In Need of Help
The Fellowship | October 6, 2020
Ariel, Avikhen, Shaked, Hanoch, Hodaya, Shilat, Ofrat, Shilo, Moriya, Eliya, Shemesh. These are the names of Amira’s 11 children. And with her husband disabled, Amira must help these dozen people in her home in Sderot, a southern Israeli town near the Gaza border.
This commitment began when, as an 18-year-old IDF soldier, Amira met her husband in the military. They married and both began working at a textile factory.
But with a growing family, Amira had to leave her job to care for her children. Then an injury left her husband unable to work. Now this sweet Jewish mother cannot even pay her bills. “I just keep asking the electricity company to not disconnect us,” she says. So how can she feed these 12 loved ones?
On top of this extreme poverty, the family must also worry about terrorist rockets launched from nearby Gaza. The family’s “bomb shelter” provides no safety at all – just a regular room in their tiny house with a regular window. And when one of her sons, a special needs student, witnessed a rocket fall in the backyard of their house, it left him in a shock from which he’s still not recovered.
All of this, on Amira’s shoulders. “I’m not a strong person,” she says humbly, “but God strengthens me so I can handle everything that I must handle.”
But Amira also finds strength in the ongoing support provided by The Fellowship and our Monthly Giving Family. Always strong and always helping others, she admits that her “rabbi said that there’s nothing to be ashamed of because I’m really in need of help.”
And Amira found help in The Fellowship, which provides food and other assistance to her family. “Thanks to this help we are not starving,” she says.