Pray for your City

Guest Blog with Anna Marie Prim

I was sitting on the plane this morning heading to Orlando, Florida when I began to think about September 11th, our nation, and when President Bush called our nation to a national day of prayer.  I remember it being a season when God’s people were unified in their prayers for this nation like never before. As the flight continued, I was greatly encouraged when I thought of the story of Britain during World War II and how Parliament called a nation to a national day of prayer.  The lives of about 400,000 British and French soldiers were trapped, outnumbered, and at risk of being wiped out by Nazi soldiers…BUT a nation unified itself and prayed.  A “Halt Order” was declared and approximately 330,000 soldiers were allowed to evacuate. The Lord of Hosts desires to dispatch His angels and “halt” the opposition in our lives, in our state, and in our nation but we must be unified in our efforts.  Matthew 18 tells us that God is with us and answers our prayers when we are in unity and when we pray in His Name.  Deuteronomy 32:30 gives us a picture of the power of praying in agreement. I have a dear friend who has seen this power of agreement in her son’s life.  Her son is currently waiting for a heart transplant in Gainesville, Florida.  They recently gave a plea, regarding the prayers for their son.  They said that when they ask the people to pray a certain way for his related healings, they see great miracles because everyone is praying the same.  However, when it came specifically to his heart, they weren’t seeing the same miracles.  They realized, in their prayer time, that some of the people were praying for the boy to have a new heart and some were praying for his heart to be healed.  As parents, their plea is that everyone praying would pray in one accord so that they can see the same miracles come to pass. I have been told that heart cells can beat individually but not necessarily to the same rhythm. If different drummers were drumming to a different beat, it would just be noise…chaos!  How would soldiers going into battle march…or hear their orders?  In worship, it would be difficult to clap or dance or to find the same rhythm.   But if the heart cells join together, and become one, then it can fulfill its purpose in the body and the rest of the organs can function properly.  In the natural, if the beat of the heart becomes irregular, then it becomes ineffective and the body can suffer or die.  It is the same with our prayers in that they need to be unified to be effective. I don’t know about you, but I want to be effective and be like the disciple who put his head on Jesus’ bosom.  If my head was on His bosom then that would mean that my ear would be next to His heart and I would be able to hear His heart beat.  I would be able to receive His heart for my city, this state, and this nation.  I would be able to know how to confidently and effectively pray for His will to be done….for His Kingdom to come - and not my own. Let’s lean on Him to get His heart for Florida and America as we prepare to unify ourselves on May 3rd for National Day of Prayer. Anna Marie Prim- Media Director, Florida National Day of Prayer Task Force

 

The Promised Land

There are very many voices in the world with differing opinions on the Israeli-Palistinian land issue. Most have pushing for a two state solution and lately it seems the PA is pushing for a one-state solution. To bring you up to speed, the Jews were kicked out of thier land in AD 70 by the Romans. Since then they have been all over the world (including Europe during WW2) but were given the chance to get a part of thier land back in 1948 and took that opportunity to re-established themselves as an independant state once again. Since then they have been attacked by their neighbors innumerable times and are actually still under constant attack. Over 500 rockets were fired on them from Gaza in 2011. On a side note, I am proud to say that some churches in Pensacola donated over $20,000 last year to purchase a bomb shelter for Israel. In the south of Israel rockets are a regular event. They can hit anytime or anywhere. 

But there are some that want to remove Israel completely or at least push them back to pre-1967 borders. 1967 is an important date because that is the year that Israel fought (again) with Arab neighbors and took land that was necessary to secure the safety of it's citizens. Israel is currently about the size of New Jersey. Why is this important? We must look at the original promise that God gave Abraham about 4000 years ago. Genesis 12 states the following: 

“Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Abraham was given certain promises including the fact that through him the families of the earth shall be blessed. The most obvious blessing is that through Abraham descendants Jesus was born. And it is through him that our salvation comes. Other blessings are related to technology, health, economic prosperity, the 10 commandments (by which most of our legal code has been developed). But pay attention to the whole bible verse. The blessing is tied to the promise of the land. They go hand in hand. God gave them the promised land and from that land they would have a platform from which to bless others. Like any good promise you can't just pick and choose that part you like. 

