A Light in the Community During Wartime
Providing Refuge to Evacuated Families
Thank you to everyone who faithfully gave to provide a safe refuge for nearly 200 evacuees from the south, living near the Gaza border. With your support, we were able to host these families for five months, fully covering their basic needs including room and board, educational needs for the children, activities for kids and youth, and providing a support system for them.
All of these families suffered damage to their homes or were without shelter & protection during the constant rocket attacks that followed October 7th. They lived with us, their kids played with ours, they ate in our moshav dining room, and became very close to us during these times of distress.
While several evacuated families who were staying with us have returned home, we have received a new group of 25 evacuated families who suffered intense damage to their homes in Kibbutz Zikkim. They wanted to come to us since they were staying temporarily in a very religious place and they are quite secular.
Youth and Young Adults Engaged in Service and Outreach
Life on the moshav remains busy as we continue with our youth activities and Kids’ Bible Club. The young people of our moshav are very welcoming and enjoy having the children of evacuated families there, and they were able to teach Volleyball and other games.
Our youth group recently collected coats and warm clothes and headed out to the streets of Tel Aviv to distribute clothing, warm drinks, and sandwiches to one of the roughest areas of the city full of homeless and drug addicts. It was a great experience for them to learn how to care for and reach out to others.
From Rest to Restoration: Serving Believers and Wounded Soldiers
We have also had the opportunity to provide rest and respite for believing families around the country who have been serving during this war. Through our network of Messianic congregations, we were able to invite families whose husbands served in Gaza to stay at the Logos hotel on our moshav, spend time with Yad Hashmona families, and join in our community-centered environment. It has been a very pleasant experience so far having believers stay with us together with some of the evacuees. It has been a special experience for everyone.
As the war continues, the number of soldiers wounded continues to rise. We are currently looking into using our facilities to host handicapped and wounded soldiers at our hotel.
This war, more than before, has left hundreds of soldiers without limbs. On October 7th alone, more than 30 lost their limbs, mainly from hand grenades. One of the worst cases was that of Amitai Argaman, a young man who comes from a believing family. He lost both of his legs all the way to his Pelvis when his unit was ambushed in Gaza. His story of survival, courage, and strength is very close to our hearts and close to the hearts of all believers in Israel.
Pray for our leadership as we work through seeing this vision come to fruition as we see how our rooms have the proper accessibility for these wounded soldiers. We have already established contact and are seeing an open door for our facilities to be a light and testimony. We are praying for something special to happen so that we can have an impact on our nation’s broken people.
Help provide refuge during the war
Any funds donated to Yad Hashmona will be allocated exclusively to war relief efforts: hosting the evacuees at Yad Hashmona, adding the needed bomb shelters, securing the path around the Moshav and continuing with our community service.
