like this child

One of the most disturbing things I’ve ever read

I love life. I do not like death. There is a spirit behind death which is demonic. Yuck. I’ve seen it in “martyr’s monuments” in Palestine; I’ve seen it in the eyes of people tormented by suicidal thoughts; I’ve seen it on dictators’ faces; and I’ve seen it creeping the streets of my beloved Baghdad, Iraq. Killing is evil and it should never be welcomed.

Abortion is a way of killing babies. I know there are many emotional journeys which lead people to choose abortion, things horrendously difficult, and often full of death as well, but this does not justify killing anyone.

All to say,

I really think you should read this book excerpt (HERE) written by a woman who ran a Planned Parenthood clinic.

“The Plea” a poem by Sue Sabbagh

I came across this poem today in the book, “Palestine: History of a Lost Nation” by Karl Sabbagh. It’s a good reminder of the people who need advocacy: people in areas of conflict longing for peace. It’s the desire in a child stuck in an angry home, the desire of an alcoholic afraid of being left alone with himself, and the desire of families around the world who are nearly trapped in their homes on account of war. The flower that pokes through the weeds is the promise that peace is possible. It is precisely what Jesus has paid for, and it is precisely what God has given His children the authority to do: to be repairers of the breach. 

Isaiah 58:12 sings of our restorative calling, “Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” It’s beautiful. What an honor, to love nations to life. So we can hear the plea and know we are not powerless. On the contrary, we are powerful and we are the answer. 

The Plea 

to find me you must stop the noise

silence the guns and the tanks,

the shouted orders

and shouts of dediance,

screaming and weeping.

and listen.

 

my voice is very weak

you must try to hear it

you will have to come close

and pick away the tumbled stones

carefully, gently.

 

when you find me, lift me out,

help me to breathe,

set my broken limbs

but don’t think it is enough

to give me back a fragile existence

 

i need food and water,

i need a home that will last,

health and hope and work to do

i need love

             

you must embrace me 

and take me to your heart

…my name is Peace…..

Sue Sabbagh, June 2002

! رمضان كريم and Happy Ramadan Everyone!

Tomorrow August 1, 2011 is the first day of Ramadan. Ramadan occurs during the ninth month of the Muslim calendar, which varies from year to year based on the moon so Ramadan is not the same dates every year, but actually gets about 11 days earlier each year. Ramadan is meant to be a month (30 days) of fasting. This fasting is refraining from eating, drinking, and smoking from sun up to sun down. The practice of fasting is adherence to one of the five pillars of Islam – the five primary tenets of Islam.

Two main greetings during Ramadan are “Ramadan Mubarak” which means “Ramadan Blessings” and “Ramadan Kareem” which means “generous” or “rich” Ramadan. When I lived in Palestine I relished the opportunity to say “Ramadan Kareem” during Ramadan because there was a hidden nutritional content to my words. I was blessing people with revelation and depth of encounter with God. My friends usually thought I was referring to God or “Allah” as identified in Islam, but I was referring to the Living God, the Father of Jesus and the Creator of All. I was blessing them to know the Truth and to have the Truth set them free.

On that note,

RAMADAN KAREEM /

رمضان كريم

to all of you!

Blessings of revelation, encounters with Jesus, and the great and glorious engulfing love of God! 

 

 

 

more about Ramadan:

http://www.qul.org.au/islamic-occasions/holy-month-of-ramadan/1079-fasting-in-islam-a-definition-of-fasting-sawm-in-ramadanhttp://www.qul.org.au/islamic-occasions/holy-month-of-ramadan/1079-fasting-in-islam-a-definition-of-fasting-sawm-in-ramadan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2005/09/27/idiots_guide_to_ramadhan_faith_feature.shtml

Baghdad, THERE I come!!! (hee hee hee!)

Sometimes I feel I’ve been pregnant for 15 years. Other times I am sure of it.

The child is a vision, a passion, a calling. The vision is for the Middle East: to thrive, to be at peace, to be madly in love with the Savior.

Much of that vision centers on Iraq.

