A Tour Of Roses Israel, Day 10

 

This soldier is packing heat. But so are our ladies.

 

Dear Friends of Improbable People Ministries and A Tour Of Roses,

We have reached double digits in days and possibly triple digits in temperature. Yet, when you read the stories below you’ll see there is nothing but joy being spread in Haifa these days. At least when it comes to our crack team of Rose-ologists. (It’s a word–trust me! I’m going to spring it on Sally in a game of Scrabble when she least expects it.)

But before we share those tales we’re going to break tradition and let you all know about some specific prayer requests needed for Team Members. They are not a complaining lot, but sometimes the journey can wear one down. So please take a moment to read and lift our street warriors and their issues individually up in prayer. We thank you for your ever-faithful covering of the Team.

ERIC is down with a sore throat and some congestion

LURA‘s ankle is swollen.

DAVE has a heat rash in and around–these are his words–“Area 51”.

SUNNY asks for strength and safety.

KHAHLIDA has severe trauma triggers that are causing her to lose sleep.

KAREN has an issue with her knee. She requests prayer for better sleep and energy.

SALLY: “God gave me what I needed this morning. My voice is certainly not great. Tired.”

Please pray also for unity for the group. Mission trips can be true testing grounds for love and patience.
Sally administered communion today and asked the team to search their hearts and make right with
anyone on the team they were having trouble with.

Finally, keep praying for the flights for Air France to reopen on Saturday so everyone can begin the journey home safely and on schedule. THANK YOU.

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TESTIMONIES

KHALEDA:

We went out today to give roses and we ended up near a place that had a strong fence all around it. I saw a guy and I invited him to take a rose and he ended up being an Arab man. We talked in Arabic and I explained to him what the roses were about and told him that God loves him, and I care about him.

And then he said to me, “Come in, come in.” And I said, “How will I come in?” And he said, “From that door.” And I opened the door and I came in and I ended up being in a place for elderly recovery from sickness. I gave roses to all the people that were sitting around. A lot of them were elderly with their families, then outside, enjoying the fresh air.

In the corner of the place there was a couple and I walked to them to give them a rose. The husband was not responsive, like he had a stroke or something that prevented him from speaking or moving. And then I offered it to his wife, who was beside him. And when I gave it to her, she started crying and she started hugging me. And I hugged her back and we held each other for a long time. I think she was a speaking Russian. She’s a Russian Jewish and she was very, very tired.

She kept crying and crying and since I didn’t understand her language all I could do was to just hold her, hold her until she was done crying. I held her for about five minutes and it was just so meaningful to me that I was able to brighten her day with a little rose and with the love of God.

DAVE:

So today we went to a shopping center, and there was a large market. We decided to give out roses and Sally was playing worship there as well. A man came up to me and his name was Jacob. He asked me why we were there and we told him because we love Israel and we love you and we’re here to support you and tell you that God loves you and he was very, very grateful for that. He kept saying I love you, ,I love you ,and I kept saying I love you too.

Tt was a blessed moment and then we came back and we decided to go to the Arab side of town to a mall and I met a man and he asked us what are you doing here with the roses very kindly. I  told him. We are here to spread peace and tell everyone we’re praying for Israel, praying for peace and for the return of the hostages. We love you and God loves you and he asked if we were Christians and I said yes. He told me he was a Christian and then he said what we need more prayer for is that we have more Christians have access to share the Gospel to the Arabs and the Jews. So can you please pray for that? Better access to the Arabs and the Jews and that just broke my heart. I said absolutely! We will pray for you Christians here that you will have access to Arabs and Israelis.

Then I met a female soldier who was on leave and she used her phone to translate what she wanted to ask. We had a nice conversation. She was there with her grandmother, I believe, and I told her that we’re praying for you soldiers; for your peace and protection and she was very grateful

She has friends from the States and she wants to come live in America. She was very grateful for just a rose she said it blessed her. This was all over the phone through text she was showing me on her phone through text she’d type  out and then showed me her phone.

Mike, don’t go breaking my heart. NOTE: I couldn’t if I tried.

