We do not always know what we are doing when we step out. We just know we are supposed to step out. That is the only theology we have left after years of this work, and it turns out it is enough.
This month felt like that from beginning to end. It was full of small obediences that turned into something we could not have planned.
Love Shows Up at Night
Morris was on night duty at the Damascus Gate with his unit, and we brought them pizza. We know how that sounds. But we have learned that love rarely announces itself with grand gestures. It shows up at night with something warm in its hands. These young men stand at one of the most contested intersections on earth, in the dark, and we felt God say: go. So we went. We also sponsored 30 Purim gift packages for families of another IDF unit, 40 NIS each. Purim is the feast of a people who were marked for destruction and survived, and for families waiting at home while their sons and husbands are deployed, a gift in that season carries a message that words struggle to hold: God has not looked away from you. Neither have we.
One Hundred People and One Open Door
Back at the soup kitchen, we crossed a threshold we have been watching approach for weeks. We are now serving over 100 people every Sunday. One hundred people who the city has largely decided do not exist. One hundred people who walk through a door because something in them still believes they deserve to be fed. We believe that impulse is God calling them home, one Sunday at a time. We just try to be there when they arrive.
On the 22nd of February, twelve volunteers flew in from Alaska to serve alongside us. They came from the other side of the world, stood in Tel Aviv, did the work with their hands, and left with a commitment to pray. We are always moved when people come from that far to witness this, not because the work needs validation, but because it reminds us that God is drawing people toward this place from directions we would never think to look.
She Could Not Believe We Remembered
Then there is Marinda, and we need to tell you about her.
We met her on the street. She was in tears. Her husband had died, and in the emptiness that followed she fell into drugs and lost everything. She showed us a photograph of herself from before. We will not try to describe what addiction had done in the years between that photo and the woman standing in front of us. It was painful to look at. She told us her deepest wish was simply to have teeth again, so she could chew her food. We thought about that for days. The distance between who she was and what she had become, reduced to one modest, desperately human request.
On Sunday the 25th, she walked into the soup kitchen. When we called her by her name, she burst into smiles. She could not believe we remembered.
That is the moment we keep coming back to. She had come to expect invisibility. She did not expect to be remembered. And in one sentence, something broke open in her. We do not think that was us. We think that was God, using a name to say: I see you. I have always seen you. You are not what happened to you. Marinda is a beautiful woman. She drinks in love and acceptance the way someone does who has been starved of it for a long time, and we will keep calling her by her name.
From the Table to Praise
That same Sunday we joined House of Salvation’s prayer evening, and something else stopped us in our tracks. Some of the men now standing in that worship circle, praising God and serving others, once sat at our soup kitchen tables with nothing. They came in off the street hungry. They were fed. And now they are feeding others. We stood among them and could not find words adequate to the moment. It is the whole story of the Gospel compressed into a few lives, and we got to watch it happen.
And Then War Returned
On Saturday the 28th of February, the fighting escalated and Tel Aviv came under missile attack. We could not open the soup kitchen on Sunday due to the ban on public gatherings. Ballistic missiles struck residential areas, causing real damage and real disruption. Our first thought, and it has not left us since, was the homeless. They have nowhere to shelter. No system protects them. They were already living outside every safety net that exists, and now the city they sleep in is being hit. We are going to go check on them as soon as we are able. Please pray for them by name, even if you do not know their names. God does.
What We Are Believing For
In the middle of all of this, a good friend, Pastor George from South Africa, put a God-given idea in front of us. He suggested we find a truck and convert it into a mobile food kitchen, something that would allow us to go to people rather than waiting for them to come to us, reaching men and women in multiple locations who would never walk through a door. We believe God put this thought in George’s mind and George’s mouth at exactly the right time. We are calling it George’s Meals on Wheels, and we are asking you to pray with us for it to come together.
One more thing, and we are asking plainly: we need a house urgently. The work is growing and we need a stable base to grow from. If God puts something on your heart, please reach out.
Here is how you can stand with us right now. Pray for Marinda and the others like her who are finding their way back. Pray for the homeless in Tel Aviv who have no shelter while the missiles fall. Pray for our Meals on Wheels truck to come together, and for the right house at the right time. Pray for the men at House of Salvation who are walking out their freedom one day at a time. And pray for us, that we would keep showing up with open hands and nothing to prove.
If God is stirring something more in you, we would be grateful for your support. Every donation goes directly into feeding people, blessing soldiers, and keeping the doors open. You can give at twocampsoneheart.org/how-to-help.
We do not always know what the next step looks like. We just know we are supposed to keep walking, and we are grateful we do not walk alone.
