A Tour Of Roses Israel, Day 9

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

Given the circumstances and heightened tension of their surroundings, the Team’s first day in Haifa was relatively peaceful. The sirens only blared once to send our men and women to the local bomb shelter. Just another day in Paradise, I guess. Meantime, A Tour Of Roses hit the streets of Haifa with thrilling and heartwarming results. So let’s hear from them directly.

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TESTIMONIES

ANNIE:

We have had our 1st day passing out roses in Haifa. It has been, exhilarating in the gratitude, in the tears, and in the just plain joy we saw. I had about 3 dozen roses, and each person that took one we received smiles, much gratitude, sometimes tears and hugs. At one point, I looked over and saw one of our team, Robert, giving one to a man, middle aged man in a car. And after he left, the man was just beaming. He was so touched.

There were several older women, some that couldn’t speak any English, just touching their hearts and thanking me again and again, and pointing to the card. And this one of them was saying things like “This.  You do this- you do this means so much.” and grabbing my hand. It was so touching.

And then I happen to go by a store. There was a young girl. I sent pictures of her and me and a couple other women, whom she had grabbed to give the roses – to Michael, after she had read the card, she was so excited.! She wanted me to pass them out to everybody in that shop , explaining to them what we were doing to everyone that works there.

All these women were so touched, and then couples would walk in. I gave roses to them. The ones who could speak in English were saying thank you. Thank you so much, and this is beautiful. And this girl just was dragging me around, the young girl. She was like my own personal evangelist getting other girls to take them. So, anyway, there’s a picture of that, but it was so heartwarming and touching because we had not known what we would encounter in Haifa because there’s a lot more tension here.

But all that we encountered was God’s love being poured out on these people and these people being overwhelmed that we would come at such a time as this and do this for them.

DAVE:

Today, we went out in two groups. Sally’s group went to the predominantly Jewish part of town and me and a small group went to the predominantly Arab side of town.

We were able to go to the local ambulance station and give out roses to the paramedics and the EMTs. That was such a blessing. They were so happy to receive the roses and hear our message. Khalida was able to go in and give it to the acting supervisor and his assistant. It was amazing.

And then we went to a mall and as we were going in, I met a young lady who was filming and she asked me why we are doing this. And I told her we’re from the United States, we’re here to share love, tell you that we’re praying for Israel, that God loves you and we love And then she filmed herself with me saying she couldn’t believe that we would come from the States to show this love to the people. It was an amazing time. So praise God for many hearts that were touched.

Also, Mike, I know you said, keep the mushy stuff to myself, but I just can’t. Love you, Mike.

NOTE: You’re ruining my street cred, Dave.

EVI:

We walked through some of the streets in Haifa today and went toward some bus stops and a market and outside the market we gave some roses to a couple of men who were Jewish They stopped us and just expressed how grateful they were that we would come all the way from America to be here at this time. They were so gracious and wonderful and they just seemed so happy that we were here and getting that reception from any of the people is always very heartwarming. It wasn’t the only time that we’ve heard that and each time it’s very special to us. It seems like it puts a big exclamation point on the reason we’re here.

KAREN:

Today, when we were passing out roses, we came up to a man in a car wash who was waiting while they were washing the cars. He thanked us and was touched. He said that he loved that we bring roses instead of bombs. Then he was very concerned about us, and in the event that there should be sirens, he said he wanted to make sure we knew to get inside the building, the closest building. He was just so concerned about us. And this is just love going back and forth.

And we’ve learned, even when we don’t speak the same language, that there is love and appreciation

KHAHLIDA:

As we were handing out flowers on the street today, we passed an Ambulance Station. And we started giving roses to the guys. And one of the guys was an Arab man. He said, “Come, come, come, I want you to give roses to them–to my bosses. I went with him inside the building and I gave roses to his bosses.

One is Jewish and one is an Arab. I gave them both roses and they were very happy. Everyone in the office got a rose also and he said, “Look, we are Arabs and Jews. We don’t hate each other. We worked together and we work well together.” And it was just so beautiful to see.

We just gave all our roses to the guys and, in the end, he didn’t have one. I was about to leave and I asked him did you get one and he said no and I went back and I found one. It was just really beautiful to see how the Arabs and Jews worked together in peace and mutual respect.

ROBERT:

This was our first outing in Haifa. We walked a bit, trying to find where all the people were at. We had heard stories that people weren’t going to be out on the street very much because of the potential for having rockets fired into the Haifa area. And so, we found a few people, Then we talked to one gentleman who spoke really good English. And he directed us to go to this grocery store. It turned out there was kind of a square with a number of shops around the grocery store, so we gave out roses there.

I talked to one lady and asked her if she spoke English and she said yes. So we talked a while and I found out she was from Romania and I gave her a rose. She was a little hesitant at first, but as we talked she understood its purpose, and she was really appreciated it.  Then one of her friends walked by and I tried to give her a rose and she didn’t want it and she didn’t speak English.

But then she sat down next to this lady I’d been speaking to and they kind of had this conversation that I couldn’t understand the language. But I could tell she was saying why aren’t you taking a rose? Take it, take it. And I gave her one. They had a conversation over it and I could see the countenance of the lady that just sat down change. As they talked about what the rose card meant one of the ladies asked “Mesheach?” And I said yes and they kind of nodded like it’s okay. As I left the ladies were still talking about the card and the rose and waved goodbye to me.

YARA:

Today, we got to give out roses. We split up into two groups. Half of us went to the Jewish side of the neighborhood, and the other half got to go to the Arab side. So people on the Arab side received them very well.

We turned the corner, we saw a bunch of ambulances and realized that there was a ambulance station there. And they saw us with the roses and they called us over. There was about 20 people out there, and it was both Arabs and Jews working together. And they were very touched by the fact that we came from the States to tell them that we love them, that God loves them, that we’re praying for them, and they were very touched by the free gift of a rose. We were touched to see them.

Working together and they said they wanted peace and we said we were praying for the peace for everyone in Israel . Later in the day while we were just taking a little rest we were hearing bombs going off in the distance, so we had a little bit of excitement today. But I’m very grateful to all of all of my prayer partners.

Thank you to Yvette , Patty, Eurka, Mary Jane, my dad, my sister and Carolina. thank you for everyone for praying, I know God is keeping us safe, He’s kept us safe, and I know He will continue to keep us safe, so thank you so much everyone for praying, God is making a way here for us to minister to the people.

 

The team is hard at work cleaning the roses, taking off the bad petals, stripping the thorns away and tying the cards to the finished product with a lovely blue ribbon.
You didn’t think The Rose Fairies™ did this for us, did you?

 

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ITINERARY