Tuesday, September 29, 2020

El roi: the God who sees me ♡

 

September 2018 Luke and I drove to Dallas, TX. We were in the midst of one of the most difficult trials of our life. (There is no hurt like Church hurt.) Our spiritual shepherds,  mentors, and even closest friends were pulling away from us. We carried with us the heavy weight of grief and confusion. 

Our purpose for the trip was to attend the International Justice Mission's annual Global Prayer Gathering; a tradition for us to attend for a number of years.

The weekends always encouraged, inspired and deepened our prayer lives as a couple. And we knew during this season in our lives, we badly needed rekindling! 

At the gathering Louie Giglio  recounted the history of Hagar from Genesis 16 in the Bible.  Betrayed by those closest to her, Hagar stumbled into the wilderness,  alone,  abandoned,  completely without hope. 

But Jesus. 

He came to her in the midst of her despair and led her out of that desert place. Hagar called him, "El roi; the God who - sees - me."

That weekend the friends we were staying with invited us to their church where their pastor surprised us all by teaching from the - very - same - passage! (Just in case we didn't get the msg the first time! Isn't God good?!) 

This reminder flooded our souls, renewing our faith that no matter what faced us, the trial and disappointments that left us feeling alone and isolated in our grief...

our God, 

El roi, 

sees

US.


As I think back on that pivotal time in our lives, I want to encourage you that you are never alone in your hurt, no matter if it is private or public.

Jesus bears witness to every trial and pain you encounter! He carries your griefs and bears your sorrows with you! (Isaiah 53:4-6)

He meets you right where you are. 

El roi, the God who - sees - YOU. 

Let Jesus lead you out of the desert places. 

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

The Good Neighbor Project

Focused on compassion; Israel's formerly classified Good Neighbor project carried out during the height of the Syrian War, beginning in 2016, was featured this wk on The Jerusalem Post! Love FAI's involvement in this initiative!!

The following article reposted from Israel News, in The Jerusalem Post 2/18/2020

HESED OFFERS A COUNTERINTUITIVE INITIATIVE ON SECURING ISRAEL’S BORDERS

FAI founder and director, Dalton Thomas, and Lt.-Col. (res.) Marco Moreno (photo credit: Courtesy)FAI founder and director, Dalton Thomas, and Lt.-Col. (res.) Marco Moreno (photo credit: Courtesy)
7,000 Syrians were treated in military clinics and another 5,000 in civilian hospitals under Operation Good Neighbor - and it helped secure Israel's borders
An unusual tourist arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport in January. When the border patrol agent there took his Netherlands passport, it only took a glance at Emeth’s olive skin and Persian features to see that he was not a native Dutchman. His place of birth? According to the passport, Tehran.
Asked to step aside, he was taken to a room and asked to wait. Four hours later, agents returned with questions.

Presumably they had done a thorough background check. What did they learn?
The conference was a Christian confab called the Maranatha Alliance. I went to the gathering to learn about a nonprofit called Frontier Alliance International (FAI). The group is intriguing because, during the last two and a half years of the Syrian civil war, the Israel Defense Forces partnered with this small Evangelical organization to provide humanitarian relief to enemies of the Jewish state.

Aid that was provided by Israel – including tons of food and clothing, more than a million liters of fuel, electric generators, tents, vehicles, diapers, baby food, medical equipment and medications – had to find its way into Syrian border villages. Where the IDF could not go, foreign volunteers to FAI did. Acting as proxies for Jerusalem, they provided medical aid from Israel for its enemies behind enemy lines. At the same time, medical refugees from Syria were welcomed into Israel for medical care in Israeli clinics and hospitals by Israeli doctors and nurses.













It was called Operation Good Neighbor and it was a military endeavor. When it officially concluded in September 2018, some 7,000 Syrians were treated in military clinics and another 5,000 in civilian hospitals.





