This is a touching and poignant account of a trip to the Far East originally posted in July, 2003 Sitting cross-legged on the matted floor of a traditional Japanese home I looked out of the window at a simple but vibrant garden. My hosts, Takeo and Tomoko Muraoka and Naoji Ishida had spread before me… Read more »

Sitting in a mountain field as a new believer, I read words that altered the course of my life. “When He saw the multitudes…He said to His disciples ‘Truly the harvest is great but the laborers are few. Pray therefore that the Lord of the harvest will send laborers into His harvest’” (Matthew 9:37, 38)…. Read more »

What is the measure of one life?  What does a man or woman leave behind? How can I live my life, knowing that one day I will no longer be here, with my wife/children/grandchildren/friends? These and many more existential questions rise to the surface when someone we dearly love dies. In October of this year… Read more »

On September 25, 2018 Paul Wilbur gave a concert in Jerusalem, created a live recording, and touched many hearts. I was there. He’s been doing this for some 40 years, and we’ve been friends for 37 of those years. I’ve written him this letter to express what happened inside me during the event. Dear Paul,… Read more »

“What is the Gospel of the Kingdom?” we asked the 84 Israeli Messianic youth at the outset of this year’s Katzir (harvest) national, summer conference. Together we realized that when Yeshua said “Your Kingdom Come,” it was not mainly a reference to some future event, but an immediate prayer that His kingdom be expressed in… Read more »

Connie and I got inspired this summer to clean out and reorganize our storage shed. Amidst boxes and dust and unused scraps of wire, pipe and lumber (saved “just in case”), we found a substantial collection of cassette tapes. Few of us still have cassette tape players anymore. As we went through the tapes one… Read more »

One mistake in Hebrew was all it took to send me into a vortex of depression.  “After 25 years how can I still be blowing it?” I asked myself.  Easy.  Arrive at age 45, not born in the place, attempting to sort out sounds and letters and definitions.  Most of the time, even if I’m… Read more »

Regardless of what you think of former Israeli President Shimon Peres’ politics, his life story is a parable of the rebirth and the flourishing of modern Israel. Reading his autobiography, No Room for Small Dreams (London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2017), I am freshly inspired to plant my life in this miracle nation. Peres was born… Read more »

Biting into a chocolate chip cookie from a fresh package, my wife, Connie, discovered too late that some tiny, voracious red ants had begun enjoying the cookie before her.  In horror, she spat out the cookie AND the ants—but not in time to avoid the undeserved bites that caused her lips to swell up painfully… Read more »

In Israel, holidays and anniversaries are customarily celebrated according to the Hebrew calendar, not the Julian calendar.  Hence, our 70th anniversary was observed here with a lot of hooplah last month.  Nevertheless, yesterday, by international dating, marks exactly 70 years since Ben Gurion’s declaration of Israel’s rebirth on May 14, 1948.  Can you imagine the… Read more »