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You are My All in All

Home!

After 23 hours of travel, we are home and our bed felt so fluffy!

Reflecting on the last ten days is a rich experience for me. You see, it is amazing to me that God would send us half way across the globe to share love and kindness to people who were starving for it! The beauty of this is that we could not have done that unless we were filled with His love to start with. There are those who do not get this, why do we do things like this? Easy answer, because we are blessed and God asks us to bless others!

It was a divine setup from the very beginning. Mothers witnessed a stranger loving on her kids, caring about her kids, and taking time to value them. I pray I role modeled a new way for them. It is a difficult life in the West Bank, in Palestine. People are harsh, angry and vengeful. They witnessed a group of people who were gentle, kind and loving. May His fragrance linger....

The group of "boarders" who I was privileged to be with every night have changed my life! I pray I had an influence on theirs for all eternity! It was all about that for me! I will look for ways to continue this relationship while here at home.

Allow a few days to continue to process things more, I will be back.

Thank you for reading this and sharing in this journey, you are special also to even care about this.

With love,

Christine

Surreal!

Our day started off like always, many people,many children looking at us wanting help and attention.

The doctors are seeing many people, but there is not many significant illnesses..however, many emotional problems. Much depression, many symptoms as a result of depression, etc.

We are being watched VERY closely, by many types of officials.

Funny story.. The Mayor of the town provided a lovely lunch to all of us. Then, he wanted to see some of us and I was one of the ones to go! OK, here I am with my "mission" clothes on, dirty, a heart painted on my cheek, dirty tennis shoes, sitting in a mahogany lined Mayors office! I wanted to pinch myself. But, he wanted to thank us for the work on behalf of his people, and a few of us got a chance to speak about our experiences.

We were able to tell him why we were there and what our hopes were for the people in his town...It was a super opportunity for us to "shine" for His kingdom! Yes!!

A young man from there gave his heart to Christ. The problems began as he took his new Bible and was sharing his story! Well.........it was not accepted, at all, by his people..Security was tightened and threats were made if he showed up..! What a sad thing as he was freed from his bondage and wanted to share!

Be thankful we live in a country with freedom to worship our God!

On our way home.........

Check These Out!

Here is an example of the beautiful handiwork from the girls at Talitha Kumi! Each are stunning and special!

State of our "work".....

Hello everyone,

Sorry we have been sooo very busy, and tired, that I did not update until now.

We were very blessed to enter the WB without any problems at the checkpoint! Yea!

Our facility is nice. There is plenty of room for all the personnel we have brought. The outside area has a beautiful garden where it will be nice to have the children for the stories, games and crafts..

The last two evenings we have had the precious privilege of loving deeply on the 28 Boarders who live here where we are staying! It is an absolute joy to pour the love of God into these lives. I did not ever imagine that I would have been back here again. But, since I have been given another chance to influence their lives for His kingdom, I will leave nothing out in any of my talks, interaction or prayers for them! They do not want our time to end, they do not want to go to bed, and they do not sleep! Same here! It is a most unique time!

The people in the clinic seem to be typical for this region. Sad, depressed and agitated too! The children seem quite disruptive. They are handled roughly and sternly. So, that is how they treat each other. So, when we are loving and kind to them they stare in disbelief! Sad, but this is why we are here. We want to show them they are valued and they matter. We want them to know there is more to life than their current status!

Interesting situation today. There was some chaos and crowd control problems after lunch. After things seemed to quiet a bit, the people sitting and waiting for their appointment still seemed agitated, I went and setup a corner and started pulling out color pages! I thought it would be good for the kids who were waiting for their parents. Guess what? The agitated adults came over and wanted to color! Soon, they were calm, laughing and enjoying coloring! Hallelujah! I will implement that each day now. It was a blessing in disguise!

We are all healthy just very tired! The weather is warm here, warmer than we expected, but that is ok!

Thank all of you for your prayers, thoughts and concerns!

May you be at peace!

Christine

Masada.....

What a day! Today we went to Masada which is in the Judean desert! It is the last fortress that the Israelites held and is an amazing fortress! The area is desolate! We overlooked into the area of Sodom and Gomorrah. We saw the Dead Sea from the top as well.

The Dead Sea surprised all of us with the size, it was huge! Not sure why we thought it would be small, but there you go! Never too young to learn something!

We saw also caves, everywhere. Most likely the caves where David was and cut off a piece of Saul's robe! Really!

We spent time at the Red Sea where some of the team members floated! What a hoot! NO, we did not. We did not have suits and I am not sure I would have gone in there if you paid me! Quite salty and muddy! Our teammates had fun though...

It is time now to focus on the work ahead of us! We are anxious, on edge and excited all at the same time!

Pray for continued health and endurance as we potentially could be serving hundreds of people where we are going!