LURA:

Hi, everyone. Just like to give you a little testimony of something that was wonderful to me that happened today, September 24th, on our outreach. At around 10:30 this morning, we went to a mall very near where we were staying and it was a cheerful place and kind of busy because everyone was getting lunch and shopping.

Sally was set up near the center of the open area And I was standing near her under a canopy. There were several ladies that I’d given roses to. And one lady came up to talk to m. Her name is Olga. She said thank you for the rose and she asked why we were giving them. I said, well we came from the States and we wanted the people from Israel to know that we love them and we are praying for them and that we stand with them. And she said oh that’s so nice and she wanted to know where I was from and I told her Arizona and she said well I lived in the states for a short time and then I came back to Israel.

My daughter’s still there. And I said, “Oh, are you going to go and visit your daughter soon?” And she said, “Well, she didn’t know because the airfare was quite high right now, but she was hoping after the holidays that maybe the airfare would go down.” And I said, “Well, what about your daughter is she coming to visit you?” And she said, “Well, she can’t leave the States right now because she needs a kidney. Her name is Hannah, and she’s on the transplant list.

But she said Hannah told her that she couldn’t leave the States and come home to Israel to visit because if they called her and she couldn’t come to the hospital she would lose her chance at a transplant. So I asked Olga if I could pray for her daughter and so

I prayed that Hannah would be able to come home, that her kidney transplant would be successful, and that she would have no complications from it–that she would stay strong and healthy until that transplant occurred. Then I prayed also for Olga to have a good ticket price, and that she would be able to go home in November the way she wanted to and she was so appreciative. It really blessed me to be able to pray for her and we hugged and then we parted.

ROBERT:

Our second day in Haifa handing out roses and we had many incredible experiences. It’s been a little bit harder in Haifa because of the language barrier. Many people don’t speak English the way many did in Tel Aviv, so it was a little bit more difficult to get into conversations,

Nearly everybody received roses with such joy and happiness and it was really touching in many ways handing roses to many people who were Russian Jews that have lived here for various lengths of time.

At one point I was handing out roses to people that were getting off the bus and going on to a bus. We were by an intersection with a stop light and from time to time we’d hand out roses to people who were stopped at the light. There was one time I handed a rose to a lady with very few words and I saw her reading the card and as the light turned green and she put the rose down she had the most incredible smile on her face.

I so wish I had a camera to capture that moment. It just really confirmed to me that the words that are written on the card are from God and there are certain people that just so totally get it. It’s so touching to see their heart response, and they so need it.

ANNIE:

It was day two in Haifa. We went to the outdoor market where Sally set up her keyboard and worshiped. There was an older gentleman sitting at a table in an outdoor restaurant area. I gave him the rose. He thanked me and read it.

He asked Where I was from, was very touched that we’d come from America to do this. He asked for another rose and gave it to another friend of his that walked up right then. He told  the friend what we were doing. His friend smiled and nodded his approval. Soon there were four men around that table with the roses. A few minutes later I needed water and I looked at their table where there were water bottles. He said, “You want the rose back?”  I answered, No, I was wondering where I can buy water.”

He immediately reached over and got a spare water that hadn’t been opened. His friend unsealed and opened it for me and they gave me their water bottle with a smile. There was such warmth. I smiled and thanked him. So many people were confused, then took them with big smiles and hands on hearts or thank yous! We always led with “Mayans”- which means “Free” or “Shalom”.

Some who spoke English would ask and we could tell them whatever God led us to say.

And such appreciation. There were a few at this market who didn’t like what we were doing. One man tried to grab my rose from me. He had a handful of them and he was angrily yelling something in another language. Then he walked away. But that was the exception, not the rule.

Another man said, “Are you a Christian when he saw the roses?” And I said, “Yes.” He says, “I’m a Jew. No–and it waved away the roses. S. I said, “God bless you.” But many more soldiers, Arabs, Jewish people took those roses and were so blessed. Saying thank you , that this meant so much to them.

One young lady was just saying that this was a beautiful thing we do. I told her we have a beautiful God!

