I N T E R N A T I O N A L S . 2 0 1 0

 

"I was glad when they said to me, 'come, let us go to the house of the Lord!'"

 

This morning was our first morning in Jerusalem.  We had an early show so we had to leave our hotel around 9 to get to our base on time.  Sorry no details about this base...however the performance was just amazing and G-d moved in a very powerful way, and in many different people, some of them unexpected.  Day time performances for the Internationals have a little bit of a different feel than our usual night time shows.  The soldiers are not usually as enthusiastic, on the other hand every base and every soldier is different.  The soldiers today were not as energetic throughout the whole program as some of our other performances have been on this tour but at the end of the show and after talking with them for a long time it was incredible to see how God touched them.  We were also honored to have at our show today the mother of three sons.  Two of her sons have been killed in battle, and the third is going into the army very shortly and will be serving in the same unit as his older brothers.  After the first son was killed in battle, the father of this family suffered a heart attack and died due to grief.  One of our shows in the north was for the unit that the middle son served in.  One of our shows in the south was at the base he was operating out of when he was killed, so during this tour we were able to perform for many of the soldiers and people connected to this story.  Shimon knew the mother and arranged for her to come to our show, it was remarkable!  She was very thankful and spoke a few words at the end of our show hopefully if we can pull it off the video we can get the text of what she said on to one of our last posts.  When we danced with the soldiers at the end of our show to "Machiac", she joyfully joined us and danced for the duration of the song!  What an incredible woman!

 

There were other ways that G-d moved today through our show.  This was our last performance here, and for the last couple of shows our wonderful sound guys, Yoav, Shai, and Samuel had been making comments like they were kind of sad that it was going to be over.  Today when the show was over they shared their hearts with us and with the soldiers who were watching and it was really incredible.  They explained how they had loved this 2 weeks, and enjoyed being around us so much, how they realized again how important it was to be an Israeli in their own land and that the Lord was with them.  One of them told us how he was bitter at the country for what he had to go through in his military experience, how it was frustrating to live here because of political corruption and world pressure, but after spending the 2 weeks doing shows with us he was having a change of heart and looking at being an Israeli in a different perspective.  Many times during this tour before going on the stage for a certain song or dance you could see Samuel, eyes glued to who ever was on stage with a peaceful smile on his face enjoying every second of it.  They made several comments like "This is the best show that we have ever worked for, we don't need Elvis Costello or the Pixie's, you guys are the best, and we got to see your whole tour for free and loved all it..."  Its very humbling to hear people say that, and we can only stand in awe of what G-d does with clean and willing vessels, after hearing them speak their hearts today, all of us left the base feeling extremely honored to be called to this ministry and that we could be given this opportunity here, in Israel!

 

After leaving the base we went to Beit El, which in Hebrew translates to the House of God.  Beit El is where Abraham stopped after being in Be're Sheva, and probably more commonly known as the place where Jacob had the dream of the angels climbing and descending the stair case up and down from heaven and where he wrestled with the angel and made him bless him before leaving.  We learned after Jacob was blessed concerning his descendants and the land, he took the rock that he had been using as a pillow and stood it up right and poured oil on it as an offering to the Lord and as a reminder of G-d's promise to Abraham concerning the covenant.  In an act of faith we all built our own alters to the Lord concerning the promises of G-d in our own lives, and we believed that He put them in our hearts, and that those promises will come to pass!

 

Our final stop of the day after a long time in traffic was a place called Nebe Samuel.  It is the highest point in the region and has spectacular views of the northwest side and the eastern hilltops of Jerusalem.  This is also the place where the prophet Samuel is buried.  Recent excavation of the area indicates a substantial settlement from the first temple period. 

 

As I'm writing this my friends are shopping it up on Ben Yehuda st because our show was this morning...this tour has been incredible, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and our good friends here in Israel the song selection of our show this year was right on, the show itself really built to the end and everyone who saw it seemed to really love it and enjoy it.  G-d really gave Cheryl great words of encouragement and hope when she spoke and people were deeply moved.  I hope that we have conveyed that in this blog.  Be sure to talk with people who were here on this trip and listen to the stories they have and that they experienced in person.

 

We are working on getting more pictures up as fast as we can, it has been a bit of a challenge the last few days mostly because of technical difficulties. 

 

Blessings from the city of the Great King, Jerusalem!