In 2001 I had a dream I was in one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces in Iraq. I was leading a secret church meeting. I knew Saddam’s regime had fallen and he was dead. I knew it was a prophetic picture of a scene which would be fulfilled.

In 2003 Saddam’s regime fell. In 2006 he was killed. In 2008 I was told about a man named Canon Andrew White who was leading church meetings in one of Saddam’s former palaces, a mutual friend told him about me. We began emailing. On March 23, 2011 Andrew was in Redding and we had dinner. He invited me to work with him in Baghdad.

In 2012 I plan to semi-move to Baghdad to be part of rebuilding and transforming the nation.

For preparation and vision-casting, I’m going to visit Baghdad this November. I’ll spend 2 weeks in England and visit FRRME’s home office; then 2 weeks in Baghdad where I will get to know the land, the people at St George’s Church, the folks at FRRME’s medical clinic, the Tigris River. I will also deliver paintings to high-profile leaders in Iraq. 

To say I am excited would be to say the sun is handy or shoes are helpful for hiking; it is decidedly an understatement. Setting my feet upon Iraq is a moment I’ve burned for, lived for, prayed for with a zeal and a compassion that still electrifies my heart and beckons my soul. Iraq and I are a match made in heaven.

For my trip this fall I need $4,000.

If you’d like to contribute toward transforming this nation, do so here:

http://dawnrichardson.chipin.com/dawns-trip-to-baghdad                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

THANK YOU! / ! شكر

Inviting Life to a Death Scene: the day four terrorists were killed and heaven reserved a place for me at the scene

Palestinians gather around a car where four Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli troops on March 12, 2008

On March 12, 2008 I had an appointment with death. What I mean is, I had a divine appointment scheduled, unbeknownst to me, at a murder scene.

It began with an appointment with a man who makes wooden crosses: a run-of-the-mill visit to Deheisheh, the largest refugee camp in Bethlehem.  At the time I was living in Bethlehem, Israel/Palestinian Territories. I went to meet my friend David and a local man to pick-up a handmade cross to be a prototype for a large order of other such crosses, made of olive wood by the man’s father to be sold overseas to help pay for medical expenses for his twenty-something son, a paraplegic after being shot by soldiers several years prior.

When I arrived I saw my friend, Shaadi, a Palestinian who often gives tours of the area to visitors. He was with two Iranian-Americans and preparing to go to Mar Saba (a monastery in the Judean wilderness outside of Bhem). He asked if I wanted to go. I did. So David and I went – postponing our meeting with the woodworker until that night.

After several hours at the monastery we returned to Bethlehem. It was shortly after 6pm. Shaadi got a phone call. Hot with distress he turned to us, “The IDF just killed four men in Bethlehem, in their car, they were wanted men.” David and I asked questions. The visitors waited. Shaadi said it just happened, just then, they were killed by a rocket his friend thought, one of the dead was a major Islamic Jihad leader in the West Bank — and Shaadi was going to the scene. “Do you want to go?”
Yeah. We do.

So, we did. Two American believers, two Iranian-American tourists, and two Palestinians (Shaadi and our taxi driver, Abed).

You want me to describe the scene; and I will BUT, see that:

1. God in His kindness and His omniscience brought me there – He placed some of His light in a very dark place.

2. It was an honor to be able to be there.

3. It was an honor to be with Bethlehem in an evening of highest turmoil and grief.

4. It was a turning point for me as well.

It was a small car – a red one, four door, maybe 20 years old. Hundreds of people rimmed it. Abed told me to stay close, and I did. He took me right up to the car, through the crowds of frozen electricity, like the stain a lightning bolt leaves in a stormy sky. The windows were crumpled, shattered under the onslaught of machine-gun fire. It wasn’t a rocket, as Shaadi’s friend supposed, it was a spray of bullets from a special unit of Israel Defense Forces, clothed as Palestinians, riding inconspicuously in a Bethlehem taxi. Reports said they attempted to arrest the four men (3 Islamic Jihad, 1 Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade). The most significant man, Shehadah, they wanted for 8 years. The four men, laden with weapons, fired on the IDF special forces when they attempted to arrest them, and the IDF immediately killed them all. The car itself made new clarity of “riddled with bullets.” Dozens of holes every where: each seat inside with its own red-red-red-red bullseye: four concentrated blood stains at each passenger’s chest-level, with the trails of helter-skelter bullets splayed around.

