Z6
The Program
Many, if not all, of you readers know that I’m here in Jerusalem as part of a year long discipleship program, the Zealous Israel Project.
This project is designed to bring in 10 young Christian adults from around the world for servant-based discipleship training in Jerusalem. We all have jobs within the organization, as well as being mentored and loved on by Bridges for Peace’ international community. The organization Bridges for Peace is a non-profit that supports Israel and Jews around the world.
This year, the Zealous Israel Project only has 7 members. We are the 6th group of people to go through this program. I was excepted into the 6th group in April of 2020, but due to COVID, they had to cancel it for that year. God kept my schedule clear enough that whole next year until I could finally step foot in Israel July 4th, 2021. That’s pretty neat, I think.
Like I mentioned in my post To Jerusalem, the Zealous group schedule is pretty busy. We have one night were we meet as a team, we have scheduled Shabbat evenings with people in the organization, we have excursions, we have community plans, on top of the things that we plan to do ourselves.
I just had a plan-free weekend, and it was the first one in about a month. So I’m extremely thankful for those windows of rest during the busy seasons as a volunteer with Bridges for Peace and as a Z6 member.
The Team
From left to right: Danielle, Ray, Hosanna, Angela, me, Alicia, and Gideon.
We’re going to do a super quick introduction to my Zealous team.
Like I said, there are usually 10 people selected to be here. This year, there’s only 7. There are the 5 of us girls that stay together in one apartment, and this year, there are the 2 guys in their separate apartment.
From the United States: Danielle, Angela, Alicia, and myself.
From Japan: Ray, and Hosanna.
From Canada: Gideon.
Not pictured are our team leaders, Lukas and Kezia Wallace. I’ll have to share a photo of them later.
We waited over a month to get to be together finally as a whole group. But when we did finally get together, we knew that our year had finally started. Every person clicked into place and we knew that.
Lessons I’m Learning
Something that I’ve been more and more thankful for as the year has gone on is that I came from a large family, and have been around many different types of social groups. Having experience with living with 6 other people at home has made the transition to living with 4 strange girls easier than I thought it would have, as well as getting an idea of how to interact with each one of them. Not only within my apartment for the year, but the relationships with the people I’m working with, as well. My background in customer service helps a lot, too.
I didn’t really have a culture shock experience. I think that part of it was because I had that 10 day quarantine (see last post), but also, people are just people. Anywhere around the world a smile is a smile, laughter is laughter, sorry is sorry, and a good attitude is just a good attitude. Is it always reciprocated? No. But it has opened up some friendly conversations in broken English and attempted Hebrew. I’ve never had somebody not understand if I tell them that their baby is beautiful, or not understand my asking if I could pet their dog. That being said, there is definitely a time and place to make eye contact and smile at people here. Just being aware of your surroundings and paying attention to your gut feeling is important. In those cases, walking with a purpose has been useful in keeping out of uncomfortable interactions and situations.
My final lesson (for this post, I’m sure it’s far from the last while I’m here) is that the spiritual warfare here is intense. I thought I’d be prepared for it… and I wasn’t. I was the farthest from prepared. If you come to Israel expecting to get away from your problems, you won’t. Israel, and specifically Jerusalem, is a furnace. You will be put through a refining process that you will not be prepared for, and it’s one of the wildest experiences I’ve ever been through so far. I’m thankful for the community that I have here; people who have been through some of the same struggles, people who have lived here for years, people who haven’t been here as long and can relate while also having a testimony to share about what God did for them. I’m excited to see what mine will be, as well as my roommates, and the whole Zealous team.
Thank you for reading!
-Mads
