My favorite American traditional Jewish commentator, Jonathan S Tobin has written something very close to my heart this morning. I cried reading his editorial just now about the 25th year anniversary of the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem on August 9, 2001. Since writing this a couple of days ago, I have learned that the son of a well known Israeli Messianic figure was one of the first responders to arrive at the horrific blast scene. Terrorism creates hell-scapes.

Within a week of that bombing I would launch the first Weekly Summary of Prayer Requests from Israeli Ministries. A handful of us would meet every Thursday to pray for them who were in the midst of continual terror attacks all around the country.

My 50th birthday was 2 days before Islamist terrorists chose to bomb a pizzeria filled with women pushing baby strollers. The bomb killed “16 people, including eight children and a pregnant woman, and wounded another 130 persons.”

Our newly formed Israel Prayer group met each week to pray for God’s protection and for thwarting suicide bombing plots with the intel I was gathering directly from inside the Israeli Messianic ministries.

Then in around Oct-Nov 2003, in my first ever trip to Israel, the two ladies I traveled with and I purposed to go to as many of the bombing sites as we could on that 2 week visit. We did go to Sbarro Pizza which had been rebuilt to demonstrate the resilience and determination of Israelis not to brutally driven from the Promised Land. The picture above I took in 2003. My travel companion, Toni, is standing behind the two men in white shirts in front of the Sbarro pizza.

It was sobering for us to visit these bombing sites. We were not there just to visit ancient sites. We knew we were standing among those who are continuing the book of Acts beyond its 28 chapters in the Bible. This is the real Israel. Still biblical. Still contending for God and wrestling with enemies in finding their way back to Him spiritually.