One more wee update – Michelle Van Loon

Woke up this morning to the sound of pigeons discussing the rain. I saw the Sea of Galilee (also known as Lake Kinnaret) out of our hotel window. It was a pretty amazing way to start the day.

Finished up the week in Jerusalem. I have limited internet access for the next few days, but did want to give you a quick final update. Here are some headlines:

– Bill’s meetings with the Caspari board went well. They’ve launched a teaching/social ministry to believing singles; and are continuing to offer congregations leadership training and Shabbat school teacher training. There are plans in the works for some very cool publishing projects as well as the lecture series that Caspari excels at producing.

– While I was cataloging 20 year old journals into the new library system in Caspari’s theological library, I “just so happened” to open one and glance through it – and to my surprise, I found an article written by the husband of a friend I was scheduled to meet just a few minutes later. I made a copy and handed it to her. She couldn’t believe it – and neither could I! It was one of those delightful God moments. The chances of me being in Israel to discover a long-lost article written more than two decades ago just before I was to see a friend here have to be pretty darn infintesimal.

– The final day we were at Caspari, the team put together a forum allowing younger Messianic and Arab believers to talk about the challenges and opportunities the body faces in the country. I hope to have more to say about this in a later blog post. Suffice it to say, it was a rich day, and there were probably 70-90 people in attendance.

We’ll be in Tiberias for the next day or so, then head to Tel Aviv. We fly back to Chicago on Monday.