I don't have the time to fully develop this theme but it is worth meditating on. This is a key reason why so many Christians and organizations like CUFI want to help the Jews and help the nation of Israel. We recognize that through them comes God's blessing for the earth. The blessing hasn't ended. Just because Jesus was born doesn't mean that Israel is no longer needed. The Jews are still God's chosen people. They have not been discarded by God. Remember God never changes. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Remember the other part of this promise, "I will bless those that bless you and I will curse those that curse you" Don't be the one cursing God's chosen people. Bless the people of Abraham. 

Holocaust Denial

Denial of the holocaust is the new anti-Semitism. You may be aware that Islam voices throughout the world are downplaying and even denying the holocaust. The most vocal voice is probably the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He says the holocaust never happened but then further states that Israel has no right to exist and “must be wiped off the map”. Odd that he wants to deny the holocaust but is then developing nuclear weapons to create a new holocaust! There are other voices in this world that are saying the same thing such as Catholic Bishop Williamson and American Bradley Smith. We call this attempt to change history, revisionism, the rewriting of history to exclude the holocaust. Why is this important? 1. Because the death of six millions Jews should not be trivialized. 2. Because once you begin to distort truth, all truth is in jeopardy 3. History tends to repeat itself. We are only one war away from another holocaust.

For example, there was a group of Christians that recognized history was repeating itself in France during WW2. There is a city called Le Chambon Sur Lignon in France. This was city of 5000 people that were responsible for the rescue of about 3,500 Jews. This is the only city that received “Righteous among the nations” status from Yad Vashem. It was not just one person or one family trying to save a few Jews. It was everyone in the city working together. The pastor would preach on Sunday and tell his congregation that they received another shipment of Old Testaments. Would anyone like them? And a family would raise their hands and offer to take the Old Testaments. This was, of course, code for Jews. What is worth noting about this community is that they were descendants of a Christian sect called the Huguenots. If you remember your history between 30,000 and 70,000 Huguenots were killed in the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572 because of their beliefs. And ultimately over 200,000 Huguenots were forced out of France. So we see that the history of death and murder repeated itself. The citizens of Le Chambon recognized this for what it was and made a decision to rescue those Jews going through the same thing that their ancestors had gone through. This is an example of why we must not forget history or try to re-write it away. It is inevitable that at some time another holocaust will happen. In fact, the book of revelation is very clear that even Christians will go through a time of persecution. So let us not forget.

 Revelation 13:7 It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.

Jewish Sabbath

So today I was able to do some touring with our group to Masada and the Dead Sea. But the highlight was being invited to a Jewish orthodox Synagogue service. It was good to hear the word of God spoken and sung. As you can imagine the service is very different from a Christian Service but the word of God is the same. Deuteronomy, Psalms, etc. From there we had a wonderful Sabbath dinner. Here in Israel everything shuts down at sundown on Friday and stays shut till Saturday at Sundown. There are no buses, no trains, no stores, nothing is open or running. The streets are quiet and empty. Not just in a certain area BUT IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY. It is beautiful to see the respect given to God and his Sabbath. Deuteronomy 5:12 states the following:

Dueteronomy 5:12 Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work.

The concept of celebrating a Sabbath day is something we have lost in the U.S. We may go to church on a Sunday morning but then we go to Wal-Mart or the mall, we clean the house, we wash the car and we work in the garden. That is very different than life here. In Israel they don’t do anything but rest, celebrate God and celebrate family. Tonight’s Friday night Sabbath meal felt like Thanksgiving or Christmas. And I was informed that it is this way EVERY week. I think it is worth looking at God’s fourth commandment a bit more closely. I know I am going to do just that.

And the heaven and earth were finished completely. On the seventh day God rested from all work. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.

Schindler's list

Today we went to visit Oskar Schindler's grave site. I have to imagine that you have seen the movie. It was a very powerful true story. Oskar was awarded the designation of "Righteous among the Nations" by Israel because he was personally responsible for saving 1200 Jews. The following link will tell you his story if you are interested in knowing more Link  "Righteous among the Nations" is a designation given to those that went out of thier way, usually at great personal risk, to save the lives of Jews. 

Today we were able to meet with Nachum Monderer. He is  #582 on schindler’s list. He was 16 when the war started and 23 when the Russians liberated Schindler's factory. He shared his testimony about his experience with Schindler and also his life since. All of his family was killed in the holocaust. He was the only survivor. We asked him about his faith during the time at Schindler's factory and he bluntly stated, "God was not there". That is all he said about that. You could feel the pain in his words even 70 years later. 