Weapons found on the men in the red car

(for video taken about 15 minutes before we arrived on the scene
(take note: blood and bodies)
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2008/03/video-raw-car-swarm-in-bethlehem.html )

(for a news article on the event: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125552)

“Faddal” (“please go ahead”) I said, moving back at one point to allow a boy, maybe ten, to slide past me – his hands gingerly touching the car as he squeezed by. His eyes surprised me. Not fear, not demand, but frankness. He wanted to see up-close.

I was suddenly tired, rigidly sad. I wanted all those kids to be protected from this. I wanted someone to take them home, to keep them from an impression of reality more likely to breed hatred than love. I wanted them to have Father God’s kingdom within them, to remove them from the competition of the kings and rulers of this world.

A wall of people my standing couch of false relaxation, I drifted toward those I came with. Shaadi was leading them back to the taxi. He jolted around, “Where’s Daaaaaw….?!” – the “n” swallowed by our eye contact. I smiled sincerely, “Thanks.” I knew he was looking out for me. In an ocean of mayhem, I appreciated it a lot.

Next stop: the hospital where the bodies were being taken.

I should add it worked out impeccably we happened to be in a cab with Palestinians when the news broke. It put us in-the-know and also gave us language and understanding of the event, plus the mobility to be dropped off right outside the hospital before Abed went to park the van. Also, it was amazing we “happened” to be tugged out of Bethlehem that day, particularly because the scene was 1/4 mile from my apartment and the circle of chaos and closed streets was encompassing.

Thousands of people swarmed the hospital’s front and back entrances.

Three corpses on stretchers were passed overhead, rafts on waves of sobriety and hysterics. The grand entrance of one body was buoyed by one incessant phrase and one volume: desperately loud.

“Allahu Akbar!”

(which means “Allah (God) is great!”)

Women wept. Weak-kneed boys and girls sobbed, held up by a friend in the same way a man with a broken ankle would be.
Family and friends of the dead.

My tears were already shed. Floodgates released at age 16. That evening I walked into the news coverage I watched for 12 years, the scenes which had once broken my own ability to stand. I was well-trained for the moment which drank me up that fated March Wednesday.

Glug glug glug drank up I was. I prayed. I watched. I slid through the tense multitude to get a better look at this and that. I prayed for kids I saw. I prayed and engaged with the crumbling women, the youth staggering into the ER screaming, “I’m not going to let this go! I’m going to do something to get back at them for this!”, the friends of mine I bumbled into that night (it seemed a large portion of Bethlehem was there), the ones who collapsed under the agony of sadness and were toted into the ER swollen with families, the speechless bystanders. I prayed and engaged with this little city of David, Bethlehem:
birthplace of
the Only One
who could ever turn
this tide of grief, revenge, and consummate oppression.

There is an oft-quoted verse in the book of Esther which says more about why I was at the hospital that dark night:
“And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”
Esther 4:14

After leaving the hospital, David and I filled a previous commitment to visit a family in the camp: the father in the family “happened”  to be the Minister of Labor in Bethlehem. Then we went to get the wooden cross and visit the woodworker’s family. Everyone was in a hubbub over the night’s events; and there we were, the hospital’s clamor still affecting our heartbeats; and our heartbeats still affecting the hospital’s clamor: our peace a holy residue of promise and hope.

for such a time as this.

for murder scenes and war zones, troubled neighborhoods and troubled neighbors,

for places in deep need, for people longing for hope,

for nations, for cities, for individuals,

for such a time as this.

We must not be afraid, but confident. We must not be afraid of “darkness”, but confident in who we are:

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. The answer to the problem. The peace to the chaos. The hope to the hopeless.

We should rejoice when we get the privilege of being all these things,

whether at a crime scene in Bethlehem or a parking lot at the mall. Light belongs in darkness.

