A Letter from Miriam

Recently, I was introduced to a lady (Miriam Morales; second from right in the picture) who presently lives in Israel, and it didn't take me long to realize that she not only loves Jesus, but she also loves the Israeli people--so much so that she is giving her life in His service among those precious people. As the result of my intrigue, I asked her if she would write something about her work there, something that I can share with each of you. The following is what she wrote and, believe me, it is worth the read:


Greetings from Jerusalem, June 2007

I believe that the LORD sent me here with the assignment to pray His heart over the Land and the people of Israel, to release His spirit of grace, truth, and supplication -- for His Jewish people first and then for the Gentiles. This is an unusual Land dichotomous in the beliefs of the peoples as well as in the cultures, and the physical properties of the land itself.

Every day I witness ancient history nearly colliding with advanced modern technology and perceptions. I have been driving on a newly constructed highway only to be stopped as an elderly Arab man crossed the main road on his unhurried donkey, or been sitting in traffic blocked by a herd of sheep and goats crossing from one side of a valley to the other while construction of the latest public transport system the “Light Rail" droned on nearby. While traveling the road that passes by Masada (Herod’s southern palace and the last fortress for the Jewish Zealots following the destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD), I have run into herds of camels and donkeys meandering in the desert, sometimes accompanied by their tent-dwelling nomadic Bedouin herders as I drove past the many extravagant 4-5 Star hotels where Israelis and tourist float in the healing salt-laden water of the Dead Sea. Some of these Bedouin herders may still use smoke signals to communicate with other herders on a distant hill while others may be connected to the Internet on the computers in their tents. At other times, Israeli Defense Force (IDF) tanks and other military vehicles have been my “unintentional” escorts -- unknowingly joining my angels on their assignment. My family and I never travel anywhere without asking the LORD for His divine protection and His angels to go with us.

I am always in prayer for the IDF, the Israeli Air Force (IAF), their leaders and the young soldiers that man the “Check Points” going in and out of the West Bank, Gaza, border crossings and other dangerous areas. Actually, by the grace and intervention of God, the “separation wall” (or in truth the “security wall”) and the check points have lessened the terror attacks by over 90 percent. Do not be fooled when propaganda calls it the “wall of shame,” which intentionally misleads the world via the ill informed media. Pray and do not be fooled in any capacity by the “lies, slanted reporting, mistruths, and half truths” that are being propagated by a large portion of the mainstream media, especially CNN, BBC, and other biased and bigoted networks, when it comes to reporting on Israel ("Those who hate me without cause outnumber the hairs on my head. Many enemies try to destroy me with lies, demanding that I give back what I didn't steal." - Psalm 69:4b (NLT)).

Everywhere a person goes in Israel you will see and hear peoples of diverse nationalities and languages talking on their ever-present cell phones -- from a very young child to the average aged person who is walking along the street, riding in a car or bus, or sitting in a restaurant. If only their desire to communicate with their Creator was at the same level of interest. If only the hearts and spirits of these people were truly open to the One True and Living God and the God of our Salvation. We must pray for them to have ears to hear ("But the peoples minds were hardened, and to this day whenever the old covenant is being read, the same veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ." (Yeshua Messiah) 2 Corinthians 3:14 (NLT)).

Members of the same intercessory pray team that came to pray last year have just left the Land after being here for 3 weeks. "Aliyah" (the term for the re-gathering and return of God's Hebrew children to the Land of Israel) has been the common denominator in prayer for years with these people of faith and vision, Prepare the Way Ministries and The Joshua Intercessors. There are 700 Scriptures that pertain to or reference Aliyah, some of the most pivotal being found in Jeremiah 16 and 31, and Ezekiel 37, and perhaps the most descriptive being Jeremiah 31 - please read all of Jeremiah 31...