Was it altruism that drove the operation? Was Israel simply being nice?
“Not at all,” says Lt.-Col. (res.) Marco Moreno. “Of course it was meaningful to help, but fundamentally it was a security op. It was a way to defend our borders, and it worked.”
In 2011, Moreno, a 36-year-old officer in the IDF’s elite Human Intelligence Division, also known as Unit 504, was promoted to Head of Unit 504’s Northern Command. His mandate? Analyze Israel’s security risks from Lebanon and Syria, and then develop a strategic plan to mitigate those risks.
It is impossible to understand the significance of who Moreno is and what he did next without a basic understanding of IDF Unit 504. In short, it operates in the narrow gap between the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, and the Shin Bet, its internal security force. The Shin Bet’s realm extends to Israel’s borders while the Mossad operates in international arenas abroad. The gap in between are areas just across Israeli borders.
It is in this gap, this realm, that Unit 504 recruits foreign informants, interrogates foreign prisoners and meets with foreign leaders. In almost every case, these are face-to-face encounters with sworn enemies of the Jewish state. Qualifying to serve in the human intelligence unit includes a rigorous application process, a broad range of special forces military training and graduation from an exclusive bachelor’s program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
At age 36 in 2011, Moreno was fully qualified and equipped for his assigned task.
“What will happen if there is any kind of attack from Syria?” Moreno asks while sipping coffee in a lounge at the Galilion Hotel.
His English is excellent, his Israeli accent classic and his manner charmingly droll.
“We are a strong army,” he replies, answering his own question. “If an enemy attacks from across our borders, we will shoot him. This is a given.” Shrugging his shoulders, he adds, “Maybe, I thought, there is another way to deal with the situation.”
“So, I went and met with leaders in Syrian villages along Israel’s borders.” Notably, he did not meet with them in Israel. Virtually every village fell under the description of “rebel” against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Fiercely independent, often at odds with one another, their real allegiance was to tribal heads. While all were Muslim, political ideologies varied from moderate Islam to radical fundamentalism.
Moreno continues, “I said to them, ‘There is no need to pretend; we are enemies. If you send rockets or jihadists against our people, we will kill you. It is our job; it’s what we’ll do to protect ourselves. Still, we don’t want you to attack us and we don’t want to kill you. Why not try a different way?
‘You prevent attacks against us and in return we will provide infrastructure and humanitarian aid when your people are attacked by Assad and his Iranian puppet masters.’”
It was not long before almost every village, every tribe, agreed.
Thus, five years before the publicly declared Operation Good Neighbor began in 2016, its foundation was laid, relationships were established, logistics formed and methods of exchange put into place.
The operation itself was prompted by Moreno’s retirement from active service in the IDF.
“At that time, our unit came to an agreement. Let’s open this up to the world to partner with the IDF in giving Syrians aid! And so we did, inviting the biggest and best known nonprofit organizations in the world.
“None of them answered. Even the United Nations ignored us.”
The only ones who showed interest were a few Christians, including a tiny organization called Frontier Alliance International. Its director, a young guy named Dalton Thomas, was working in Iraq. He and his family flew to Israel to discuss the matter with me, and they brought everything they had with them.
“We needed non-Israelis to enter Syria with on-site medical aid, and they were willing to do it.”
A partnership was formed, and it worked. FAI set up its own operations center on the Golan Heights, from where it recruited and managed medical volunteers who snuck into Syria riding donkeys in the middle of the night while, at the fence, IDF soldiers stood guard.
Partnering with the Evangelical FAI, there was another benefit.
“I told them,” says Moreno, “convert all the Muslims you want. If they convert to Christianity, that is good for Israel. Christians won’t blow themselves up to kill us.”
His only proviso? “Do not missionize Jews. It is offensive to us.”
FAI’s integrity in all that it did was so impressive that today Moreno serves as its official director of the Israel Division.
“Our focus is on borders in the Middle East,” says Thomas. “Why? Because that’s where conflicts begin, but most governments do not put their focus there. Israel is an exception.”
In the aftermath of its partnership with the IDF in Operation Good Neighbor, Thomas acknowledges current FAI operations in northern Syria on the border with Turkey, and eastern Iraq on the border with Iran. Specific FAI activities are airbrushed and it  is implied that work is being done in other places, too.
“The objective is to de-escalate tensions. In many cases, we begin by setting up and running birth clinics,” he explains. As it did in southern Syria, providing health services to women and children builds trust and with it goodwill.
Maranatha Alliance, it turns out, is not the same thing as Frontier Alliance International.
“Maranatha,” Thomas clarifies, “provides a decentralized affiliation for Christian volunteers and for various Christian communities in the Middle East. Instead of a denomination based on creed, it builds a family based on relationships centered on just one thing.”
That one thing goes to the single if unfamiliar word, maranatha, an Aramaic phrase adopted by early Christianity. Its deliberate double meaning is “Our Lord has come” and “Come, O Lord.”
Why was Operation Good Neighbor an effective strategy for securing Israel’s Syrian borders?
The answer goes to things Emeth revealed in our conversation.
“Growing up in Iran,” he tells me, “was not at all like the way Tehran presents itself to the world. It’s true that there was anti-Israel and anti-American propaganda from the government. But among my classmates and friends, in interactions on the street and in local communities, I never heard a single bad word against Israel or the US. Just the opposite, in fact. People held them both in high regard.”
In short, among those living in countries that are antagonistic to Israel, even in one that is sworn to its destruction, many civilians, sometimes most, do not share their governments’ animosity. There are distorted perceptions, even fears, stemming from things their officials say, but nothing close to a hardy hatred. Correct information delivered in an unexpected way can make allies out of enemies, friends out of foes.
The lesson Israel has learned is that based on a visceral commitment to its identity and existence, tangible expressions of compassion are every bit as important as conventional arms, nuclear warheads, cyber expertise, hi-tech missiles, drones and jets.
Expressing genuine compassion for the enemy, especially in the face of murderous intent, has become a primary weapon of choice to protect the Jewish state. Call it “The Hesed Offense.” 

