Urgent Prayer

I guess it's unfortunate that my first post on this blog is coming right now, I've been meaning to write up some of why I'm going to Bethlehem, and I will hopefully get the chance to do this over spring break, but for now, this is post urging mine and Sarah's supporters to pray.

As some of you may have seen on the news, there was a shooting yesterday in Jerusalem at a Jewish seminary. The gunman was from East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of Jerusalem. He killed 8 people and wounded anywhere from 9-35, the reports vary. This shooting is coming after a week of an Israeli military incursion into the Gaza Strip in order to stop Hamas from firing missiles into Israeli border towns. The incursion killed around 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians, and many of them women and children. To learn more about the story, I would suggest the BBC website, the Palestinian News Network, and the major Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

Obviously this is not a good turn of events for anyone, the Israelis nor the Palestinians, especially since peace talks have resumed recently, sort of. There is a lot of anger on both sides right now, and everything is set to escalate. I'm writing here to urge everyone reading this blog to be praying for the situation in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza now, pray that somehow the Lord would be at work to restore some amount of peace, that he would protect civilians especially, and that he would be protecting the Christians there and using them as a vessel in the whole situation there. Pray especially for Bethlehem as it was invaded late last night by the Israeli military. There has been bombing and shooting, and even kids are fighting with throwing rocks. Keep the Bible college in your prayers for its protection and for it being a refuge for all Bethlehemites.

This news is obviously disconcerting for Sarah and I. Even though we haven't yet been with the people of Bethlehem, we have already come to have a lot of love for them, and all this news is heartbreaking for us. And it is also throwing a lot of doubt and confusion over our trip this summer. We are praying now that the Lord will give us guidance as to whether or not he sends us there. We are praying for faith to know that he will protect us if we do go, and wisdom to know if we should not go.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust" psalm 91.1-2