When
we as believers celebrate the Lord's Supper, breaking break together,
the Bible teaches us that we must be totally reconciled to one
another. The Lord used this in her life to draw her closer to
Himself, and a breakthrough took place into true unity, understanding
and compassion. Learning to pray the Lord's Prayer in Arabic,
learning to sing and worship in Arabic, to hear the Word of God
preached in Arabic, has been for her personally a source of renewal
and great joy. It has not been easy by any means, but she has
made many real friends as they observed her struggling to learn
their language and culture. One of those friends is Lily. Lily
teaches the Arabic language, and began helping her to learn classical
Arabic. They have been studying on and off together for the past
5 years. Their friendship deepened this year when Pamela met her
in the church where she attends on Sunday morning in the Old City
of Jerusalem. A whole new chapter began as they started going
together to the services, drinking Arabic coffee afterwards, and
strolling through the Old City together, greeting other Arab Christians
who had attended other churches. They went walking together through
the Arab market, looking at all the new, exotic things for sale,
especially in the spring time, when they saw the tender new grape
leaves, a special root that grows wild, called "akoub",
and the delicious green and crispy almonds that is put into salads.
This is a time when they also talked endlessly about the Kingdom,
about recipes, and even stopped off to eat and drink humus and
drink coffee every Sunday after the meetings.
On
Resurrection Day Pamela had dinner at her home with her entire
family. This was at the time that the IDF had just gone into Ramallah,
which was the beginning of the operation called "Operation
Defensive Shield". She was able to sit and to share their
anxiety over the situation and pray together. In fact, she was
able through God's grace, to become closer with many Arab Christians
during this time and was amazed at the depth of the things they
shared with her. There were some people who actually came to her
and apologized to her for the suicide bombers who came and attacked
Israel! Lily and Pamela were able to get much closer during that
time, and a couple of weeks later, they traveled up north together
to her home village, where they spend the night at Lily's sisters
home. It was during that night that Pamela was able to share God's
salvation plan for Israel from Ezekiel Chapter 36, and her sister
was fascinated by God's Word. They asked many questions. She went
from house to house speaking to the women who were so kind to
her, and helped her to feel welcome and at home. This was done,
of course, with traditional Arabic coffee! It has now been a few
years of intensive Arabic language study and making new friends.
Words cannot describe the wonder of God's love and how He reaches
out and brings together people who might have been enemies.
During
this time Pamela learned more about reconciliation than ever before
as a believer in Yeshua. God can do the impossible. Pamela is
continuing to study the Arabic language and has begun reaching
out to the MBB (Muslim Background Believers) who have recently
come to know Yeshua as Lord. Jerusalem is the most unique city
in all the earth, and we desire to see the love of God made manifest
to the two great peoples here on both sides of our city, Jerusalem.