Another Israel Update

I know it's a little long....but it's an interesting story! Read on:

Thank you so much for going to battle for us. We need you!

After a 45 minute or so drive, we arrived at the site in Haifa. It is said that Haifa is the most beautiful area...we couldn't tell ya. Our concert site was on a tennis court in the middle of a bunch of run down buildings. We wondered if people could find it as we had difficulty getting to it. As we arrived I saw the rest of our teammates sitting on some steps looking concerned. The equipment/sound company were nowhere to be found. They were to arrive at 3pm...it is now 4pm. Boy were we praying!

So back to the tennis court...there's no electricity, and no drums...and no keyboards. One of the guys ran across the street to ask someone if we can run our equipment off their power. They stretched multiple extension cords across the road to the tennis courts with the fence holding it just above car level. We're laughing as we envision a truck flying thru the street in the middle of our concert, taking everything out.

Lights...one guy walks up with some lights in his hands that need to be attached to the fences...with what you might ask? They are all like McGyver...seriously, they are! They find some old metal strips and small pieces of rope in the street and they're hanging up lights. More extension cords are used to connect them all to each other. What a wonderful invention!

Chairs...a truck arrives and they start unloading the plastic chairs...you should see this process! One man lines his back up with a stack of 25 high, reaches his arms backwards and grabs on to the chairs while he's bending forward...and aha, he's hauling 25 chairs like it's nothing...amazing! Lots of chairs are set up, very few people are around. Finally, the sound guy arrives with all of the equipment. A couple of trips to different churches brings about keyboards and eventually a pieced together drum set.

All along we're praying..."Lord please bring people to hear your Word, protect us from the evil one, don't allow him to hold people back, protect us from the heat, sing & speak thru us, may Your name be praised."

One of the staff comes running up to us with cold bottles of water and some snacks (by the way, meal times have been...let's say...interesting). Ahhh, thank you Jesus! Some folks that we recognize from the conference show up (they were all sent in small groups to different cities). It's like a family reunion. It's fun to see some familiar faces, people from S. Africa, Russia, India, etc. We were told that they gave out flyers about the concert...today...so not much advance notice. Again, we all pray and ask God to bring the people in who need to hear.

And then it happens...a local gentleman runs in screaming at us. We can tell he wants us out (boy could you tell). He runs over to the staff who are with us and he is just incensed. It was a bit scary to see. He apparently had been scheduled to play tennis there and had not been told that it had been booked. He and one of our armed guards (we have guards at each outdoor event as they do not know how people will react...thank goodness they were there!). were going at it, yelling and pushing...emotions are running high all over. Finally, one of the staff guys steps in between the guard and the angry guy just to create space. They start calling people on their cell phones and get the guy to talk to whoever it was that they contacted. The man walks off the court flailing his arms and screaming. This whole thing was a bit unsettling. The guards were on their toes.

Again we're praying...for protection on all, for people to come, for God to be glorified. People start coming...and coming. This ended up being the largest crowd we've seen yet. They responded very well to the music and to the message. We don't have the exact details on the results yet, but we do know they were happy with how things went.

I forgot to mention that just behind the band, on a hill, stood a temple...a gorgeous gold temple. The area we were playing in, is the Baha'i capital of the world. The Baha'is believe in all religions mixed together...so basically whatever you believe to be true is true sort of thing...and we wonder why we experienced such battle??? There are a lot of strongholds in this area of the world, hatred between people groups, varying religious beliefs, oppression, etc. It is very sad...but we know that our God is at work!