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today I had the 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunity to be at the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Rememberance day at Yad Vashem. It was by invitiation only and had extremely high security. Every year all of Israel remembers the holocaust and has a ceremony to honor those that were killed, six million. It was attended by the President Shimon Peres and the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as the chief Rabbi of Israel.  The picture below is Benjamin Netanyahu speaking. The had six holocaust survivors light six fires on behalf of the six million Jews killed. 

Anna Frank and Hanna Pick

I think we have all read Anna Frank's diary in shool. What I didn't know is that her best friend from Kindergarten and Montesorri grade school was a girl named Hanna Pick. Hanna Pick was a holocaust survivor and talked with us today. 

She is 83 years old and gave us her whole story, from the time that her and Anna Frank met till the day she was liberated. In case you don't remember or never read the diary of Anna Frank, Anna dies in the holocaust. Hanna survived and now has three children, four grandchildren, and I think she said four great grandchildren. It was very interesting to hear the story of what she had to go through in order to survive. 

Aside from this part of the day, we spent quite a bit of time looking at church history leading up to the nazi movement and then spent a good amount of time looking at nazi philosophy and how the decision to kill the Jews came about. This was all extremely eye-opening and a powerful time of learning. 

We also spent a session looking at the Jewish mindset in the Ghetto. I was amazed at how the Jews never quit resisting. When you quit resisting you just give in and die. Now unfortunatly many did die but at the time they didn't know what was going to happen to them. The term used today was "Choiceless choices" The jews didn't have the ability to choose many things. They were imprisoned in ghettos, they had to wear special clothing, they were stripped all possesions, they didn't have food, medicine or schools, but in the midst of "no choices" they choose to resist.

They continued to teach thier children in small schools even though is was illegal. They continued to hold religious services even though it was illegal. They had orchestras, theatre, puppet shows and musicals. The resisted by choosing to live life with as much hope as possible. This was a cultural and spiritual resistance. They would greet eachother with "iberleben" or "We shall outlive them". Mark Dwrzetsky said it like this, "Let us therefore, even in the ghetto, spite the enemy and go on living and building...Death may come tomorrow but today we will live and keep up our schools, lectures, our orchestra, our health institutions and workshops" Another Ghetto Jew stated it like this, "The logical way to fight death is to live, isn't it?"

So today was another very long day and I can only write about 2% of what I learned. So hopefully I can give you a bit more tomorrow. 

Day 1 The Names

Today was officially day one. We spent the morning in lectures and then the afternoon at the Holocaust Museum. The Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem was established over fifty years ago for four pillars of rememberance: 

1. Commemoration
2. Documentation
3. Research 
4. Education

Last year they had over 1.3 million visitors, most of whom were not Jewish. Yad Vashem is focused on helping the world to never forget what happened to Jews during WWII in the hopes that it never happens again to Jews or anyone else. I was struck by the amount of energy that has been put into the research of every facet of the holocaust. One small part of the research that caught my attention is that they have been working diligently to document the name of every holocaust victim. I never really thought about the names of each of the victims but there were 6 million.  To date, they have only been able to document and record 4 million names. It is difficult to comprehend that there are still 2 million people that have no grave, no records and no one to remember them. They were shot and buried in a mass grave, they were burned or they may have starved to death and their bodies just thrown away. After 70 years you would think that everything would have been documented by now but it hasn't. Yad Vashem is trying to document the names so that each victim, even without a grave or body, has a resting place. A place of rememberance. 

I have so many stories to tell today but I think I must stick with one. One of our lecturers, Dr. Pesach Schindler from Hebrew University, talked about God and the Jewish understanding of God. It was really a great lecture but of course his personal testimony is what overwhelmed me. He is a survivor.

His Polish family was in Munich Germany until he was eight years old. At that time facism was on the rise. As things became more difficult for the Jews, his father and aunt (father's sister) found out they were on a list to be sent to a camp. So instead they both fled the country. His mom then went to the American embassy to find out that she could receive a visa to flee to America because she was Polish and they still had availability in the annual Polish immigration quota. But her two boys, who were born in Germany, couldn't leave. They didn't have papers. You see, the Germans stopped giving papers to Jewish babies a few years back. As far as America was concerned there was no rule to allow un-documented children into the US, regardless of the situation. The consulor officer gave her some advice. He said if she leaves the children in Munich, goes to the US to see her husband, there is a rule that allows US immigrants to bring thier children to the US. But first she needed to be in the US with her papers. As unbelievable as it sounds she made the decision to leave her children with 140 other children in a Jewish orphanage.

