The Vision Thing.

Proverbs 29:18 says "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

This verse was probably written by King Solomon, a leader who knew a thing or two about running a country.

George HW Bush, the 41st President of the United States, derided critics who said he didn't have any plans for what to do with America by calling it "The Vision thing." But as any serious student of Political history can tell you, if a leader doesn't have a goal that he or she can give the People (or followers) to shoot for, the nation or movement that person leads will quickly fall apart. Human beings are built to go forward, and if they aren't going forward to any specific goal they'll start going nowhere, fast.

That is what is happening in Israel today under the leadership of Ehud Olmert and the ironically named "Kadima" (Hebrew for Forward) Party.

Offering no goals to the People, and having no goals themselves except to stay in power, they are failing to give the Israeli public any motivation to move, and the Israeli public is allowing itself to fall into a self defeating lethargy that I'm afraid it will take something awful happening to shake us out of.

Unfortunately, this is also happening in the Believer community.

The leadership of the Community here in Israel doesn't have anything that could really be called a long term vision or plan. For that matter, there is so much division in the Body that there is no united effort of any kind.

The tools for creating and sustaining a long term, united effort are here. The most valuable resource being a large pool of second generation Sabra Israeli believers, the sons and daughters of those who came here over the years and blazed trails. These young people are in their 20's, many of them just out of the IDF. They speak fluent Hebrew (most of them also speak English) and know Israel and how to relate to Israelis from the inside. They are 110% Israeli.

There's just one problem.

No one is giving them any inspiration. No one is giving them any vision.

The result is that this precious and indispensable resource, which could be utilized in so many ways to spread the Gospel and build the Kingdom in Israel, is being frittered away or at best underutilized. Sporadic efforts at training and education and occasional youth conferences with little or no follow up are the best of what's going on. At worst, Sabra Israeli Believers are actually being encouraged to leave the country by parents who naturally think that they could have a better life in America or Europe, just like many non-Believer parents are doing.

This leads into a MUCH BIGGER problem in the Body worldwide. The psychotic aversion on the part of most pastors to use the "S" word.

What is the "S" word?

Sacrifice.

Yeshua talked a lot about sacrifice, including in one of His most famous sayings;

"If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me." (Luke 9:23)

In other words, the life of a Believer is not supposed to be fun or easy. It's hard work, and punishment, and sacrifice, and pain and suffering.

But what comes after will make it all worthwhile.

That's the Vision that Yeshua offered us, and it is the vision that far to many pastors and leaders of the Body, both here in Israel and worldwide, have ignored (and even turned upside down, e.g. the so called "Prosperity Teaching Movement.")

So I am asking, with all due respect, for the leadership of the Body here in the Land to please try and communicate this Vision to the members of the Body here in the Land, especially the young people. We are not on this Earth to have a good time, we're here to do a job. The fun will come later.

Burning Bibles.

Yesterday, reports came in that the mayor of Or Yehuda, a city near Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, held a public meeting in which he burned several copies of the Brit Chadeshah (New Testament.)

The story goes that an Evangelistic group had gone door to door in the small community giving people copies in whichever language was best for them (Russian, Hebrew, English, etc.)

The chief rabbi of Hod Hasharon naturally threw a fit about it, went to the mayor and demanded that he "do something." The mayor responded with a public burning of several copies.

Several of the Messianic leaders here in the Land have expressed fear that this is a very bad, ominous sign of worse to come.

I respectfully disagree.

For starters, this is an obvious case of a politician who was forced (probably against his inclination) to "do something" about a "problem" that he probably didn't think was much of a problem but which he couldn't ignore. I'm speculating here but the mayor of a typical city in Israel is swamped with problems from unpaid salaries of city workers to garbage collection to inadequate budgets and so most of them would rather not waste time with something like this. But the city rabbi can tell people not to vote for him, so when the rabbi tells him something is a problem, the mayor has to respond.

Second, there's no such thing as bad publicity. When you ban a book, or burn it, you generate interest in it and make people wonder what the big deal is. This makes people want to read it because people are naturally drawn to that which is forbidden.

Third, being a burner of books is NOT a good image to have. It makes you look weak and insecure. Only people who are afraid of ideas burn books, and that always makes people wonder what idea it is that you are so worried about and afraid of.

So to this incident I give a resounding PRAISE THE LORD! All things work together for good, and I personally hope that as many people hear about this as possible.

Things will never be the same. Ami Ortiz and the 20th of March, 2008.

March 20th 2008 started out like any other day for me. It probably started that way for you as well.

I woke up in the morning, grumbled my way through a quick breakfast, then walked down to the bus stop so I could get on a bus that would take me to work.

Work was basically the same that day too. Boring. Routine. Nothing unusual.

As the day was drawing to an end I was looking forward to going home for my afternoon routine of a shower, checking my email, eating supper and then reading a book until I went to bed. Maybe if one of my friends called we'd go do something.

But about an hour before quitting time a call came in from my friend Hillel's wife. He and I and one Russian guy are the only Believers at our job, and we do what we can to support each other.

The call was bad news. There had been an explosion at the home of my pastor, David Ortiz. His son Ami was severely wounded. This had only just happened so we didn't know how bad it was. The bomb had been delivered in a Purim holiday package such as Israelis often send to each other for the holiday. The suspicion was that it was an attack directed at the leader of the kehilah in Ariel by anti missionary types.

