In October I arrived around midnight at the Damascus Gate to discover my accommodations had been changed, rather, had been cancelled. My only welcoming party that night was the dancing bright lights of a Palestinian restaurant across the street. I sat there alone, bewildered, and cold in this Arab dominated side of the city. It’s certainly not the time nor place for a woman to be wondering where she is going to stay. My bewilderment was compounded by the fact the women’s shelter in Jerusalem, which I had supported and for which I had come to minister, was recently disbanded due to the demolition of the ministry’s building by jihadist Muslims and their attack upon the ministry’s director.  However I had learned in previous trips to Israel that this was, in fact, my history in Israel:  amazingly extraordinary events preceded by intense opposition. Memories of my last trip began to fill my mind; memories of the most powerful emotional/spiritual healing I had ever had with Jesus, alone in the Garden of Gethsemane(!), and memories of the most dramatic physical healing I had ever witnessed – the healing of a deaf and mute little Muslim boy in Jericho. Both of these simply amazing miracles had been preceded with flames enveloping our mission base when it was attacked with fiery Molotov cocktails. As I sat on a cold bench in front of the Damascus Gate reflecting upon the Lord’s faithfulness in my life, a young man from Poland approached me, and after hearing of my plight, picked up my suitcase, and walked over a mile with me to the only hotel we could find that was still open. This young man assured me, in light of the events that evening, something very amazing was going to happen to me in Israel. I knew he was right…

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