Ami update - God is amazing!

From: Hannah

Sent:

Fri 3/28/08 2:10 AM

To:

Restorers of Zion (anglodtp@netvision.net.il)

I salute the Body of Messiah worldwide. Your prayers and love are coming through loud and clear!

BTW I am happy to stand corrected in my note about "believers from every continent except Asia" -- our brothers and sisters in the Far East are also circulating the reports and praying for Ami.

Your prayers are being heard, and the Lord is moving things faster than even the doctors were prepared for. In fact, I have had several delays in sending this out, because the news keeps changing!

Ami was to be taken out of the medically controlled coma slowly, over several days. Instead, he woke up by himself last night - another miracle, and one that must have startled the ICU team. Moreover, he was aware of his surroundings. He couldn't focus his eyes to really look at people, but he was able to respond to questions by blinking.

There were reports from his family that he is having periodic panic attacks. Small wonder. Imagine that you are 15 years old, you wake up feeling weird, not sure where you are, can't move freely, something is wrong with your eyes, struggling to breathe (he is off the respirator, but still has a collapsed lung).... and the last thing you can remember is a basket of goodies exploding in your face. Pray for the Lord's peace to totally surround Ami, that he will feel SAFE in His arms.

So now your prayers need to cover his battle to rebuild his life, which is only beginning and will be a long one.

Pray also for his family, who is now staying with him in shifts. Although none of them would want to go back to the time when he was unconscious, there was an illusion of peace and serenity during that time. His fight to recover is now out in the open and must be shared by them. This can bring on a new sense of loss. It has got to be tough to see him struggling (the "baby" of the family, no less) and feel helpless to rescue him. Pray that the Lord will give each of them wisdom to do the things that are good for Ami.

***********************

Okay.... that's what I wrote this morning. By afternoon today (exactly a week after the bombing), this news, incredible as it was, was already out of date -- the Lord has moved so fast, He's left us all huffing to catch up!

This afternoon, Ami began moving around and talking. His first request was to see his brothers and sister, give them hugs and tell them he loved them. Then he began complaining that he wanted to go home. THEN he tried to get out of bed! (not possible because his legs are still in bad shape)

By this evening they were moving him out of the ICU into a regular room. The nurse who settled him in his bed came back a short while later and could SEE the improvements in his face! He is literally changing hour by hour.

Tell me that's a normal recovery, under ANY circumstances. Let alone a kid who was at death's door exactly a week ago.

And that's not all. We have been joined in prayer by the children in Ami's class, who informed a family friend that they are not "stahm" praying (going through the motions of liturgical prayer) but praying every word from the heart.

Imagine the impression God's amazing response is going to leave on each teen who poured out his/her heart to Him on behalf of Ami.... Since these are secular Israelis, it's probably the first time most of them have ever attempted to reach out to Him.

"Let the children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

There are still challenges ahead - recovering the use of his legs, for example. Also he can hear out of one ear only. One immediate need is thing is healing from the emotional trauma (he is having flashbacks of the explosion). Please pray that the Lord will relieve Ami of this torment. According to another brother (thanks Tommy!) Ami is also expressing intense anger over the whole event, a very normal response and a necessary one. There are no easy answers to give him, and the Lord knows what he needs in order to work through that.

Local believers: I don't know yet about visiting hours in the ward where he is, or who will be allowed to see him. You should call the hospital for more details, or stand by until I get that information.

Now I want to comment about our support system as a Body. It has been wonderfully effective and dedicated, and has crossed all sorts of barriers that tend to separate us. It is a selfless giving and a unity that I have never had the privilege to see before in my 46 years of walking with the Lord. It is conduct that is surely pleasing to Him and brings glory to His Name.

Yet this is only a beginning. If we are going to grow from this experience and continue following where He is going, there are some matters that need our attention and prayer.

There are groundless rumors being passed around. I have tried to correct some of them, but I did not mean it as criticism. This kind of thing is inevitable, and we need to watch our responses to the mistakes being made.