Twice, young men that we gave roses to turned out to be Christians. The one young man was asking me about, I said, “We’ve come from America to share the love of Jesus.” He stood there while two other younger men came up, probably in their 20s.

And asked what this was, I saw he spoke English, and so I read the English portion of the card. The Christian young man stood there the whole time, and I’m sure he was praying. They smiled and thanked me and walked away. The Christian young man went on and talked to Sally.

KAREN:

This afternoon we were handing out roses at a mall and I was handing one out to a man who asked where we were from in the U.S.  He spoke English , almost without an accent. Turns out, he was born in Israel but immigrated to Canada when he was 17 and lived there for 20 years before returning to Israel.

He was very pleased and blessed with what we were doing. And thought it was wonderful. However, he was very concerned for our safety. We told him we knew to go inside a building if the sirens went off and understood that the shrapnel that came down was quite dangerous. Because he is a Canadien citizen, he can return anytime, but wants to stay here until all the fighting is over. So he may be here a long time. He just kept blessing us.

SALLY:

Evi and I were giving out roses on our way to the mall this afternoon and we encountered a guy who wanted to know, “Why are you doing this?” We started to explain to him and he was pretty amazed and touched that we would come from America at this time to do this small act of kindness, of bringing something beautiful into an environment so pressured and stressed. I can’t remember all the words he said, but he was very touched and moved.

And then I encountered these six guys in a restaurant. And one of the guys, said, yeah,  I want a rose. He didn’t say it in that language. But he reached out his hand for a rose.

And I gave all of them each a rose. And he also was very moved. He wanted to know where we were from in the States and why we were doing this. And a lot of my answer revolves around that God loves you and he loves Israel and he has not forgotten Israel. And it’s very touching to not just the Israelis but the Israeli Arabs. The Arabs who are Israeli citizens, are committed to Israel.

There was one other interesting guy, toward the end of the day,. He came up to me, and he was a Christian. He had already received a rose, and he said, “ This is the most Christian thing I’ve seen anybody ever do in Israel,” And that was really an amazing statement, very touched by that.

Personally, I had a lot of fun jumping on a bus and giving the bus driver a rose and begging him for a little time while I gave some roses to each person on the bus. I did that like seven or eight times. One time I got trapped for a moment but you know he let me go. That was a lot of fun.

But I think. the most touching thing happened during lunch. A lot of us ended up at this little restaurant near another shuk area and this young woman actually owns the restaurant. Her name is Hanan, I think, she’s Muslim, but she was raised actually in a lot of Jewish schools and has a love for the Jewish people actually. She sent her children to Jewish schools and everything and so we went in and we started to order and a lot of people by this time had seen our t-shirts and had roses, so word was getting around., And there were like three roses in one of her jars and in the restaurant. So anyway, I told her I’m the bank I didn’t say it that way but that’s what we’re calling me right now–the bank and that I was covering everybody that decided to eat there that was wearing a shirt like mine. So anyway, she was very hospitable. I mean, she not only gave us what we ordered, but then she gave us extras without charging.

So Hanan was very generous and she gave us more than we asked for and she did it on her dime, so to speak because it’s her restaurant. She’s very kind, very generous. A very sweet young woman, not young young, but probably in her 30s, maybe a little older. So anyhow, we were thanking her and she wanted to understand a little more about A Tour of Roses and why we were doing it. And we gave her some explanation, But, it was difficult because she only spoke broken English. Very broken English, with gaps in her understanding. But anyway, then I paid for the lunch and like I said she had given us many freebies, so I tipped her, I tipped her very well and she was actually very touched by that.

You know we didn’t have to do that but I wanted to show her gratitude and so she was touched by that– also. the generosity.  Then Khalida came with Ingeborg and started talking to her in Arabic and explaining more to her about a tour of roses but she wanted to know more of the story like how we began this, why we did this, all of this. So Khalida and I are planning to go back and talk to Hanan some more, so I’d really appreciate prayer for that. It feels like Hanan is very eager and she’s very moved by what we’re doing and she’s never seen anything like this. So yeah, just be praying for her.

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PHOTOS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kind of beautiful, is it not, for a war torn land?

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ITINERARY