^{Monday February 18, 2013}

Ashqelon & Sderot                    

Today we travel down to Sderot.  Sderot is about 3km from the Gaza “border”.  During the last conflict from 1000 to 1500 rockets landed in this city of 25,000.  Sderot has more bomb shelters per capita than any other place in the world.

Our job here today is to prepare boxes of emergency supplies to be delivered to each family in the city.  The organization is called “Hands of Mercy”.  The supplies are stored in an abandoned school.  All new schools are built to withstand rocket fire from Gaza, so this building will be bulldozed and a new one built.  This is only a few blocks from their headquarters so it is very handy.  The bulldozing is scheduled in the next couple of months so be praying that they can find a new warehouse close and without much rent.  The boxes contained quite an assortment of items including: Corn flakes, coffee, cocoa, salt, sugar, medical supplies, rice, lintels, barley, noodles, spaghetti, tape and plastic sheeting, paper towels, plates, plastic dinner ware, toilet paper, tuna, green beans, a bottle of grape juice, dried peaches, strawberry jam, chocolate spread, razor blades, tomato sauce, soup mixes, flour, olive oil, candles and matches.

All of this went into a box that is 12” x 18” x 12” tall.  We spent about 3 hours doing this.  Some of these items were pre-packaged, and some we had to make smaller packages from large barrels of the ingredient.

After we finished this, we went back to the headquarters and had some pizza.  Then we worked for about an hour at the headquarters.  The headquarters building has a clothes pantry and a food pantry where the poor can come pick up clothes and food.  Some of the girls organized the clothes by age, season and type. They have a nice garden behind the building, but the had been so busy, that it had been neglected, so the rest of us chopped and pulled weeds and cleaned it up.  There was also a pen next to the garden.  They were going to get a couple of 24 week old lambs to fatten up in preparation for Passover.  So we cleaned the thistles and big weeds out of this area also.

We then returned back to the hotel, where we cleaned up.  Some went for a walk down to the beach, some took a nap, and some just rested.

Please continue to pray for Manna, Terry, Sharon, and Sherry. 

This will be our last night in Israel, as most of our flights leave late tomorrow.  We will have a free day tomorrow, and spend some time on the beach, and maybe a little shopping if our suitcases are not overweight already.