"Therefore behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when it will no longer be said, 'As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,' but, 'As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the countries where He had banished them.' For I will restore them to their own land which I gave to their fathers. 'Behold, I am going to send for many fisherman,' declares the LORD, 'and they will fish for them...'" - Jeremiah 16:14-16a.
"Say to them, 'Thus says the LORD GOD, "Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them into one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king for all of them; and they will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms."'" - Ezekiel 37:21-22.
"Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, 'Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sands of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved; for the LORD will execute His Word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.'" - Romans 9:27-28 "...'I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.' In the same way then, there is also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice." - Romans 11:4-5 "...Proclaim, give praise and say, 'O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel'..." "There is hope for your future," declares the LORD, "And your children will return to their own territory..." "Set up for yourself roadmarks, place for yourself guideposts; direct your mind to the highway, the way by which you went. Return, O virgin of Israel, return to your cities." - Jeremiah 31:7b, 31:17, 31:21.

...One needs only to look onto the diversified faces of the people returning to and living in the Land to see the fulfillment of these prophetic Scriptures!

It was a privilege to be able to pray with these intercessors in locations from the “Old City” in Jerusalem, the Supreme Court, the Knesset, to the Negev Desert -- such hearts for God, His chosen people, His end-time prophetic promises, and not least, the Muslim people and the hope of their salvation. On two previous visits before moving here, and presently, the LORD has given me the ability to travel the length and breadth of this small nation to pray and proclaim His prophetic Scriptures and everlasting promises over her heartland and on her borders -- borders that are very much in jeopardy even as I write this letter. Please join with me in prayer for the safety and protection of her borders, but especially for the salvation of those living in Israel - within her borders. Pray that we will not fall victim to the “peace at any price” mentality or coercion ("Because I love Zion, I will not keep still. Because my heart yearns for Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent. I will not stop praying for her until her righteousness shines like the dawn, and her salvation blazes like a burning torch." - Psalm 62:1 (NLT)

In the upcoming weeks, the next team of ministers to arrive will be my precious friends and devout team from SOKO International (Save Our Kids Outreach International). SOKO is a ministry that has gone to 11 nations around the world and ministered the love and joy of our LORD and King to both children and adults. I have ministered with this team in the U.S. and in Canada, where the team has gone into prisons, youth prisons, detention centers, housing projects, synagogues, and churches. SOKO ministers with caring and compassionate hearts to the lost and the hurting as well as to the people of God.

The "SOKO Israel" team has ministered in hospitals (during the 2nd Lebanese war), the streets of Tel Aviv, and in local congregations around the Land. During the last year, the SOKO Israel team has taken its puppets and puppet tunes (the Disneyland-style, big head, remote controlled puppets) into the Home for Handicapped Children, the hospitals, and SPRINGS of HOPE - Bringing hope to the survivors of terror. It has been my great joy to have my family, including my grandchildren, join the team. My family even took the program to their own [Yeshua-believing] Hebrew speaking elementary school and to some local Holocaust survivors. In the upcoming weeks, we will again be helping the directors of SPRINGS of HOPE with some of these precious children, who will be accompanied at times by some of their parents. These children or their parents have experienced levels of terror that have left the entire family devastated and frightened. Some victims are so traumatized that they would rather never leave their homes than to face the reality of life or another attack. What a blessing it has been to see a wounded soldier, patient, or traumatized child breakout of their circumstance and into an abandoned smile of real enjoyment, or to hear them laugh and just receive the love and comfort of God. God willing, we will be going into the hospitals and local congregations again this year. These are our plans while knowing full well that there is the very real possibility of a greater war this summer than last. Will this stop the SOKO team from coming? No, they all came last summer and we ministered in the middle of the war and they will come again this year -- trusting and believing that our lives are in God's hands.

We are beginning to witness a small wave of Jewish people coming to the Yeshua through the prayers and loving efforts of local believers and their congregations. Last summer SOKO joined the ranks of these dedicated believers and went to a new age festival on the shore of the Sea of Galilee -- 15,000 young people and some families had gone to seek “enlightenment” and a week of “fun and play” while camping by the water. God had higher plans and purposes and brought divine appointments. Hearts and lives were touched, never to be the same again. Into those reckless but searching hearts truth and revelation found fertile soil ("No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him..." - John 6:44a).