“This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you,

that God is Light,

and in Him there is no darkness at all.”

John 1:5

“You are the light of the world.

A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.

Instead they put it on its stand,

and it gives light to everyone in the house.”

Matthew 5:14-15

The Destiny of Islam in the End Times

“The hour has come for the Muslim people to see Jesus and know the Father. We as a Church must discern the times we are living in and hear the sound of Heaven. We must intercede for the Muslims like a mother would for her dying child. Some of us have walked away from Ishmael, just like his own mother did, because the condition of Ishmael seems so hopeless in many ways; but we must yield to the Spirit of God and pray that God will awaken the cry that is in the hearts of the Muslim people . . . God will hear the cry of the Muslim people in this hour. God named Ishmael before he was born, in His wisdom, because one day he knew there would be 1.6 billion Muslims in a spiritual wilderness. Church, get ready – an entire generation of Muslims is going to come into the Kingdom. I believe that all of a sudden, 800 million to 1 billion Muslims will enter the Kingdom of God.” 

(p 28-29)

I merrily, passionately, hopefully encourage you to let your compassion blaze for the Muslim world and READ THIS BOOK! It’s wonderful!

http://www.amazon.com/Destiny-Islam-End-Times/dp/076842593X

www.hopeiraq.com

I have a website! www.hopeiraq.com

It will probably be months before flesh is put on its bones,

but you can stop by anytime.

“I ♥ Baghdad” shirts! ~~~ Help me get to Baghdad! ~~~

“The person with the most hope

has the most influence.”

- unknown

Well folks, I am selling

“I ♥ Baghdad” t-shirts!

Each shirt is $20, but if you buy one by Wednesday, June 1 you get 10% off by using this coupon code: ISAIAH668

You can also save money per shirt by buying TEN SHIRTS for $180, which saves $2 per shirt. So, if you have a group of friends, a class, a church, a prayer group, a book club, etc who want to support the HOPE Revolution for Iraq, it’s a beautiful opportunity to do so!

I’m planning to visit Baghdad this October in preparation for semi-moving there some time in 2012. These shirts are raising money for that trip. I want to be part of rebuilding the nation and filling Iraq with OUTRAGEOUS HOPE. Things are not what they seem. Beneath the ground is a well of hope churning and stirring to explode across the land. I am drawing together a momentum of people who will stand with me and with heaven and declare, “I LOVE BAGHDAD WITH OUTRAGEOUS HOPE.” Take your heart off the “news”, the dread, the negative expectations, and dare to believe for Iraq’s flourishing. There’s nothing special or helpful or loving about believing for a negative outcome, THE PERSON WITH THE MOST HOPE HAS THE MOST INFLUENCE. If we are going to transform the world, we’ve got to stop looking at the physical and obvious, and tap into heaven’s plans for nations. God LOVES the nations. And through Him we have the ability to BRING HEAVEN TO EARTH, like Jesus prayed in the Lord’s prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.”

Also, I need your help selling these shirts. Would you help publicize these shirts and the HOPE movement for Iraq by sharing the link below via email, facebook, twitter, blogs, personal websites, word of mouth, etc? THANK YOU!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/79715167/i-heart-baghdad-shirt-blank-back?ref=v1_other_2

 

 

Micah 5 thoughts on the MIDDLE EAST

In the midst of the hubbub about Israel and Palestine, there is a melody – a melody of hope, peace, and purpose. Bethlehem was called by name as a city of promise in Micah 5. Bethlehem is now in the Palestinian Territories, a place I love wholeheartedly – a people beautiful and important. In Isaiah 9 it says the Lord’s government will be ever-increasing. I believe there is a plan for peace in the Middle East. In heaven in a file cabinet, there is a plan. And it is so full of love it would dumbfound even the most compassionate human being. Two years ago I was thinking about all this me-lee, this confusion and unrest. I was living in Bethlehem, surrounded by a thirty-foot concrete wall and checkpoints. And I was declaring Bethlehem’s true identity to be re-established. From those thoughts came the following song, sung on a balcony in the Bethlehem area. He WILL be their peace.