https://m.jpost.com/Israel-News/Hesed-offers-a-counterintuitive-initiative-on-securing-Israels-borders-617925

Sunday, February 9, 2020

No Regrets!


 This video produced by FAI served as such a tremendous encouragement to us this month. Coming out of a "dark season of the soul", we are so so thankful for this word from God to encourage us and bless us through this missionary couple.

We had so many takeaways from their own story and could identify on many levels; especially moving to hear that God used the book of Nehemiah to speak truth to them, as we are about to wrap up our own personal study in the book of Nehemiah.

He even sent a Korean to minister to them when their hearts were broken! Isn't God amazing?!

Here are some quotes from the video testimony from Dan and Devri Wickwire.

"The removal of self is only something God can do for you, and it's through the things you're experiencing."

"Even though it's a very painful season and you feel like a failure, it doesn't matter because the very essence of you is what God's doing inside you... Always remember no matter what you're going through, God is faithful and God is good..."

"No matter what you're going through, He's  doing so many things on so many levels (that) we don't always totally understand; but we can always totally trust Him!"

"I have no reputation, really, to defend; my Jesus had a reputation and He became of no reputation for me."

"There are times in the Christian walk when we're battered about and we don't understand and God is allowing it; not for discipline or to change us, but it's just called the dark night of the soul and we don't understand... (but) God is Sovereign and is always good."

Nehemiah 8:11, "The Levites calmed the people, saying, "Be still, for the day is holy; do not be grieved." 

"I realized what I was feeling was grief. The Hebrew word for death is separation. I was feeling grieved because I was being separated from the people I had served with for 14 years.... but this isn't a final separation... His blood covers everything!"

"If God commands us, then we must be able to obey!" And this was a command: "Do not grieve."

"All is well with my soul! Why? Because of what Jesus did on the cross... God is never the accuser; He is never joining with the accuser of the brethren."

"In every season, in every battle, we're always learning and there's so much more of God that we haven't learned yet... As we get older, we understand more about the heart of God and we understand more of His greatness! We're quicker to pray... quicker to lean on Him."

"You will not be sorry for any thing, any time, any money, any energy, anything that you have put in the Lord's hands; you will not regret it."

"No regrets!"


"We have a God that knows how to take good care of us! He knows what we need!"

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Birthday Bubbles!


Happy 4th Birthday,  Boaz Gaon!

We're so glad you're ours!

Enjoyed some special Korean snack from your foster family Seoul ♡ Bibimbap for dinner ♡ gigantic bubble maker... you first bonded with Daddy over bubbles in Korea♡




















Monday, January 20, 2020

Death. Burial. Resurrection!

I never grow tired of listening to Luke read the Word to our family.


What a privilege it was several years ago to watch our children's earthly father introduce them to their Heavenly Father!

And then, yesterday, what a joy to watch the boys continue their walk by making a public profession of their faith in Jesus Christ!

Luke baptized them at the Eastview Christian Church Bloomington Campus, surrounded by family and friends. 







The congregation sang this song while the boys were preparing for baptism.
What an incredible,  awesome, powerful, mighty, holy, wonderful, loving, all-knowing all- present, worthy God we serve!!
We praise His Name forever!!


Sunday, January 5, 2020

Proverbs 27:17


 We always enjoy catching up with our friends Bob and Kristi in person when they're in the Country.

 Bob & Kristi have been ministering in Africa for a number of years, most recently in South Sudan doing the work of teaching at a Christian seminary and Biblical conflict resolution. They share their hearts with us as we share ours, and our time of fellowship is so encouraging and inspiring, we truly liken it to Proverbs 27:17 "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

We love you, friends, and will continue to prayerfully support you in your ministry in Juba!



 The kids always love it when Bob and Kristi come to visit ... we have to take our traditional picture crowded on the couch!


A couple from years gone by...




 The girls and I scored a final hug from Kristi before they head to Chicago this afternoon... she stopped by to bring me a beautifully handmade basket from South Sudan for my birthday. ♡