This past spring at another “festival” on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea another 25 young people gave their hearts to the LORD and were immersed in that sea into new life and new beginnings in Yeshua. ("The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 'Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.'" - John 9:37b-38.) What joy, what a miracle. I never cease to be amazed as I witness the everlasting and long-suffering love of our Heavenly Father. I always pray for more and more souls to come into His Kingdom. Time is short and eternity is long -- the Father desires that none would perish. May we all take time from our busy lives and pray for the salvation of these languishing and shipped-wrecked souls. “Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish (or are unrestrained (NASB))." - Proverbs 29:18a (Amp). One of my daughters shared this acronym with me - BUSY:
B-eing
U-nder
S-atan’s
Y-oke

As we see the violence in Gaza expanding and the very real possibility of this lawless violence and hatred spilling over into the West Bank and beyond, one must really stop and consider the times we are in and the signs we are witnessing as the "Quartet" (U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations) supports this kind of solution. The truth is that the “two state” solution for a divided Israel has increased the possibility of more terror attacks...

"Now learn the parable of the fig tree: when you see its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door." - Matthew 24:32-33.
"In that day the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the LORD before them. And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look upon the one whom they have pierced; and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn." - Zechariah 12:8-10 "In those days and at that time," declares the LORD, "the sons of Israel will come, both they and the sons of Judah as well; they will go along weeping as they go, and it will be the LORD their God they will seek. They will ask for the way to Zion, turning their faces in its direction; they will come that they may join themselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten." - Jeremiah 50:4-5 "Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!'" - Matthew 23:39 "For the sons of Israel will remain for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar and without ephod or household idols. Afterward the sons of Israel will return and seek the LORD their God and David (the Messiah) their king; and they will come trembling to the LORD and to His goodness in the last days." - Hosea 3:4-5 "...'and I will bring them back and they will live in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God in truth and righteousness.' ...'so I have purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Do not fear!'" - Zechariah 8:8, 15

...Beside all the signs described in Yeshua's Olivet Discourse, is the sign of Aliyah, the return of the remnant of Israel to the Land in the last days - Aliyah is one of the more potent and pertinent signs that we are truly in the last days. Decisions made by Israel and the Quartet to fund, support, and ally themselves with Abbas and his Fattah Palestinian organization is even more incredulous, but prophetic none-the-less. It reminds me of the old children’s story of the Gingerbread boy getting on the back of the crocodile to cross the river only to be eaten later by that same crocodile. LORD, we pray that You give our leaders wisdom. I especially pray for the leaders of Israel, the U.S., and Britain and for our “spiritual” leaders to have much godly discernment and to teach their people truth!

I am confronted almost daily with Israeli people who are very discontent with the political and military leadership of this country, and yet I see this very same political scenario being acted out time and again with the very same faces who have betrayed them in the past, but appointed to different positions of authority. Why human beings are so hard-headed and determined that their wisdom is of more value than that of our Heavenly Father is an eternal mystery ("It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to trust in princes." - Psalm 118:8-9).

Recently, I have heard and read about the Palestinians who are trying to flee Gaza. These particular Palestinians are stating that they were better off under Israeli control than under the new hate-filled, violent Hamas government they voted into power. The truth is that the Islamic religion and its Jihad movement call for the annihilation of the State of Israel, the U.S., the Jewish people and Christians -- all “infidels.” This edict leaves no choice other than being a Muslim or converting to the Islamic religion. This is their goal and their only acceptable state of reality for the world. There are many intercessory groups that are praying for the salvation of the Muslim people here in the Land and abroad. Muslims and Arabs who have come to the Christian faith and who now believe in Yeshua (Jesus) are in grave danger while their livelihoods and their very existence are threatened by those within their own families. We need to especially pray for those Arab Christians who live in Gaza under the control of the Hamas government. They are in real peril!

