January 21, 2010

Shalom,

Jewish tradition holds that when rain falls in Jerusalem it is a signal to the world that God is pleased with His children. Rain, the Bible says, is God's way of showering kindness on the people of Israel.

The Holy Land has been experiencing a debilitating drought for years. But I was not at all surprised when I woke up on Tuesday morning—a few hours before a historic flight of 81 Ethiopian Jews arrived in Israel thanks to The Fellowship—to the sound of thunder and the calming hum of raindrops falling on my windowsill. Not only was I counting the minutes until that miracle flight landed on our holy soil, but God was rejoicing as well!

The prophetic flight was scheduled to land at 3:00 a.m., and although I tried my hardest to get a few hours of sleep before heading to the airport to greet the new immigrants, sleep would not come. I couldn't stop imagining the singing, dancing, and prayer that was happening that very moment in a plane 40,000 feet in the air as the Ethiopian Jews completed the final leg of their journey. Their wait was almost over.

Pulling up to the airport in the black of the night, shivering from the cold but with a heart warmed by excitement and joy, the words of the prophets echoed in my head: "I will save my people from the countries of the east and the west. I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God." (Zechariah 8:7)

As the first Ethiopian woman departed from the airplane, I had chills—not from the cold, but from the look on her face as she caught her first glimpse of the Holy Land. She hesitated, trying to absorb the miraculous experience, then fell down on her knees and kissed the ground. Shouting out prayers in a voice cracked with emotion, she praised God, the land of Israel, and the people who helped bring her home. I stood on the side, waving my Israeli flag in pride, and basking in the historic sight unfolding before my very eyes. It felt dreamlike, but what I was watching was real. "From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia My worshipers, My scattered people, will bring Me offerings," Zephaniah said, and he couldn't have been more accurate.

As the immigrants—dressed in colorful Ethiopian clothing and traditional head scarves—streamed off of the plane with babies on their backs and children by their sides, they sang songs of prayer and thanks. As they saw relatives that they had been separated from for years, they ran to them, embraced them, and broke down crying in each other's arms.

The most moving moment for me was when an Ethiopian mother saw her daughter for the first time in 11 years and nearly fainted. Her daughter—who was 15 years old when she was left behind in Ethiopia because there was only one spot left on the airplane to Israel—arrived in Israel with her husband and two children thanks to On Wings of Eagles. When I asked the mother how she was able to leave her daughter behind and go by herself to Zion, she told me with tears that "the prophets said that we will be reunited in Jerusalem, and I had faith in their words."

As the immigrants walked out through the airport doors and into the waiting busses to transport them to their Fellowship-sponsored absorption centers where they will learn Hebrew, receive job training and more, they sang beautiful traditional Ethiopian songs about Jerusalem, freedom and faith. The words of Isaiah filled my being as I remembered his prophecy of Jerusalem from over 2000 years ago: "Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing."

With blessings from Jerusalem,

Yael