Loving back to Life

'AHAVA' - love

Your People My People partners with a Jerusalem based ministry that supports and encourages victims of terror and their families.  Ahuva*, who leads and runs this organisation, has invested many years reaching out to those who are working through this kind of trauma.  Having family members who have experienced terror attacks first hand, currently she has developed a focus on women, particularly mothers who have greatly needed the kind of love and support being offered. 

“Our summer has been a full calendar”, shares Ahuva.  “And we are taking a group of around 12 ladies away for some time out, to love on them and treat them kindly in ways they are not usually used to.  We show them the ongoing kindness and love of our Father, a King who is passionate to lavish the goodness of His Face upon  them.”

The group leaves early morning for a two day trip, treating the ladies to full spa treatments, a guided tour of the area in the evening, a chocolate workshop the following morning...and then home, late evening at the end of the second day.   Ahuva specifically requests that we remember to pray for them during these trips.  “These may sound like ‘easy’ trips but  it can often be an intense time when we are away together and dynamics can occur where ‘war’ breaks out!  We do , however see the huge difference between this group a year ago and today. They have in general become a cohesive caring group, who look out for one another and are familiar and comfortable with working together not just for the good of the individual but the group as a whole.”



Ahuva continues, “There are those, of course, whose hearts are so shut down, that without intention they pour out negativity and thus have a tendency to poison the entire group!!  Each time when we have taken a group away, we have been privileged to see huge steps forward, or that almost silent but key, moment of breakthrough, where a significant piece of information was unwittingly released which then takes both relationship and the ability to heal into a different place, literally pushing the fast forward button. We expect shouts of joy and victory to come up from this camp.”

Ahuva also had a family evening planned in the city with a special singer who has worked with them before.  It was an evening of chilling out in the middle of a hot summer for those who have no holiday on any horizon, no time away, no respite.  “Our desire is to bring the families together, to sing Israeli folk songs known and loved by all, through the generations.  This was also an opportunity for us as a team, a time to gently press in to relationships with those who still stand on the outside and are reluctant to come closer.”

Two workshops for the ladies are already in place.  Because this is a group primarily of widows and bereaved mothers, Ahuva knows the importance of continually encouraging them.  “It is both vital and rewarding.  I sensed strongly that our focus over the last two or three months has been to accelerate a preparation to put off the old and to help put on the new in order to be ready to enter a Hebraic new year in September.  Throughout the summer months we have been offering to the women sessions of deeper emotional healing to help their forward motion into life and to establish healthy patterns for the coming year. I look at some of them and am reminded of I Sam 25:37 ‘His heart died within him and he became like a stone.’  They are still so shut down, functioning on automatic pilot, not allowing themselves to connect, let alone  ‘feel’  again. One can look and note negative behaviour patterns, but we have to remember that their hearts are indeed dead, and with that, the issues of life become representatives of the grave which they are in.

“It is a huge step for these women to both acknowledge their need and to be prepared to access these hidden places.  David writes in Psalm 51 “Behold You desire truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.  Create in me a new heart oh God and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your Face and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.”

Please remember to pray for Ahuva and this ministry as they work to bring these women out of darkness and death into God’s light and love!

*Name changed