They call themselves Shevet Achim, which is Hebrew for "brothers sitting together," taken from Psalm 133, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity...for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life forevermore."
We have spent time with them and worked with them in Jerusalem and in our old home in Huntsville. We've met the tender, skilled Israeli medical people. As Christians with American passports, they can go nearly anywhere in the Middle East and be welcomed. (Which you'd never guess from the news, but it's true.) They have been shown great favor by many people in many countries; it seems that we can all set aside our differences for a child who's gasping for breath due to a failing heart.
They work on thin budgets and thick prayer. They frequently rush dying children to the hospital in the dead of night. Here's a year-end update from Jonathan Miles, a journalist who used to work in Gaza in the early 90s and found a new calling there.
Peace: one small heart at a time.
Dear coworkers,
My wife Michelle and our sons Ben and Zak came over to work with us at the Shevet Center in Jerusalem last week, on break from teaching and studying at our home base in Amman, Jordan. At the end of the work week Thursday evening I kept a promise to take them to Yad Vashem, where we saw for the first time the impressive new Holocaust History Museum which opened in 2005.
The very first display spoke of the contempt which traditional Christianity held for the Jewish people. Its prominent position seemed to say this was the explanation for all the sights that would follow. Only much further along was attention given to the many followers of Jesus who stood by the Jewish people during the Holocaust. (The director of Yad Vashem's department for the Righteous Among the Nations once said in an interview that the teaching of Jesus was the single strongest motivation for those who risked their lives to rescue Jews).
The message sent by the museum speaks to me most of all of how wounded the Jewish people still are. And I believe the calling of our generation is not to argue about interpretation of the past, or deny our connection to the traditional church--but to lay out a new direction for the future.
A second Holocaust threatens the Jews of the Middle East. And I believe the words of Jesus won't just compel us to try to rescue Jews from their enemies; his words are the only hope that some of those enemies can yet be reconciled to God and to their Jewish brothers.
Love your enemies. Forgive as we've been forgiven. Add to that Paul's teaching that the death and resurrection of the Messiah has torn down the wall of division between Jew and non-Jew, creating one new man and thus making peace. We have the only message with the power to overcome the ideologically-driven campaign of hatred waged now against the Jews. And in a small way we've been living and proclaiming that message through our work together for 15 years, one child at a time.
I'm so grateful for the response to our year-end funding drive. Our goal was $42,000 and we received $52,896. We can continue to bear our message with integrity, keeping all of our commitments. And I believe the new year holds new opportunities for us to be our Father's ambassadors of reconciliation, working from the solid foundation he has laid.
God bless you and your household in 2011,
Jonathan for the Shevet Achim community in Jerusalem
http://www.shevet.org
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