All of us reporting to you from Israel are relying on those closest to the situation for our information, but these same people are under the most stress, obviously. Over the past week, they have had very little time to recharge. Under those conditions, it's easy to get details garbled or add personal feelings to the factual stuff. They do not need to be graded on accuracy right now. And we should be quick to forgive anyone who innocently repeats something that turns out not to be true, or who was not exact in passing on what they heard, or who maybe could have chosen their words better.

I personally apologize if I made anyone feel bad by correcting such mistakes - you are all doing a labor of Love by sending your own updates abroad. Please, please continue. I don't think the Lord intends for me to do this alone. If you make a mistake, just correct it in your next letter. (I've done that twice already.)

With that said, the disinformation has had two sides to it. There is the harmless kind of rumor, like the one going around that the police have arrested a suspect. We all want that to happen very much, but if the police have detained anyone, Ami's own brothers are not aware of it (as of this morning). At any rate, there is no harm done, other than widespread disappointment.

But there is another kind of rumor, which can hinder what the Lord may be about to do in Israel. I'm talking about the consensus being expressed among nearly all believers that this was the work of hostile anti-missionaries or a Jewish vigilante group.

Even now, there are many good reasons to suspect Arab terror, which I won't list here because I don't want to add fuel to this fire. The police have imposed a complete media blackout on their investigation, which hints that the case is not so simple. Suffice to say that there is no reason for any of us to conclude from the known evidence that it "must be a Jewish group"... no reason other than personal bias.

Are we, the Body in Israel, being too quick to assume that "the" orthodox or haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jews are capable of cold-blooded stalking, baiting and murder of Messianic Jews? (One or two have claimed to know of similar incidents, but none have provided documentation.) Have we forgotten what it feels like when the haredi Jews assume (also without documentation) that we are capable of stealing children from Jewish families, forcibly baptising them, and brainwashing them?

We base our assumptions on the hurt and harrassment by some of the haredim against believers in recent years. Well, the haredim are quick to believe the rumor about Messianics stealing their children for the same reason - because Jews have been hurt by that kind of church-sponsored action for centuries. (Anyone who doubts that statement needs to read up on church history.)

As we deal with our pain before the Lord, are we giving Him permission to send us to minister to the very ones who have abused us? (For the record, I am no armchair analyst, but speak from firsthand experience.) Or do we pray only that He will settle the score, and pay them back for the damage they have done to believers? This is a sign that we have closed our hearts to responding as the apostles did in the book of Acts. How can we expect to receive the power they had, without paying the price they paid?

I have also heard the rumor that the perpetrators of Ami's tragedy "are planning more attacks against the believers". Not only does this "warning" come to me repeatedly without evidence to validate it, but no one gains ground by circulating it except Satan. Israeli believers feeding on such speculation will hardly be ready to change gears, if suddenly a modern Saul of Tarsus from Yad L'Achim or the Gur Hasidim should show up at our door, wanting to know Yeshua. Won't we throw him out as a spy who is merely planning the next attack on believers?

Let me start a different rumor, which is based on more reliable information than the above, but so far has not made it into the Messianic/Christian grapevine:

God is doing something strong and unlooked-for in the religious Israeli community. We need to look and listen carefully, or we are going to miss it.

I began writing about this phenomenon two months ago, in a Restorers Update that never seemed to get finished. I am now realizing why - what is happening here belongs in the picture. Lord willing, I will share more of the picture in that framework (this is not the time or place).

For now, I appeal to believers who are speaking to the media about Ami's experience: Promote our faith and proclaim our rights to practice it and share it, but avoid speculation about who committed this crime. For love of Him, avoid putting extra stumblingblocks in the way of the orthodox believers-to-be, who the Lord is calling out for Himself.

Believers worldwide, please include us Israeli believers in your prayers, that we will stay in the Lord as we navigate through this complex situation.

blessings,

a very tired Hannah signing off at 4 am, Israel time.