It's All Good- by Christine Sakakibara

This is a blog written by a good friend here in Israel. At the end is a link to a video from Israeli TV. The video is in Hebrew, but you can still get the sense that it is POSITIVE coverage of a very contraversial subject in Israel--Messianic Jews. This was aired on national TV on Friday evening, Feb 16, 2007. This is a breakthrough! Some of those featured are close friends. The reason the show was done was one of the young children in the video was witnessing to a schoolmate, the reporter's child. God is AMAZING!

We all know that bad news sells more newspapers than good news, well at least that is the case in Israel.

One of the leading stories on the last day of December 2006 said the following: "Report paints gloomy picture of life for Israeli children". The report went on to reveal statistics released by the National Council for the Child. More Israeli children than ever are suffering from divorce, poverty, abuse, neglect and trauma. In short.. Third of Israel's children live below the poverty line. What the reporter of this particular article did not mention was all the assistance, both financial and material, that is being provided in aid by numerous non-profit Christian and Jewish organizations.

The reports that do not make the front page news are many times very encouraging and exciting. If the media had the good sense to give them time and space it would be a real morale builder, both to those who live in Israel and to the faithful ones who pray and support Israel in other ways.

Let's look at the immigrants from Western countries. According to figures released by the Jewish Agency, immigration from the West is on the rise. Aliya from the UK in 2006 reached a record high and surpassed all figures and was the best in 22 years. Russian immigrants are still coming and still make up the majority of immigrants. For the first time ever 220 Jews from the Bnei Menashe tribe in India immigrated after receiving approval that they indeed were one of the lost tribes of Israel.

Despite Israelis' many problems and complaints, a survey carried out by the Ministry of Health found that nearly half of all interviewed felt "happy most or all of the time". The survey interviewed 10,000 Israelis'. The conclusion of the survey showed, half of all Israelis' suffer from "chronic happiness"!

From all media reports, we often come to the conclusion that Israel is isolated and in danger of constant threat from surrounding Arab countries. Recently there was a report that an Israeli system for milking camels has been installed in Dubai. The system, the first of its kind, can milk 48 camels at the same time. Israel and Dubai do not have diplomatic relations. This particular system has the potential to attract 200 million Arab customers. Other countries, who do have diplomatic relations, act as the go between in purchasing Israeli technology for Arab countries. By the way, people who are lactose intolerant can drink camel milk.

Europe is becoming a hot bed of anti Semitism, yet the German government is encouraging tourism to Israel for German citizens who suffer from skin diseases such as psoriasis. The German Ministry of health made a decision to include Dead Sea treatment in the German basket of health services. A health study carried out in Germany concluded it was more economical and proved more successful if patients were sent for four weeks of treatment at Dead Sea hotels and clinics, rather than to skin clinics in Germany.

A Christian Arab researcher, 31years old, now living in Haifa and originally from Nazareth, recently won the largest grant ever given by the European Union to an Israeli scientist. He was given 1.75 million Euros to develop an "electronic nose" to sniff out cancerous cells and tumors before they have a chance to spread and kill. The grant will allow him to set up a new lab and hire researchers from Israel and abroad. He said the team's first goal will be "sniffing out" lung cancer.

But the biggest and best news was stated just this week on a Friday night TV report (Channel 22) on Messianic Jews in Israel. The reporter said that it's believed that there are now 15,000 Messianic Jews living in Israel and in Jerusalem alone are 15 congregations. Three years ago an Israeli newspaper reported they believed there were 10,000 Messianic Jews in Israel. One thing is for sure, souls are being added to the body of Christ.

Good things are happening in Israel, too good to be kept hidden. Israel is well on its way to becoming "A light to the nations". (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6)

link to Israeli tv-video (it begins with advertisements, but the video starts with the family at the kitchen table)

For more articles and news from Christine go to her blog: http://christine-theview.blogspot.com