testament. Avi did have a minor scuffle but disengaged and after yelling at him for a few minutes, the man finally gave up. Over all it was a wonderful street outreach! Everyone is Jewish, and most will actually talk to you about whether Jesus could be the Messiah. One older gentleman, who vehemently disagreed with me ended up pinching my cheek in a “you’re so cute” kind of way and went away chuckling.

Tonight is the Sabbath and tomorrow I get a day off!!!! Hurray! And, I’m going to Old Jerusalem! FINALLY! I can’t wait. I will send pictures of that.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Today is Shabbat…the Sabbath in Israel! We were off so 8 of us went to Jerusalem, the Old City, to sightsee a bit. I went to the Garden Tomb and was overcome at the sight of Golgatha, and the tomb itself. I wept and was incredibly moved. Then we went through the Damascus Gate, down to the Via Dolorosa and walked that all the way out to the Western (Wailing) Wall. I went to the women’s area and prayed, and wept there too. I touched the wall. The actual wall. There were tiny prayer notes tucked into every available crevice. It was simply overwhelming. I saw sights that were so ethnically Middle Eastern that I had to pinch myself. And I prayed for all these lost people. I will try to put a few of the pictures on this journal entry so you can see what I saw and feel what I felt.

Tonight is our consecration service for the campaign. I will write about that tomorrow. Shalom……

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Last night we had our consecration service for the actual campaign kickoff. It was a time of prayer, worship and at the end the leaders of our campaign (Dan, Yoel, Efraim and Stephen) anointed and prayed over all of us. There were 42 all told who worshipped and who shared communion together and prayed. It was so powerful and the absolute perfect way to begin our outreach.

We begin in earnest today. There are 8 teams of evangelists who will be sharing the gospel in the streets of Tel Aviv. You can feel how excited everyone is. We are trained and ready, we feel the Words of God burning like fire in our bones (Alison read this great scripture last night and this has become my prayer for the campaign….that the gospel burn like fire in my bones) and we cannot be silent. I don’t want to be silent. The time has come for Israel to Behold Your God. This is so awesome.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Today has been the longest street outreach day of my life. We started before 7:00am and finished at 9:00pm. It was an awesome day though. The team as a whole had 3 more Jewish decisions for Jesus today!!!

Our little team experienced a great deal of persecution today though. Gary and Aaron were on one side of the street in Holon and Peter and I were on the other side doing a standard sweep sortie. Gary and Aaron were spotted by a Yad Lachim (very orthodox anti missionary group) who then jumped into a waiting vehicle and they began following them….all the while dialing for reinforcements, who arrived in lightning speed, I tell you with great dismay. The whole thing went down in less than 5 minutes and Gary and Aaron had to take cover in a store, sneak out through the back, climb two fences and a wall, and finally grab a taxi to drive them to the car. The waiting Yad Lachim then spotted Peter and myself, even though we’d put our cover shirts on and were trying to escape as well. They began gesturing to others waiting towards us. We took off to the first left and wound around rapidly to the car. All together again, we drove through in cover shirts in the car and saw they were on every street corner with cell phones, searching for us.

We left the area for a new location, only to be there 30 minutes before it happened again….and again. I felt like we were always looking over our shoulders, putting cover shirts on and going into hiding, and coming back out again in a new location. It’s harder to share the gospel this way, but still, our team got 8 contacts ourselves. And, maybe we took the heat off some of the other teams who then were able to pray with these 3 precious new souls who are part of the kingdom now! It really makes it all worthwhile. And, honestly, most of the excitement took place in Hebrew, and I just did what my team leader told me, and I felt in perfect peace the whole time. The training we’ve had was impeccable and it kept us all from getting hurt. We got in, distributed about 1000 gospel tracts, got some contacts, shared the gospel and got out, moving on to a new area. Nobody got hurt and the gospel was shared. It doesn’t really get any better than that!

I’m so proud of the wonderful training we’ve had. I really saw it in action today and it truly saved us.

Now, tomorrow night, my favorite kind of sortie of all….like a STEALTH outreach! We are going out overnight, under cover of darkness, putting up prophecy stickers all over town….when they wake up the city will be covered in Jesus stuff!!!! How cool is that, huh??? We did this for two years straight on the Hasidic campaigns in New York City and it was so effective! Plus we’ve got electronic billboards and bus signs all over town for like the whole month! We’ve already been getting calls from them as well.

I can’t help feeling like we are living a bit of history in the making here….I’m not trying to make more of it than it is…..but it feels all holy and extraordinary…what we are doing here. It’s like living the lives of the apostles and it’s an incredible honor and blessing. And Jesus has been so incredibly faithful. Yes, some have gotten hurt….but not seriously. And yes, it can get somewhat intense…but He’s kept us in the palm of His hand. I’m not afraid. At least today, I’m not afraid. In fact, I love it….every blessed minute of it. It’s been well planned for and we’re prepared, as much as we can be.

And, tomorrow night….my favorite! Putting up Jesus prophecy stickers in the middle of the night…in Israel!

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