#HOPE

As I sit in my hotel room to reflect on the day’s events in Israel the big word that jumps out to sum is up is #HOPE. I use a hashtag because it is too big a word to narrow it down to one finite thing but instead it encompasses an endless list of things hoped for. As we started today we walked the Rabbinic tunnels under the Muslim settlements and laid hands on the Western Wall you could feel #hope in the prayers of hundreds to a God that would accept all that they have done as good enough. As we walked the courtyard around the Dome of the Rock I felt #hope for peace even as Muslims shouted at groups of Jews, proclaiming their god is the greatest god. I think that #hope is a distant reality. Later on in the day we walked the Mount of Olives where I felt #hope in overcoming a lack of self-worth and an abundant fear to live for the fulfillment of my orders from the King. Silently we walked the Garden of Gethsemane; you couldn’t help but #hope that the King would return quickly and finally prove once and for all that Jesus is the Messiah. When we reached Bethlehem, #hope of restoration ran across my mind that one day Israelis could live in peace with the Palestinian people instead of being fearful of death, as the sign we drove by read. Our final journey of #hope came when we walked the Holocaust Memorial. It was the #hope of remembrance for the next generation of past lives lost, so it would never happen again. A #hope that good people would speak up and act, so evil would run and hide. On this day in Israel I have never felt so #hopeful.

-Tony A. Rodriguez

I am not going to lie, this day was really heavy on my heart. There were a few things we experienced that were hard for me to swallow, so to speak. The first was when we were on the Temple Mount, and saw a group of religious Jews walking toward the exit as religious Muslim’s followed behind them shouting “Allah is the greatest!”. Second was when we drove across the Palestinian border with a sign that read Israelis do not cross into Palestinian territory, it is dangerous to your lives and against Israeli Law. The last was walking through the Holocaust Museum, seeing the reality of what humans can accomplish while operating in their sin nature, and feeling a very real hatred toward sin. All of these experiences weighed heavily on my heart as I reflected on the day. I felt as if my joy in the Lord was being clouded by the palpable tension experienced today. And then I think of our time in the Garden of Gethsemane, how Jesus knew he was to be betrayed, and how he prayed for God’s will to be done even though it meant his death. Through my heavy heart I was reminded that Jesus is BIGGER than all of this. There is tension now, there will be more tension in the future. It will only get worse until the day Jesus returns. However, we have hope in Jesus because he handed himself over to be crucified, being completely obedient to the Father’s will. Through his obedience Jesus died and rose again, conquering sin and death and giving us a future hope for the day where there will be no more pain, no more conflict. So in the waiting time, while tension makes places like Bethlehem and Gaza uncomfortable and dangerous, we can be confident in the Lord, knowing that he will finish what he has started here in his Holy Land, and we can be obedient to our Heavenly Father, as our Savior was obedient. Thank you for your prayers and for following our journey!

- Jessica Arnold