You May Have 15 Seconds Left To Live

--Mother protecting kids from missile attack--

“You have 15 seconds to find shelter or face potential death”

As we entered Sderot, Israel, we were given this stern warning. We were also to keep the car window’s down partway to listen for the sirens and the haunting call of “Tseva Adom”, Hebrew for “Code Red”. If the peace in the city was broken, we would immediately stop the car and sprint to the nearest shelter. This created a palpable tension in the air that was in direct contrast to this small, well-manicured city on a beautiful day.

Over the last 8-9 years over 10,000 missiles have been fired from Gaza into this small Southern Israel town. That’s an average of well over 3 per day. Once a launch is detected, it is immediately announced and residents have 15 rapidly descending seconds to find a bomb shelter. To get a feel for what life is like in Sderot, watch this powerful video here.

One of the incredible local organizations here is one of the Hatzalah projects called Israel Emergency Aid Fund. When missles stike, the local Israeli ambulances have worked their response times down to under ten minutes. While this is fast, the leaders of this organization realized that it wasn’t fast enough. So they have strategically placed volunteers all across Israel who have pagers or radios, motorcycles, and a hi-tech first aid kit. These people are not full time, but have an understanding with their places of work that allows them to leave, no questions asked, the moment they are needed. Their average response time?

72 Seconds.

That’s fast. Countless lives have been saved as a result of this organization. Two of the leaders from the Israel Emergency Aid Fund served as our guides during this trip. They were both incredible men.

Adi and Gil were their names. Gil was a former New York cop that had a strong Brooklyn accent and was a tough but likable guy. He reminded me a lot of my uncle Joe. Gil was a former bomb squad guy with some unbelievable stories. Of the 51 most recent suicide bombings sites, he had been at 49.

Adi was the leader and he was a brilliant tour guide describing the atrocities that had occurred in this little city. His cousin was the first victim of the missile attacks on Sderot.

He was 4 years old.

He and his mother were on their way to drop him off at pre-K when the missile struck.

Adi introduced us to the little boy’s surviving mother Ruth, who also lost a leg to the same attack that killed her son. Gateway Church had built a playground in her son’s honor. They had also built a large bomb shelter right next to it to protect the children while they were playing. During the informal dedication, Geoff, who was our trip leader, apologized to the Ruth for the small size of the gesture compared to the loss of her son.

“It’s not small,” she said with a heavy accent and nearing tears.

“It’s not small.”

Geoff asked if we could pray for her protection before we left and she agreed. He felt led to close the prayer with “In the name of Yeshua, amen.”

I was close enough to hear what she whispered next, “Would you also ask him to take care of my daughter?”

That small statement alone was enough to make my trip. Here was a daughter of Israel, asking us to ask her messiah, though yet unknown to her, for protection. As we said goodbye to her and the playground, I had to wipe the tears from my eyes.

Yeshua, reveal yourself to Ruth. Comfort her through the loss of her little boy. Though she may not understand her loss, help her understand your overwhelming love for her.

We did many other things during the course of that day, hung out with Israeli soldiers on their base near the Gaza Strip,  journeyed within sniper range in order to see a kibbutz that is super near this dangerous zone. The day ended with a ATV ride through the Judean wilderness. Wow. Some of my clothes still have mud from Israel on them…

This concluded my second day in Israel.

----Just a small amount of the 1000's of missiles that have struck Sderot----