A Surprise I Never Saw Coming

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"But for you who revere My Name, the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall !" 

~ Malachai 4:2

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Today didn't go as planned. Here is the story:

So I'll start from before I came to Israel.
Quite a few weeks before we booked our tickets to come to Israel, we had already decided to come for all the fall feasts; these started the beginning of September and finish at the end of the month. (Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles)
So I knew in advance that I would be in Israel for my birthday, September 15th.
This was exciting to me and so I spent much time in anticipation, Googling different places I could go and explore and various activities we could do to celebrate ! So before coming here to Jerusalem I had in my mind a sort of outline of my celebration day. I was very excited!

Little did I know that God had something else in mind for me. Little did I know that it was totally different than I had expected and planned for.
Turns out that, God knows me better than I know myself. And he planned the perfect birthday, better than I ever could have ! :)

So instead of having an event-filled, action-packed, Indiana Jones-style exploration kind of a day, I had a very slow, very peaceful, very joyful, and very precious, loving, priceless, funny, kind of a day.
And trust me, the latter is far FAR better than the former.

I have come to realize that when we celebrate birthdays, its more than 'another thing to make the months go by faster'. (this was my childhood kind of take on it growing up haha) I've come to see that it is a day we take to celebrate life! Its quite wonderful really. And where does life come from? It comes from relationships, it comes from friends, it comes from family, and all these come from God.

So they say that pictures speak much louder than words. I would add that they speak more life sometimes too ! Here are some from today and then you can see too how beautiful my unexpected day really was too :

This is Sarah and I posing in front of a street sign called "Yehoshua Bin-Nun".

This was on our way to our English Friends 'House! They invited us over for the afternoon.  

So we walk in and all of a sudden we see all these beautiful decorations !

They were all pink and beautiful and lovely ! such a wonderful surprise :) 

One of our creative artists, Nicole from Holland! 

This is Lisa, David and Anne. 

It was Anne's (right) birthday today as well! so we shared the day together. 

They were singing musicals for quite some time! I was thoroughly impressed with the multiple songs they had memorized word for word! I only knew parts to one song they sang lol they put everyone to shame with their talent !  

A totally DELICIOUS meal ! 

On top of ALL OF THIS, they even bought me a card & a gift! can you imagine! I couldn't believe it. 

A Stunning Star of David Necklace ! 

First it was the stunning meal, then it was fruit salad with yogurt and honey and then it was cake! 

I was so spoiled! 

I gotta say, this candle really impressed me :) 

This was the card I received from the lot. The girl's hair is composed by the whole book of Ruth written in Hebrew! A more perfect card I don't think I could find. :) 

So at the end of it all, the whole day was a surprise. And it was perfect :) 

After we had all eaten and were satisfied, Eddie started a game. The game was for everyone around the table to chose a word of the day. Some words that came up were coffee, joy, tea, joy, (a fruit i can't remember the name of.. sorry Sarah lol) and finally it came to me. 

The word I chose for the day was this:

משפחה - Mishpacha - Family 

It seemed so fitting. Because even across the world in a foreign land and a foreign culture, I was blessed to spend a day with family, my family under Abraham :)  Barukh Adonai ! Praise God !

Now to all my blog readers, i'll leave you with this: 

The Lord bless you
    and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord turn his face toward you
    and give you peace

~ Numbers 6. 

PS. I love you all Eddie, Janet, David, June, Nicole, Anne, Joanna ! Thank you so much, You were still all such a blessing to me and I can't ever repay you :) 

God knew exactly who to place in our lives on this trip! He is so brilliant to have chosen you guys! <3