A Completely Different World
The Fellowship | October 14, 2020
Tomer grew up an Israeli in the big city, where he knew comfort and security. But when this modest Jewish man married and started a family, he tells us, “I changed my life completely.”
Tomer and his family moved to southern Israel. There, life is simpler, but harder. Instead of managing a clothing store, Tomer cleans cisterns at a factory each night. Instead of enjoying the comforts they once knew, the family lives in an old shack they can’t afford to make livable.
And instead of being surrounded by the IDF soldiers and border police who protect Israelis in places like Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, Tomer and his family live just two miles from where terrorists launch rockets and balloons carrying explosive devices.
“I came from a completely different world,” Tomer admits. And while he has learned to cope with the attacks, his children have not. “My older daughter gets seriously frightened when she hears a siren,” he says. Because their house is so small and falling apart, Tomer feared the thin walls wouldn’t protect the ones he loves. So the when sirens sound, his family drags “mattresses into a public shelter which is 20 seconds run from our house.”
Twenty seconds. That seems like a brief period of time for you or me, but for scared children scurrying in the dead of night, fearing a missile could crash down on them at any time, it’s an eternity.
That’s why Fellowship-funded bomb shelters are so important for families in Israel — bomb shelters made possible by Fellowship friends around the world. They mean Tomer’s children won’t live in fear, but in safety and security.
And that’s why the healthy food delivered to families in Fellowship food boxes is so important — food sent with love by Fellowship friends these families have never met. It means Tomer’s children won’t live hungry lives, but healthy ones.