Middle East update

This is today's update from our friends who live and minister in the Middle East; in this time of great speculation, they share with us on-the-ground insights each week. Read it and celebrate!

                                                                                                                      

Dear coworkers, 
 
We're living through change in the Arab world that would have seemed unthinkable just two months ago. Tunisia's leader is gone. Egypt's is gone. Tonight Libya is reported on the brink of civil war. And this week the movement jumped from North Africa to the Gulf states as masses mobilized in Bahrain. 

In each case the regime responded to popular protests with violent attempts at repression, which only enraged the people, delegitimized the government, and alienated the armed forces. 

The religious hope all this movement is in their direction. But when Iran's illegitimate president made this claim last week about the Egyptian revolution, the lie was quickly exposed as his own people were being killed in the streets a few days later. 

Here's the truth: legalistic religion itself operates through lies, repression, coercion, and the use of force. The movement in the Arab world is exactly away from all this. It is an outstanding moment in human history, and an enormous opportunity for grace and truth. Liberation is finally coming to many of our longsuffering neighbors.

The fervor has even reached to Kurdistan; thousands marched this week in the streets of Sulaymaniyah.  And in the midst of it all one more little one from this region in northern Iraq reached us this weekend enroute to her heart surgery in Israel. You can meet Dina and check in on the other Kurdish families with us at the Children Now in Israel page, and there is opportunity online now to invest in two more precious, eternal lives who should reach us in the next two weeks. 

For whatever reason we are the ones chosen to be on hand for the birth pangs now convulsing the Arab world. Let's pray and prepare our hearts and be ready when the conductor of this grand symphony nods in our direction. 

Jonathan for the Shevet Achim community in Jerusalem