Our team is beautifully united, just like a family. We are here for each other, and in this for a common purpose. We want every person we come in contact with to feel cared about! That is why we are here!

We are going into darkness, we will put on the armor, lean on your prayers, and trust the Light will shine through our smiles, in our touches, and through our deeds!

Join us! Thank you as you are as much a part of the team as we are! We just happen to be here physicially! We could not do it without you!

We are all healthy and still eating well. Oh yes, we all sore calves!!! The is a city of stairs, everywhere!

Love to all you! Be kind to one another....

Jerusalem!

What a beautiful place the city is. What an amazing feeling to walk where Jesus walked. We went to the Garden Tomb, Garden of Gethsemane, walked the Via De La Rosa (Stations of the cross)..Quite an awesome feeling to be here.

It is hot! We walked for hours all over the city and tomorrow will go to the Dead Sea, Masada, and Hezekiah's tunnel (I am passing on going in that one!)

We are worn out! Not a good thing as our work starts Monday!

We are all well, having a good time with each other and anxious to get started on why we came.

So, not only are there 1,000 flyers, but also two radio stations talking about us coming!!

We will need all the strength and energy that only someone Mighty can give us!

Thank you for your continued prayers and support we feel it all!

Christine

PS We were all so tired by the time we went to the garden tomb that four - five of the team fell asleep while the woman was talking!! How embarrassing! Guess who almost fell off the bench, you got it!

GREETINGS FROM GALILEE!

What a beautiful day we have had. We visited all over the area of Tiberius, Sea of Galilee. It is a beautiful, warm day. We saw Capernahum, Peter's House, Mount of Beatitudes, and had baptisms in the Jordan! Quite a full exciting day.

Our team is enjoying getting reacquainted for some, meeting each other for the new members. There are 10 returning from last year. It has been a sweet reunion!

We have a hired bus driver for our time here, with a small private bus. We are moved by being in the very places where Jesus performed His miracles. If you think about it, it is a miracle that God has called 15 of us here, to show His precious love.

We will go into Jerusalem tomorrow and stay there until Sunday!

Then our work begins...

We have been told from the people in the area where we will be working, that they have distributed over 1,000 flyers about us coming Monday! They have even been to the mosques, telling them of the medical clinic, physical therapy clinic, eye glass clinic, and children's ministry! Wow, may God give us His strength!

That will be for now, leave me comments so I can hear from you!

Love and God's blessings on all of you!

Christine

Note from our leader.....

This is quite interesting I think.....

If you want to know where we will be you can go to 2 Chronicles 11 - the village where we will be was once called “Adoraim”. Adoriam was one of the cities fortified by Rehoboam, son of Solomon, to protect Jerusalem over 1,500 years ago. This is a time when the nation was divided and many were worshipping false gods. There were also many who set their hearts on seeking the Lord and serving Him turned away from the worship of false Gods. Please pray that the people of this city will turn away from false religion of Islam to worship Jesus and this city will become fortified with the love and presence of the Living God.

OK......here we go!

John and I want to thank all of you for your calls, emails, posts and general wonderful comments for our trip!

We are very excited. We know that we have done all we can to prepare and now the rest is up to the One who has called us to go.

Thank you for following us. We pray that you too will be changed from this trip, if only by reading this! Open your hearts, minds and ears to see what He has in store for you! Promise you will not be disappointed!

May His peace be upon each of you as you go about your day!

Christine

PACKING!!

Finally, the time has come to put all the craft supplies, medicines, candy, and oh yes, clothes in the suitcase and pray it makes the weight limit. We will be bringing between the two of us, 200 lbs of things for the people! A couple of pounds will be clothes, but mostly medicines and fun things for the people and children in the West Bank!

We are beyond excited! We are ready to get going on what God has called us to do.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support. We do feel the blanket around us and know it will continue, day in and day out!

We leave Wednesday and will arrive Thursday evening! There is a 10 hour time difference between our home and where we will be. Just enough to totally goof you up...

Be good to one another! Will see you back here soon,

Christine

ONE WEEK!

Hi "followers"!

One week from today we will be traveling to our destination in Israel. There is a team of 16 people ready and raring to go! The first few days we will be visiting sites in the area to get acclimated, and have some time to connect to each other. I am going to try and attach our prayer calendar, somehow, on the blog if you desire to support us in this way!

We will have internet access while there so I look forward to posting as often as I can. Who knows, you may even have some pictures to look at hot off the press!

Our team will be doing 1) Medical 2) Physical Therapy 3) Eyeglass and 4) Childrens Ministries..We will be in the West Bank area for this time of serving!

As the blog progresses, please make comments! If you cannot figure out how, ask some techie friend or kid! They know how!

Thank you for your interest, again!

Christine