Saturday, April 23, 2011

Time time time in JERUSALEM

Israel.
Jerusalem.

So we have been here for almost 2 weeks. Jesus' love is so present here.
I'm not even really sure where to begin or how to express the magnitude of being in this place.

We have been staying in Abu Tor, really close to the Old City. We live in an apartment with 4 other girls, all who are either on staff or interning with a prayer house here in Jerusalem, about a 7 minute walk from where we live. We have LOVED being here with these girls, and especially the interns that are here with the prayer house. They have increased our joy immense amounts. Praise Jesus for the joy of the Lord being our strength!
They are 5 lovely (word I have picked up from the foreigners) people, some from the states and some from the lovely place of England.

Since we have been here, outreach has looked much different than we planned. We have done a lot of street evangelism as well as just spending time as a team and indivdually at the prayer house interceding for this place, these people, and more of Jesus' heart.

It has been AMAZING being here during Passover week as well as getting to celebrate Shabbat (Sabboth)! We got invited by some people we met here on the streets to come be apart of their yearly Passover celebration! Phenomenal. We have just been able to experience Jesus in a whole new way, and begin to see the purpose and direction and unfathomable love He has for this place.
So we got there and the family welcomed us with open arms and then sent us to get ready for the night. We walked into a room FULL of mediveal costumes! Yes, we celebrated the Passover sitting around a table on the floor, by candlelight, dressed like royalty. In-stinkin-credible!

We also love to go to a street called Ben-Yehuda. We have met people of all kinds. Anywhere from extreme orthodox jews, to just the locals that live in the area, to the Arab people.
Our favorite thing that we have done, ok well my favorite thing that I have done there, is one night we decided to go out as a gorup, the YWAMers and the prayer house interns and just love people on the street. So our way of going about that, was to play games.
SO if you are familiar with interactive games, we played ninja, the HA game, and the shoe game. All in which we drew in the crowds.
We had old, young, singles, couples, all of the above- stopping to watch us and even better SO many people joined in! These people love being accepted by any group, as we all do.

We have also been on guided and unguided (my favorite!) tours of the City of David, the Old City and just been exlploring to find Arab markets, the Western Wall, and all other fun things.

We are also going to the prayer house tonight for a dance watch! SO excited for this, because we get to worship and pray to Jesus and declare His name through dancing. We here like to call it clubbin' with Jesus! Only to wake up tomorrow to go to the Garden of Gethsemane for a 5:30am service at the tomb! Here is just bringing the Bible to life for me.

So we are here now, closing out our week in Jerusalem and as we leave out favorite interns and leave such a beautiful place, I am leaving this area with all exctiment to see more and more of Jesus in this place and in these people that He so loves!

Just continue to pray against the spirit of rejection over these people here, because the joy of the Lord is what will be their strength! Also against sickness in our team, because we have this cold/flu thing going around.
For our travels to Tiberius tomorrow and that our contacts will let us know what and when to come :)
and that these people would just have a revelation of the Messiah, that they would just begin to have eyes uncovered