Pictures from our Israeli road trip....

1. Bethlehem

2. Ibex in En Gedi

3. Hidden Waterfall in En Gedi

4. Paul swimming in En Gedi

5. Mud

6. Dead Sea

7. Jordan river

8. Mount of Beatitudes

9. Banias falls

10. Nimrods Fortress

More photos are on the flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/la-merla/

Our last week in Israel...

We have less than a week left here in the land of Israel! We are very sad to be leaving this place and all our wonderful friends here! The past few weeks have been so full...here is a small recap.

Last week we traveled, spent a few nights in Jerusalem with our friends from SEND. Went on a day trip to Bethlehem. Spent a night in En Gedi, went to Masada and took a dip in the Dead Sea. We then drove up north to a city called Katzrin (in the Golan) where a sweet Pastor named Steve put us up in their ministry apartment. The next day was a busy one as we tried to see as much as we could....we did good though, hit up ten biblical sites in one day! We returned to Tel Aviv late Friday night and moved in with an Egyptian family from the church that we are close with. They have been so kind to us and we have so enjoyed living with them! We will be spending the next week serving and trying to meet up with all our friends before we leave on Tuesday!

As we have been reflecting on all the Lord has done these past months we have been so overwhelmed by Him. We did not know what these months were going to look like before we came, we just came in faith knowing that this is where the Lord wanted us to be. Yet now seeing all that the Lord done in these short months...we believe the fruit of this season we will be eating from for a long time to come. The Lord has so enlarged our hearts; He has established wonderful friendships and has taught us many truths about Himself. In this season we have gleaned many things, been refined and inspired to go even deeper.

The Lord has opened many doors before us regarding the next step in this journey of life. We are very excited about all these opportunities and to see where the Lord will lead us next! Life with Jesus is an adventure, fresh and exciting, its unpredictable in many ways but the one thing that is always predictable is the fact that we serve an awesome God who is radical, always faithful and worthy! His works are marvelous in our eyes!

Thank you all so much for all you love, support and prayers! We are blessed to know that there are people back home in the states praying for us....how much more is the Lord blessed to hear the prayers His saints! Love you all and we will see you soon!

Thanksgiving in Israel

More Pictures...

To see more pictures click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/la-merla/

A little clip of practicing Hebrew worship...with the help of our translator! haha its hard!

Rabin Peace Rally 2009

Rabin was a prime minister of Israel who was assassinated right after he gave a speech in Tel-Aviv on peace. Every year they hold a peace rally in his remembrance in a place that is now known as Rabin Square.

We went to square early before the event and went around with our friend Chaim interviewing people for a video that he was producing. You can watch the video below, if you notice the hand holding the microphone is Becca's hand!

1. The place where Rabin was shot.

2. AROMA!!! yum

3. Us in the crowd at the rally.

4. Cool sign for the gathering.

Sudanese outreach

The last two weeks we helped out our friend Mo. who serves with a ministry that distributes food and other essentials to African refugees here. It's been amazing to see nearly 400-500 families be served each week. There are many many more people that need help, but this is the limit of what this ministry can handle!

We helped them last week distribute diapers to women with small children, and or women that are pregnant. Hundreds of women came, and were very thankful to receive these gifts. These pictures are of a few of the babies they brought with them.

This week we helped them distribute food. Each family gets a bag of food with oil, rice, pasta, flour, and a bag of peanuts for the week. We helped them bag and distribute these on Tuesday. Hopefully we will be helping this ministry every week.

Soup Kitchen

We've been so blessed to be able to serve the poor here in Israel in very practical ways. The last three Thursdays we have helped serve the poor and homeless at CC-Tel Aviv with food, clothing and blankets. Unfortunately there was a very intense thunderstorm which caused some leakage, and water damaged some of the clothes last week, but some people from the states randomly came and donated clothes so we have more to give away this week!

Last week a man at the soup kitchen named Zoar that was incredibly drunk, and ended up passing out on the ground right outside the Congregation. After the soup kitchen was over they woke him up and he replied saying, "I can't live like this anymore!" This is true because every year many of these people don't make it. There is a new rehabilitation program that has just started that is a Christ and Bible centered. Its focused on reaching those who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and sharing the love of Jesus with them..They asked Zoar if he wanted to enter the program, and he said yes. We just heard this week that he is doing well and has accepted Jesus! Please pray for him and others like him.

*Most of these people don't like being photographed, so we want to respect them. There are about 100 people that come each week, most of them are Russian Jews that have immigrated here.*

Thank you all for your prayers!!! Love you!

A few photos of our apartment! The Lord is so good!

Hezekiah's Tunnel

Jerusalem

1. View of the Temple Mount

2. The Western Wall

3. Silwan and City of David

4. Our new friend....bought some rad sandals from him.

5.Via Dolorosa

6 and 7. Dome of the Rock

8. City of David

9. Hezekiah's Tunnel

10. Me and Robin leading worship on Shabbat

We wanted to thank you all for your prayers....the Lord has provided an apartment for us for the month of November! (Thanks Chaim) Its such a blessing, beautiful...affordable and right in the center of the city! Praise the Lord!

This past week we had the opportunity to stay in Jerusalem at SEND's apartment (Becca's old apartment that she used to live in when she went to Bible College). It's located right near Old City, so we got to walk around and see all the sites. We saw the Temple mount, the Mount of Olives, the Garden Tomb, the Western Wall, the City of David, Hezekiah's tunnel and many other Biblical sites. It was such an amazing time for us to walk where Jesus walked!

On Shabbat (Saturday) I was asked to lead worship with our friend Robin at the Calvary Chapel Tel-Aviv, which went really well. I'm going to be leading worship there for the remainder of our stay here.

The soup kitchen has been going well, we distribute clothes and food to the poor here in Tel-Aviv. The winter is starting and it's s beginning to get cold, it's really important these people get warm clothes and blankets. Every winter many of the homeless here don't make it...please be praying for these dear people.

One of our friends here has an outreach and distribution of relief to the Sudanese refugee's here this week so we are hoping to be able to help with that. Also a team from California is coming this week to help out at CC Tel Aviv and we are going to be doing an outreach with them on the beach next Shabbat.

Love you all....miss you all. Thanks again for all your prayers!

Shalom,

Sha'ul

Our Hostel, Downtown Tel Aviv, Old Jaffa, Paul's 1st Shwarma and our first Shabbat!

1. Downtown Tel Aviv

2. Hostel Mugraby

3. The door to our room....pretty cool!

4. Hostel room

5 -6. Beach at Tel Aviv

7-9 . Old Jaffa

10. Simon the Tanners House

11-12. Jaffa Port and Opera tower

13 -14. Busy Tel Aviv street and Paul's first Shwarma

15. Shabbat Dinner

16. First service at CC Tel Aviv