(I removed some sensitive names and addresses, Eddie)

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Subject: Ami Update - 13 April
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Greetings to the Lord's people everywhere! (and that covers a lot of ground)

Apologies for my long silence, email-wise. I had a computer meltdown just one day after my last update, and the problem took several days to untangle (the cause was never determined). Since then I have been catching up with my work and other obligations, until tonight. Thank you for all those emails checking to see if you had been dropped from the mailing list... far from being a bother, it was great to see how many are taking these updates seriously!

Meanwhile, many of you were getting some details from our brother and co-updater Tommy Waller. For those who were not getting those, or who are new to the update list --

Ami has been making steady progress, which is actually an understatement. Just one week after the long night when his very survival was in doubt, he was moved out of ICU. In spite of the shrapnel in his eye, which required a delicate operation, he can now see out of both eyes just fine. Right around the time they stopped worrying about his collapsed lung (I lost track of the progress on that), he started sitting up in a chair, out of bed, and he is now being encouraged to walk. Not only are the skin grafts working well, but one leg is unexpectedly healing without grafts.

I kind of feel for the medical team, who has been caught flat-footed by Ami's fast, unpredictable recovery... they're not used to having to use the word "ness" (Heb. for miracle) so many times with regard to one patient - especially one who they knew was at death's door and in danger of losing all his limbs only 3-1/2 weeks ago.

Your prayers, letters, gifts, and especially the postcards addressed to Ami, have been giving him and his family encouragement beyond what you would imagine. And the meals have continued to come in faithfully, 3-1/2 weeks without a break, often providing more than they could eat. May the Lord bless the local cooks - from the responses of the family, it's clear that you are feeding them with both food and love.

All this gives them strength to meet the new challenges that Ami's progress is bringing.

He is experiencing a lot of pain from muscles that have 'frozen up' from disuse, from healing scabs that are pulling on sensitive skin, and from half-healed wounds (pray against infection, which is currently a danger in some of the deeper injuries). He needs several operations to recover the use of his hands (the blood vessels and nerves are mangled). The medical staff is trying to reduce the sedatives, which sometimes results in more sensitivity to pain and sleepless nights. The physical therapy is as painful as it is necessary. Fighting to get back to something called "normal" for his new body may take up to a year. An intimidating thought, as you can imagine. Can you also imagine the hard questions that must inevitably come to a 15-year-old, whose normal everyday life has suddenly spun out of control?

Struggle for a minute with the thoughts that are probably going through Ami's mind (easy for me to imagine, having a boy nearly the same age). The loss of "only" 2 toes seems trivial in comparison with what he might have lost, and in light of all the tremendous miracles God has done for him. It's obvious the Lord has preserved him. And yet, who can explain to Ami why God allowed anything AT ALL to happen to him - and why only to him?

We don't dare resort to cheap, easy answers, like "believers sometimes pay a price for their faith", or "his parents are on the frontlines of ministry, and spiritual attacks can be expected" or "it's okay, because all things work together for good". None of these honestly address the question of why HE was the one injured, while all his believing friends and the rest of his family are walking around untouched (as are many other families "on the frontlines of ministry" here). These thoughts bring dilemmas that are scary enough for an adult, let alone a teenager who is right at that precarious age when you begin questioning everything you have been told as a child.

And I personally feel that no one should be allowed to say, "Halleluyah - he's been counted worthy to suffer for the Lord's sake," unless the speaker has shown they had the ability to say that when an equally horrific honor was thrust, unasked and unforeseen, upon themselves....

Pray that Ami will get his answers straight from the Lord. He is the only One who can really understand the heart-cry of a 15-year-old Israeli believer whose life has irreversibly changed without him having any say in the matter.

In short, we can't give Ami or his family any neat answers. What we can say is simply, "We love you, we are praying for you, we are standing with you." That's plenty, and it means plenty.

There are some brothers who have become conspicuous by their unwillingness to say that.

Megachurch leader John Hagee, who just brought hundreds of Christians on a "stand with Israel" tour, came to Ariel on April 3 to "bring comfort to the Israeli people", and yet completely ignored this Israeli family who was in need of comfort... only four blocks from their well-publicized performance. One Ariel believer who attended this "night to honor those who honor Israel" asked a member of Hagee's delegation if they knew about the Ortizes and their trauma. Apparently the tour leaders did know, but they left town without so much as sending a note of encouragement. May the Lord forgive them - we got more support from the nonbelieving mayor of Ariel than from these prominent brothers and sisters.

I could speculate on why that happened, but only Hagee's entourage can give an authoritative answer.

Now a few necessary entries in the "rumor busters" log:

An editorial article, "The Silence is Almost Deafening" by Charisma publisher Steve Strang (dated 7 April) has received wide circulation. In general it's a very encouraging voice, outspoken in a stand for the Israeli Body. But there was one unfortunate error, which reads: "A couple of days after the [Ortiz] attack a package was left on the doorstep of another Messianic family, and of course because of the previous attach [sic, attack] the family thought it might be a bomb. Thankfully it wasn't." The source cited was an article in Ha'Aretz from Mar. 24, which reported that the suspected bomb was left at the "door of the Leibovitz family home".

For the record, the Leibovitzes are not Messianic. This was an assumption, possibly because of the article's title ("Loving Jesus, Fearing the Neighbors in Ariel"). Despite the impression caused by that headline, there have been no fearful reactions among the believers in Ariel in the wake of the Purim explosion. (BTW, rumors about the Ariel police warning of attacks on the believers' children at their schools are totally without foundation as well. We have a school-age kid who is quite open about his faith, and no police warnings have been forwarded to us.)

Mr. Strang then writes: "I'm not in Israel so I don't know if there is an outcry from Christian Zionists. If there is, I'd like to hear it. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem and other Zionist groups should speak up even though they mostly distance themselves from the Messianics to try to be a little less controversial."

I want to state, on behalf of the Ortiz family, that the Christian Embassy sent representatives to personally encourage David and Leah, and that another major Zionist group, Christian Friends of Israel, co-sponsored that sterling show of support for the Israeli Body at the Epicenter Conference mentioned above. So Mr. Strang can rest easier about his concerns.

Ironically, he himself identifies with Christians United for Israel - apparently unaware that just a few days before he released this article, his own organization turned down a golden opportunity to "speak up" about this very incident, walking in silence right past the site where the attack took place. Mr. Strang spoke of plans to use his CUFI contacts in the Israeli government to raise "a voice of support and concern for believers in Israel", and I hope he did that. It is important for the Body in Israel and worldwide to know that not all members of CUFI endorse their leaders' decision to respond to the Ortiz attack with the deafening silence that we witnessed here in Ariel.

Some final notes of a practical nature:

The meals so lovingly provided by Israeli believers have been extremely helpful for the family. Please help to continue this blessing! I have turned over the coordination and scheduling to a sister who is part of the Ortiz fellowship (I belong to a different fellowship and just stepped in to get things going).

There will be another pause in the updates at this point. The rest of this week I will probably spend (Lord willing) getting my kitchen ready for Passover, and preparing for a houseful of guests. To all who observe this Feast of the Lord, "chag sameach" and may you see and celebrate Messiah in the center of it all!

blessings from the Land,

Hannah