A few months later this eight year old boy, Pesach, and his six year old brother were woken up at 3am and put on a train for Holland. They were told not to say a word to anyone about being Jewish just pretend they were going to see family in Holland. They were sent alone. They rode with many German soldiers being sent to the front lines. But because the solders were drinking and sad about leaving their own family they looked out for the boys. (not knowing they were Jewish) Pesach, at eight years old, had to make sure they got to Holland. He says he remembers his little brother crying alot. He remembers someone picking them up in Holland and putting them on a boat for America. He remembers going to America and getting to New York where they were finally reunited with his family. If you ask me this whole story is nothing short of miraculous. How can an 8 year old manage this? He relates that his mom and dad were told that only one boy was coming. They thought one of them had died. They didn't know which boy was going to show up on that boat. They were quite happy when two boys showed up.

Since then Dr. Pesach learned that of the 140 children at the orphanage only 4 survived. He and his brother were 2 of them. He also came to the realization that the families that did not leave thier children behind all were sent to thier deaths. None survived.  I think this story impacts me so much because I have a 7 and 5 year old. I couldn't imagine leaving them behind. I couldn't imagine them surviving let alone traveling from Germany to the US. My daugters are Grace and Anna. I know thier names. 

I have other stories but they will have to wait. 

Israel

If you are interested in Israel you may want to read my blog for this next week. I usually don't blog too often after our 40 days of prayer and fasting ends in February but I really will need to blog this week. I will need to document my emotions.

I am currently in Israel because I was invited to participate in a Christian Leadership seminar at the Holocaust Museum. Here they call it Yad Vashem. Tonight I just met the other participants from the US, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, and Uganda. The seminar is in English. I don't have time to go into all the details on how this came about but suffice it to say this will be an emotional week. Most of the sessions will be academic in nature but the experiences of the museum, the holocaust survivors we will meet and the National Day of Remembrance ceremony this coming Wednesday will be emotional. Tomorrow, aside from a tour of the museum, we start with a history of the Jews from Dr. Pesach Schindler. He is from the Hebrew University. Most everything here will be from the Jewish perspective not the Christian perspective. 

If you watch the news you have to be struck by the continual emphasis put on Israel. For every news article about problems in the world, there are ten about Israel, the Palestinians, Iran and the issues here in the middle east. If we go back to some of my prior posts where I talk about how the natural world correlates with the supernatural world, some of this will begin to make sense. Israel is truly God's chosen people and we must remember that Jesus was Jewish. Satan hates Jesus and he hates Israel. So while millions may die in Africa this year because of Aids, blood diamonds, tribal and racial warfare, etc. We don't hear about it. No one seems to care. But let Israel kill one terrorist after 500 missiles have been launched from Gaza into Jewish residential areas and the world cries bloody murder. Even today, Flytilla, made world news. 

I will write more tomorrow. Praying for the peace of Jerusalem. (especially while I am here)

Pensacola's Progress

From a full page ad in the Pensacola New Journal dated April 6, 2012. Page 3a. Many times we can see God's blessing in the natural realms when the real work has been happening in the spiritual realms. The following words are a result of what God has been doing here since each of you have made a commitment to pray and fast for 40 days every January. 

"For years, the word Potential has been synonymous with Pensacola. But, just in the last year, we've changed. Now, the word that is synonymous with Pensacola is Progress. Pensacola is the city that we've always known it could become. It's a great city of great people, a city that is keeping its talent at home even as it attracts more great people and more great jobs. Pensacola International Airport is booming. Post secondary educational opportunities abound. The waterfront Vince Whibbs Sr. Community Maritime Park, with 20 acres of green space, includes a world-class amphitheater and a multi-use stadium that is home to the Cincinnati Reds Double-A affiliate, the Blue Wahoos. The sewage treatment plant has been moved out of downtown. The Saenger Theatre, site of a growing portfolio of arts events, has been renovated. Downtown events have seen an upsurge in attendance. The number of visitors to our sandy, white shores is breaking records. To think all this - and more - is happening during one of the most financially challenging times in decades is a testament to the optimism and vision of our great community. Great People. Great Progress. Great Future." Quint and Rishy Studer