Day 11 - May 21 - Shabbat

My Journal Entry:

Went to Bet-(insert Hebrew name that I forgot here) church this morning and met a group of American guys around our age who are getting their education in Israel! (Mordecai, Moshe, David, and a couple others whose names I didn't get.) Used a translator headset for the first time, and the pastor talked about how Elijah fell to his lowest state after a great victory, but God didn't give up on him, and He still had a job for him to do. We had lunch at a restaurant after that, then went to Johnathon G.'s house to change for outreach (he does ministry in Israel and I think is connected with our main contact, Bill R.). This was probably the most fun and exciting outreach I've ever done - we stood on a median at an intersection at the Golani Junction with tracts in our hands, and whenever the light turned red, we would run out into the cars and give tracts to all of the drivers! Apparently this is a common advertising technique in Israel, so most people were more than happy to roll down their windows and receive our "matanah", or "gift" to them. :) It was scary at first because I thought I was going to die the first time the light turned green on us, but once we figured out the system, it was REALLY fun! We were all split up into different groups to cover the huge area of the intersection. My group had three lanes in our section, all going the same way and sandwiched between two medians, but one of them was a turning lane and had a separate light from the other two. Heather and I were on the sidewalk on the left covering the turning lane and one other. Caleb stood on the median getting cars in the far right lane, and the lanes beyond him never stopped at all. Most people in our lanes were really open to it, a few young guys were really excited about it (probably more about the cute girls handing out the tracts that the literature itself), and some didn't want to take them - although I could usually win over the gullible ones. ;) I would hand the tract to them with the front showing, and if they refused, after a little persistence, I would flip over the stack of tracts and offer them the back side... and most people would then roll down their windows and take my "second" flier! LOL! We had our last performance at the Promenade and did a little shopping at the stands in the area afterward. Oh, and down by the docks, we saw a river otter! (Which I personally like to think of as a large rat, as we first presumed it to be. Reepicheep in Israel!) Sleep now, touring with Paul by the Sea of Galilee tomorrow!

Mr. Wilson's Details:

After Sabbath service, our main host Bill R. took us to Golani Junction, a major crossroads not far west of the Sea of Galilee. Here thousands of cars pass through at the end of the Israeli weekend, heading back home from various recreational, religious, and family-related activities. Bill provided some 2,100 tracts with the gospel message in Hebrew, plus some Arabic materials, for the students to pass out as cars stopped at the red lights there. (This is much more common in Israel than it would be in the States.)

The team passed out the material in less than two hours, and now over 2,000 seeds of the gospel are spread throughout much of Israel! Pray that some will have fallen on good ground, as the parable of the sower describes. Part of the literature is an invitation to go to the web site www.yeshua.co.il/, maintained by the Messianic congregation in Jerusalem, where we worshiped a week ago. Check it out!

This evening we were back on the Tiberias waterfront for our third evening of street ministry between the nightly water and laser shows. Every kind of person stops to watch, from American and other international tourists, to the most conservative orthodox Jews, to Muslims with their families.