I really do see the Jewish people wanting to live in peace and to be able to live side-by-side with the Arab peoples. When I walk along the streets or visit the “Shuks” (the open air markets), I see these Arab people with the freedom to conduct commerce, educate their youth, visit their own places of worship, and profit from trade among Jews, peoples from others nations living here, and tourists. I have recently taken a young Jewish mother who was diagnosed with cancer -- undergoing surgery and subsequent treatments -- to several of the local Jewish hospitals. (Her name is Hadar -- please join your prayers with mine for this single Mom and her 2 year old son.) In the emergency wards and treatment clinics that are filled with both Jews and Arabs, I see highly trained and skilled Jewish doctors, nurses, and technicians treating all with respect, and sometimes working along side Arab doctors and nurses.

This week alone, the world has seen Israel giving aid and rescuing those out of Gaza with the most serious of medical conditions. The Palestinians are the ones who wanted their own state, and look at what leadership abilities they have demonstrated! I do not see the Israeli government or military wanting to intentionally obliterate those of another nationality or religious belief. However, the situation grows more tenuous every day as the nations that hate Israel are calling for her destruction. (Obadiah 1:15-21)

"Blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming; surely it is near. ...Blow a trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his room and the bride out of her bridal chamber. Let the priests, the LORD's ministers, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, 'Spare Your people, O LORD, and do not make Your inheritance a reproach, a byword among the nations.' ...The LORD will answer and say to His people, 'Behold, I am going to send you grain, new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied in full with them; and I will never again make you a reproach among the nations. But I will remove the northern army far from you, and I will drive it into a parched land... ...Thus you will know know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and there is no other; and My people will never be put to shame... ...For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Then I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of My people and My inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; and they have divided up My land.'" - Joel 2:1, 15-20, 27 and 3:1.

Wake up America! Wake up people-of-faith who are sitting in congregations! What the enemy, Satan, would like to do to the nation of Israel and the Jewish people, he would like do to all true believers in Yeshua Messiah (Jesus) and the nations they live in. It is well-known that in America and the other western nations, there are covert and readied Islamic Jihad cells waiting for the opportunity to bring destruction and chaos. Stand with God -- stand with Messiah, Yeshua. "You will say then, 'Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.' Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear..." - Romans 11:19-20. So let the true believers in Yeshua come together in our faith and stand with the Nation of Israel. Pray that the scales will fall from Israel's eyes and that they will not continue in their unbelief so the LORD will graft them back into the olive tree to join us, the wild branches. "And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?" - Romans 11:23-24. Live in such a way that you will provoke the Jewish people to jealousy -- not trying to provoke only those who live throughout the world, but those who may live just across town or across the street. "...if I (Paul) might somehow move to jealousy my fellow countrymen (Jews) and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?" - Romans 11:14-15. Please read Romans 11 praying for deeper insight and godly revelation. Ask the LORD to show you Scriptures relating to these “end times” and how we need to prepare our hearts and live our lives.
"For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. Who then is the faithful and sensible [servant] whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that [servant] whom his master finds so doing when he comes." - Matthew 24:44-46.
"...when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" - Luke 18:8b.

Pray for understanding and discernment. Romans 11:25-26 says, “For I do not want you, Brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery -- so that you will not be wise in your own estimation -- that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all of Israel will be saved; just as it is written...” Dear people, the “fullness of the Gentiles” time period most likely began in June of 1967 when Jerusalem was reunified under Israeli rule and no longer under Gentile rule. Since the time of Jerusalem's fall in 70 AD, Jerusalem had been under the control of one Gentile nation after another. According to God's Word and the timeline laid out therein, we are in the last hour if not the last minutes of time before the return of our LORD and Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth.

"Who is like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious acts of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob and unchanging love to Abraham, which you swore to our forefathers from the days of old." - Micah 7:18-20

We all need to stop and pray to hear His voice! Being too busy is not the Father’s plan -- it's only when we take the time to hear His voice that we hear a word behind us, “This is the way, walk ye in it..." - Isaiah 30:21 (KJV). In the times in which we are living, it is CRITICAL that we know and hear His voice and are led by His Holy Spirit! Please seek God’s face and God’s truth and “Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem: May they prosper who love you.” PS 122:6.

In the great love and grace of our LORD and Savior, Yeshua, Miriam Morales

The New American Standard Bible (NASB) is used unless otherwise noted