OK, i will get a little more personal here, and will share with you some of the things that have been happening these last days (the past three years?).
So i will start from the beginning since i also promised at the opening of this blog to tell the testimony of how i ended up studying here in Israel, so i guess the time has come! Although is late at night, i happened to be inspired and those of you that like to write whatever you write know that you have to take advantage of those moments!
OK so, the first part you already know it, because for me, my relationship with Israel started since before i was born. My mother was not able to keep a pregnancy and was told that she was barren. So after 5 years of prayer, a group of people was traveling to Israel from my original country, Colombia, and my mother decided to write a note asking for a miracle to have a baby, basing her prayer in the passage that says, “Moreover, concerning a foreigner, who is not of Your people Israel, but has come from a far country for the sake of Your great name and Your mighty hand and Your outstretched arm, when they come and pray in this temple; then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, that all peoples of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel, and that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by Your name" in 2 Chronicles 6:32-33. That was in November 1981. In December she was reading the Scriptures and read a verse in 2 Kings 4:16a, "Then he said, “About this time next year you shall embrace a son.” My mother read this and felt the Lord speaking to her that He will give her a baby in the following year, and exactly in December i was born.
My parents had another two children, another girl and a boy. They wanted to come to Israel and pray for me here as my mother told the LORD that she wanted also to dedicate me to Him, which now that i write about it, it really makes me thoughtful and expectant! She came to Israel after i was born, when i was 11 months, and then came with my father and me when i was 10 years old.
When i was 20 i came again invited by a family that wanted to come to Israel to volunteer in a moshav that they got to know in their several trips to Israel. Moshav means settlement in Hebrew. But the special thing about this one was that it is the only Messianic Jewish settlement in Israel. Meaning that is the only settlement that has Jews that have come to believe in Jesus as their Messiah. The name is Yad Hashmona. So I came in the year 2003 to volunteer and also study and travel the Land, met other Colombian people that came with me in the trip and together did a lot of fun things here in Israel. But by that time, my heart was different, my faith was very blind being honest, even though i know that God was calling me even then.
In total, i was here with the group for 6 months, some of them left earlier, but i stayed with a few of them longer. One special thing i do remember from that time that connects in the story, is one time that i was walking in the Biblical Garden in the moshav, and it was almost sunset, my favorite time to walk around specially there...and a group of Americans were singing and praying above the place were I was walking by...it was so beautiful, i felt the wind and the songs would come softly and the beautiful lyrics would just break into my thoughts. You know, i didn't grow up with worship music in English, never heard or at least if i did, i wasn't very interested...but this song, that you probably know, broke through my heart, and still does..."and I, I'm desperate for You, and I, I'm lost without You..." and then more wind. I was so touched by those words since i wanted to know if the LORD wanted me to stay longer or to go back home and i was hoping for an answer.
So then the leader of that group started praying and then he said some words i couldn't catch, i just understood that he was talking about Moses and Aaron and something about Aaron's staff, but couldn't really hear. And then i just asked the LORD, so should i stay longer? And then this young guy said, 'like Aaron threw his staff on the Land, the LORD is asking you to through your gift or talent on this Land'. I wasn't sure of what this guy was really talking about, but for me it was just so clear and i felt so joyful to know that He wanted me here. However, i recognise that i wasn't very prepared, and mature...and probably didn't do what He wanted me to do. But instead of 2 moths and a half, i ended up staying for 6 months. Then i flew back to Colombia.
Some interesting things happened to me while i was there. I trusted again in my "spirituality" if there is something like that, and did things that i knew weren't part of His plans. But He guided me and my family into a beautiful group of people that were studying a good Word, it was a clean message from the LORD to His people and we were so tired of sermons based on humanism or psychology, how to be a better person, stuff like that that have taken the truth of the LORD Jesus and taught them without the power of His name! We were thirsty for a pure Word, and He guided us to it, like the sheep says beautifully in the Psalm 23: 2b, "He leads me beside the still waters". We began to feel that this was real, that finally we found pure water that satisfied our thirst! And i began my personal path, my struggle, my battle against this flesh, but on the other side, my real satisfaction and fulfilment!
After two years, we moved to Dominican Republic, being very difficult to leave our family in the LORD, but following God's direction. After 3 months, i started working as an English Teacher for kids after school and it was a part time job...and my first serious job ever! Which i have to say that i really enjoyed and loved. After i graduated from school, at the age of 16 and a half, i knew i would study or Psychology, or gerontology, or sociology or perhaps go to Law school (i definetely had it figured out!). I went to visit the universities with my father, and also tried to get some scholarships. And then, my father asked me what i thought about studying music? I always loved to sing, but sadly left my piano lessons after a year only and never learned to play anything else, but i always loved music. We decided to visit the Conservatory in Colombia in the city where we were living and even though the building was not in very good condition (art is not well supported in Colombia), from the moment that i entered that place i knew that my puzzle was solved. I applied, got in, and studied there the 2 years of the preparation program. Then we had to move...and since then didn't get the chance to continue it or study in some other place.
OK, let's go forward if you are still with me...I was already in Dominican Republic. I'm an English Teacher, 23 years old, and already saving to start studying education since music was not really something i wanted to study there, or maybe not anymore...When i was teaching for already 9 months, the couple from the family that invited me to Israel two years before, came to visit and told me that a friend of mine, that i met after i came from Israel some months before she left to Israel, was still there and now moved from the moshav into a house that they rented there and wanted to open it as a house of prayer. They told me that they wanted that young people would come and live in this house and pray for Israel and study Hebrew. Plus other activities like singing in the streets of Jerusalem and musical theater of stories from the Bible. I liked the idea, but i thought that finally i was settling down and perhaps could start studying soon so i said no to their invitation for me to come. It was hard for me, i don't remember how i felt, but i was not at peace...i heard them speak to their children on the phone telling them that they had to look for another girl to participate in their programs because i didn't want to go. I was burning inside. I prayed, read the Scriptures that if you are looking for answers in the Scriptures if to come or not to come to the Land, it's not the best place to look in, they are full of Israel everywhere!
My mom came into my room, we talked, and she told me that maybe it could be that the LORD wanted me to come. I prayed and asked for some signs...OK, i admit it, i have a friend that always tells me that i'm always looking for signs...well i'm caught! I have to ask the LORD to work on that issue too! So He answered my prayers, gave me the signs, and i arrived to Ben Gurion Airport the 20th of February 2006.
Then it all began!
"... being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;...." (Philippians 1:6)
