Dear Friends
The adventure continues
We joined Dave & Ann Clark again on this latest installment as Team ‘Open Hands’ stepped onto the land of our mission objective. It was a great trip! Walking out this vision has been an exciting adventure because although we had pre-scheduled with some people, many of those appointments led to unexpected meetings later.
Hashgachah Pratit – Hebrew for ‘personal divine guidance’
To our delight, our trips have been highlighted by many Divine connections and appointments. In fact, as we shared our stories to our Israeli friends, several of them told us this phenomenon is something called, hashgachah pratit (pronounced hosh gah kah prah teet). It describes a special place of favor that happens when they receive specific personal guidance from God. And that topic inspired even more exchange. So much fun!
Great fellowship til midnight
Heart-level relationships
While some of our connections could be described as introductory relationship building, others have been surprisingly rewarding on the heart-level. One late night meal with some of our dear Jewish friends yielded a most rewarding exchange of hearts… it was momentous for all of us. We found a great deal of freedom sharing about… family, anointing, compassionate care for others, prophesying, tears, etc. Encouraging ‘word in season’ deposits were made in each other’s lives. We exclaimed to each other how spiritually refreshing our time was. True friendships were established and deepened. Several times on this trip, upon parting ways, people exclaimed, “It’s been like a refreshing breath of spiritual air” and “You’re special people” and “You’re spiritual people”. No doubt about it, Heaven is delighted.
Every person we’ve connected with has responded VERY graciously. We leave deposits of love and care wherever we can. We trust HaShem (their word for God) will watch over the deposits of ‘life’ from each other… to bring forth His fruit in all of our hearts.
Dignity Clothing warehouse and distribution center
Mission details: Clothing distribution
Earlier this year, Dave & Ann were introduced to a charitable distribution organization called Dignity Clothing. It was a welcome and powerful ‘God-sign’ for the vision. Dignity has offered to assume a significant part of the workload (free gratis) in the over-all ‘pipe-line’ between the clothing manufacturer and the people.
We personally presented the samples of clothing from China to the people who will be in charge of their distribution in Israel. With a few modifications, the samples were approved. We were impressed as we visited the warehouse that receives the clothes, bar codes each one and distributes them to over 1600 families in Israel. The components for the ‘pipe-line’ of this vision are falling into place. Next, we’ll place an order with the clothing manufacturers… and the vision will be in full swing.
Bambi – midwifery
Our midwife friend Bambi, (you may remember that she is the woman who has personally delivered about 40,000 babies in her life) was instrumental in connecting us to Dignity Clothing. It was fun to watch her surprise and pleasure as the favor of God gave Open Hands a solid relationship with the executives of Dignity Clothing. Among other great accolades for Bambi, we’re impressed with her organizational records… including the moneys received from donors and given to people in need. She has some great stories of the impact of her help. Here’s one…
Pressing needs – woman with MS
A woman has 12 children, 6 of whom are now married. Some years ago, she was stricken with MS – she is now paralyzed, deaf, vision impaired and needs help 24/7. She had a husband who was working in education. He became sick with cancer last winter and passed away. They were living in a 3 bedroom apt. He left a lot of debt. The family determined that it would be cheaper to move from Jerusalem and live in Modi’in Illit… and one of the married children decided to live with their mother. They combined two apartments into one by removing walls in order to make room for the combined families. Bambi’s organization gave them $10,000 for their financial debt and currently supports them $1000 per month to keep up with the bills. Many more stories as dire as this one have stirred our hearts to come alongside Bambi with financial help.
Divine appointment with Rabbi Machlis
A friend named Sally told us that we really needed to meet Rabbi Machlis. We were told that he and his family open their home weekly to anyone who wants to share the Shabbat meals together with them. Upwards to 100-150 people show up spontaneously. Different beliefs and faiths are all welcomed. He invites everyone to speak during the meal… and they’ve been doing this for 30+ years. Sally’s account of this rabbi resonated deeply with our hearts. We knew we had to get to know him. When parting, she gave us a check to give to him. Then she simply instructed, “Just look for him at The Kotel” (Western Wall).
Prayers inserted in The Wall as a point of faith
On Shabbat, a few days later, we visited the Kotel. Our minds were focused on finding our way to the Wall. But as we entered the prayer area near the Wall, we were asked if we’d like to join a small group to pray about 10-15 feet from the Wall. We found a place to sit down directly behind a praying rabbi. As we approached our chairs, this rabbi graciously reached out to shake our hands… and shortly thereafter he found a book in English and gave it to us to follow along with him. He kept reciting the prayers but occasionally turned around and helped me find the appropriate place in my book. Having no idea who he was, we were struck with how gracious he was.
Eventually, Dave and I went up to The Wall and prayed for about 15-20 minutes. The rabbi was only about 10-15 feet behind us the whole time. As we were about to leave the Wall area, we realized that we needed to take care of Sally’s check, so we asked someone if they knew how we could find Rabbi Machlis…. We could hardly believe it… they pointed directly back to the very same rabbi who graciously greeted us and who helped us follow along with him. It was Rabbi Machlis!!! Crazy cool!!
Well, we tried to give him the check but Rabbi Machlis refused, without explanation. We didn’t realize it, but he can’t touch money during Shabbat. We didn’t know!! We apologized later! Anyway, we were amazed that HaShem had helped us find and have a personal interaction with Rabbi Machlis, even when we weren’t looking for him!!
The next day, we called the rabbi and he quickly invited us over to his very modest apartment. He was exceptionally gracious and welcoming! It was a great exchange, although short. We’ll definitely be connecting with him again when we return. Here’s his website: https://www.machlis.org
Here are a few more crazy stories that have too many amazing details to share:
We just ‘happened’ to bump into a government official… in our conversation and in follow-up emails we’re all confident that it was a Divine appointment, which has a future purpose.
One of our good friends was asked to be Israel’s president, but she refused because it would diminish her influence in Israel…
A USA-based Jewish philanthropist to Israelis in need has eagerly entered into a partnership with ‘Open Hands’… accepting the cost of importing, warehousing and distribution of the clothing in 35-40 distribution sites in Israel…
A friendship emerged with the director of a world-renown mental health institute… we shared a Shabbat meal with him and his family… and he’s a rabbi who sits on a rabbinical council over 1000 rabbis…
We have a deep heart relationship with the director of an acting school in Jerusalem that is as influential in Israel as Hollywood is in the USA…
One late night the US Embassy security saw a fire directly across the street on our good friend’s 3rd story patio and woke them up by pounding on their door. The fire was easily contained. Our US Embassy may have saved their home and their lives. A sign hanging from their patio now says: “Thank you, President Trump.”
In the media/arts/movie industry, rewarding heartfelt friendships have been established with a director, a producer and a distributor… they each are well established, independent and seasoned veterans in the industry…
These are just some of the impacting encounters that were without a doubt, hashgachah pratit… personal divine guidance. So many cool things happened that it looks very suspiciously like God is setting us up for something bigger than we’re currently aware of now. And that’s the stuff that makes for great God-adventures!
More soon. We’ll keep you posted.
Our love and blessings!
Mark & Debbie
Dave & Ann
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Dwelling Place Ministries
Hendrickson
11011 Olive St
KC, MO 64131
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Mark Hendrickson
Beyond the Map 