EGN NEWS DESK
Gerald McDermott, an American Anglican priest and retired professor of theology, had visited Israel 22 instances earlier than his most up-to-date journey. The writer of two books on Christian Zionism and the which means of Israel to Christianity, he was invited to affix a mission in late January to point out solidarity with the Israeli folks within the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas bloodbath.
“I’d seen many of the Oct. 7 movies,” McDermott mentioned, referring to footage of the atrocities dedicated by Hamas at a number of kibbutzim and a dance party close to Israel’s border with Gaza on that heat autumn day. The assault left 1,200 folks in Israel dead and 240 held hostage in Gaza.
But nothing ready McDermott, he mentioned, for encountering the scene at Kibbutz Nir Oz, the place Hamas entered the house of the Bibas household and tortured them earlier than kidnapping them.
“You see all of the blood on the partitions, the bullet holes, the newborn’s toys,” McDermott mentioned the day after he and dozens of different pastors from around the globe visited. “What we noticed in dwelling shade was the hatred that Satan himself has for the Jewish folks. Satan hates the Jews as a result of he is aware of God loves them. Satan resides in and galvanizing Hamas,” McDermott asserted.
The mission, organized by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, included a go to to Sderot, a Gaza border metropolis that has sustained quite a few rocket assaults by Hamas prior to now 20 years. The group additionally went to northern Israel, from the place tens of 1000’s of Israeli residents have been displaced by missiles launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The contributors, who hail from 18 international locations, heard eyewitness testimony from bloodbath victims and a few of the family members of the 136 Israelis nonetheless being held captive.
The variety of guests to Israel has decreased dramatically since its conflict with Hamas started. Airlines have decreased the variety of fights, and the lodges have been filled with evacuees. But in December, teams of evangelical Christians started to reach, in keeping with those that have organized the journeys.
“In the previous two months we have seen dozens, if not lots of, of Christian teams coming to Israel,” mentioned Josh Reinstein, director of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus, a not-for-profit group that encourages help for Israel amongst politicians and religion leaders overseas.
Since Oct. 7, evangelical Christians have donated tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to Israel’s first responders and nongovernmental organizations that help conflict victims.
“Christians, and never solely in America, are supporting Israel like by no means earlier than,” Reinstein mentioned, pointing to pro-Israel rallies sponsored by Christians in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. In the U.S. particularly, evangelical Christians actively foyer lawmakers to help Israel. Prominent American evangelicals made their voices heard loudly at November’s March for Israel on the National Mall in Washington.
Pastor Lisa Powell, the founding father of Lisa Powell Ministries International in Corona, California, mentioned she got here to Israel in January on her thirty eighth go to “to essentially see what I may do for the folks right here and pray about how we is usually a blessing in a extra tangible approach.”
Because the group stayed in a Jerusalem lodge that’s internet hosting dozens of evacuee households from Sderot, Powell had the chance to take a seat with them and find out about how they’re dealing with loss and displacement.
“That actually pulled on my coronary heart,” Powell mentioned. “I’m a grandmother of 18 and likewise a great-grandmother. Entire households are staying in a single lodge room. They are in a state of trauma, however they’re sturdy, strengthened by being collectively as a group. Under another circumstances they’d be in a refugee camp, however the Israeli authorities is helping them.”
Given the broad help for Gaza’s Palestinians amongst many younger folks, Powell hopes to deliver a delegation of Christian school college students to Israel to allow them to expertise the nation for themselves. “They solely know what they see within the media and on TikTok, which is focusing on the youthful technology to disillusion them and to show them towards Israel,” the religion chief mentioned.
Nick Hansen, the co-pastor of a Pentecostal church in Denmark, was in Israel on Oct. 7 to rejoice the Feast of the Tabernacles. While the shock of that day has subsided, he mentioned, “there may be now a somberness, a silence, a void with out pleasure and with out peace,” in Israel. “Everyone appears to be on excessive alert, on guard for the subsequent assault.”
Hansen mentioned he felt compelled to come back on the mission with the opposite pastors to see the carnage for himself. “Sitting in Europe and watching the information, we wonder if Israel goes too far. Being right here, you perceive the sheer evil of Oct. 7. It was a celebration of dying, a brutality that does not exist even in nature,” he mentioned.
Pastor Ken Soltys, the founding father of Ken Soltys Ministries in Hayesville, North Carolina, mentioned he was deeply affected by the pastors’ encounters with the households of Israeli hostages in a Jerusalem lodge. Shelly Shem-Tov described the kidnapping of her son Omer Shem-Tov, explaining that he has bronchial asthma and celiac illness.
“Omer is our youngest. We name him our sunshine. He’s an excellent boy who went to a competition to bop,” the mom advised the pastors. “I hope you’ll go residence and inform your group our story. I hope this nightmare will finish and I’ll hug my sunshine.”
© Religion News Service
