The Orde Wingate Children's Village

by Judith

Today I had an amazing opportunity to go to Yemin Orde. Over 40% of the children's village was destroyed in the recent Carmel fire. Many of the staff houses need to be rebuilt as well as some the children's dorms. The Library and Recreational room were also completely burnt and need to be rebuilt.

Jacob’s Hope teamed up with InShiloh Ministries and Zion’s Sake Messianic Congregation in Newport News VA, to make a donation to help the children’s village rebuild and resume operations. The village receives 65% of its annual budget from the Israeli government, while the rest comes from private donors, largely in the United States and United Kingdom. Although some of the rebuilding will be paid for by insurance, this money is slow in coming and there are many additional costs that need immediate attention.

A few things really stood out for me on how God's hand was on this place during the fire. First, the fire surrounded the synagogue at the village but it was completely untouched! Unbelievable!

Second, a few months ago they dedicated a building that was donated from people in England. It was also untouched. The amazing thing about this is that this building is where the specialty doctor is going to council these children. Many of these children come from very hard backgrounds and need a psychologist or a psychiatrist to talk too, especially after the fire took what little these children had. Now they have a place where they can get the help they need.

Third, the girl’s dorms, a building named Noam, which was built by parents of a girl whom was lost in a terrorist attack a few years back. The fire did not burn it, although the boy's dorm, right next door, is gone. I am amazed how God cares so much for the parents of this girl. Her memory will live on and they won't have to go through the loss all over again.

Forth, the school was also untouched, so the children were able to return to school last week.

But the best thing of all was meeting the lady that took me around the village. She was so thankful for the donation and I believe that we will work together to rebuild Yemin Orde.

For more information on Yemin Orde, click here.

New Opportunities in 2011

2011 is here, and with the New Year there are new opportunities to serve God in Israel. On December 25, 2010, Jacob's Hope held their monthly food distribution with Rivers of Living Water Congregation in Karmiel, Israel. This month we had 250 families sign up. Although, each month more and more families come for food, our funding for this project remains the same. Each bag we gave away this month (approximately $8 of food per bag) is only half the size of the bags we started giving away just over a year ago (approximately $15 per bag). Each bag comes with a card saying the food is being supplied by Christians in America who want to bless the people in Israel. Please consider donating to this project by designating your contribution to the Karmiel Food Project, so that we can truly bless these needy people.

In addition to each bag of food we gave away, Bibles and DVDs were made available for the taking. Approximately 40 of the 500 people who attended the optional service, stayed afterward to ask questions. A truly amazing work is being done in this city, despite the limited funds.

Another opportunity to give is in Ashdod, where we just moved our center to a larger, more prominent location in the country's fifth largest city. This new space will not only increase the traffic to our store, but will allow the space to have job training on computers, and language classes for new immigrants. But with this new larger space comes the need for more funds to make the necessary renovations. We need approximately $3,500 to fix the electricity and lighting, fix and paint the walls, clean up and fix the bathroom, move and install the shelves and heating/air conditioning unit from the old store. Additional funds are also need to repair the floor and purchase equipment for job training. Please consider donating to get this center up and running by designating your donation to the Ashdod Project.

Also, please don't forget to support our family in Israel, without whom none of these projects would be possible. This family moved to Israel with their own funds and is doing much of this work on a volunteer basis because we don't have the funds to pay them a full time salary. Please consider donating to keep our Israel compassion team, and therefore keep Jacob's Hope's operations in Israel.