Shevet Achim

We had our "vespers" service a day early this week (meaning it was today) and the speaker was a man from Shevet Achim. For those of you who don't speak Hebrew, that phrase is taken from Psalm 133 where it talks about the beauty of brothers dwelling in unity. Shevet Achim is a Christian ministry in Israel that brings children with various heart diseases and malformations from Iraq, Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank to Israel (Jerusalem) to have surgery. They're are a few hopitals and surgeons here who do the surgery at a greatly reduced rate. It's really pretty amazing. They obviously cross some huge boundaries. It wasn't so long ago, according to our speaker, that Iraqis who came to Israel for any "friendly" reason would basically committing a crime worth of death (against Iraq). The Israeli surgeons who do the surgeries have reason to distrust people from all of these places, and the Arabs and Kurds have reason to distrust anyone Jewish. For that matter, none of them care much for Christians. So think what a huge ministry opportunity this is. Not only are children's lives saved, but it is a chance to bring Jews and Muslims and Christians together in an environment that is condusive to reconcilliation at some level. It is a chance for the believers who work with this ministry to share their faith and the love of Christ with the doctors and nurses who help the children and also with the families as they wait for their children to (hopefully) heal. Tonight the man (Alex) specifically asked us to pray for Ali, a young boy who recently had surgery and is not recovering. He seems to be slowly slipping away. Alex also asked prayer for the boy's father, Hussein.

It was a really touching presentation. Alex invited all of us to come down some day and play with the kids, and I'd really love to do that at some point. I don't have a very good idea of what I want to do with my life after this (far too many options!) but I am pretty sure that I want to be with children/youth in some capacity. How that will pan out, I don't know, but there you have it.

In other, tangentially related, news... It's kind of funny, but all the time someone will mention some ministry or government position or just random things, and someone else will say, "Oh, yeah, there's a JUC graduate working there." So, apparently JUC graduates are everywhere (including one at Shevet Achim).