The next hour, the last hour of work, usually goes by pretty quick, but on that day it didn't.

I called and/or text messaged everyone I knew who prays to be praying for Ami and his parents. After that Hillel and I said a short prayer together. He's known the family for over 20 years and his youngest son and Ami have grown up together. Hillel was very distraught, and also very angry.

I wasn't angry but I was very nervous.

I have been close to violence before, but I have never been directly attacked myself. I have no idea how I'd react if I was. I don't think I want to find out.

Finally it was time for us to go home. On the bus Hillel told me he would change into his volunteer police uniform and meet me at the Ortiz apartment. The apartment I'm staying in at the moment is less then a block away from the Ortiz home, so I went home, quickly showered and changed and walked down there.

Yoav, one of the other men in our Kehilah, called and told me he'd soon be there and to wait for him before I talked to the police. This I did, and while I was waiting Eli, a volunteer from Texas who has been coming to our kehilah while he's been here, also walked up.

The police had the whole block taped off and only people who lived in the building were allowed to get close. One neighbor had had his vehicle parked under the apartment and the rear window had been smashed by a falling brick.

There was media from all over Israel there, taking video, interviewing neighbors and police and adding to the chaos and tension.

Dusty, the Ortiz's dog, was also wandering around and he bolted when I tried to pet him. Later we learned that he had temporarily lost his hearing and was acting in a very peculiar way.

Hillel came and was talking to his buddies from the city police. He told me what they knew, which wasn't much.

Soon Yoav arrived and together we went and talked to the police. David had been in communication with the police so they knew that Yoav was to be allowed to enter the apartment as soon as they were done gathering evidence. He told the them that Eli and I were also family friends and so we would also be allowed to enter.

Soon our beloved leader, Mayor Ron Nachman, arrived and spoke vigorously to the TV people. Shortly thereafter, most of them packed up and left.

That's one of the reasons he's beloved!

Then people gathered around him and he told the crowd what was going on, assured them that there was no need to panic, asked them to pray for the family, and then frankly suggested that they all to go home and let the professionals handle the rest.

I was very impressed. There aren't many politicians in this world who serve their constituents as well as Ron Nachman, mayor of Ariel.

It was getting late and we were hungry so Eli went to the Texas mini golf and got three burgers with fries for us. I knew we'd be better off eating before we went upstairs.

Finally, after the sun had gone down and almost everyone else had gone home, the police finished up and we went in.

The scene was pretty ghastly. There was lots of blood on the floor and lots of broken glass and furniture. The concrete walls also had lots of shrapnel holes and even the upstairs sliding glass doors had been blown out. The table itself, where the package had been sitting when it exploded, had a big ugly bite taken out of it, and the floor underneath had a gouge in it too.

The three of us looked at each other with the question of "where do we start" on every face.

I took a bunch of pictures because I knew the insurance company would want them and also, quite honestly, because the journalists instinct I have told me that I had an exclusive story here that a lot of people would want to know about. I ended up writing the story up in two Believer publications, and my pictures got used in others. I felt weird about advancing my journalistic career with a tragedy like this, but a colleague of mine assured me that I had nothing to feel bad about and that this is how it works.

I guess so.

We sat down for a quick prayer before we got started, and while we were praying another one of David's sons came in. He was on emergency leave from the Army. He looked at the scene for a few moments and then silently went into his room to change into civilian clothes. He and his buddy then took a few things that his parents needed and left to go to the hospital.

After the prayer time, I suggested that the first priority was to sweep up all the broken glass, because it made no sense for someone else to get hurt and broken glass is very dangerous. Also, I knew that we had to start somewhere and the important thing was to get the ball rolling.

So I started sweeping up in the living room, Eli went upstairs to clean up the patio and Yoav, bless him, cleaned up the blood in the kitchen. I am not a squeamish person, but I was happy to let him do that part just the same.

While we were working, a woman named Olga who is another one of David's neighbors came and asked what she could do to help. I told her that we only had one broom so if she had another one and could bring it that would be a big help. This she did and for about an hour the four of us swept up all the glass, took the broken pieces of furniture down to the dumpster and vacuumed all the carpets.

Dusty kept sniffing around the blood and I finally put him in the other apartment. Leaving the creepiness aside, it's a very bad thing for a domestic dog to taste human blood. It can cause undesirable changes in their character.

Finally, the worst of it was cleaned up. Olga left and then Eli and I left while Yoav stayed in the apartment that night to keep an eye on everything. I don't know how much he slept.

In the next several weeks, a lot of good things came about.

Believers from all over the world sent their love, prayer support, and blessings to the Ortiz family and the kehilah in Ariel. There were also contacts made between Believers here in the Land between many people who had lived in the same communities for years and not been aware of each other.

You could say Believers started "coming out of the woodwork."

But that story is told, among other places, in the articles I wrote.

The purpose of this blog posting is just to tell the events of that day as I saw them with my own two eyes, for the historical record and also as a warning.

I believe we are entering into a new era in the Body of Messiah. It is going to be a time of increasing persecution and attacks, both in the physical realm and in the spiritual.

The defenses we have against these attacks are the same tools we've always had, daily prayer, daily Bible study, and daily fellowship with other Believers.

I say we've always had these tools but obviously we haven't always used them. I myself am the first one to be rebuked.

It's long past time to get serious.