“An Angel Drove Us Through the Militarized Zone!”
You have ascended on high, you have led captivity captive (Psalm 68:18 NKJV).
My first dramatic encounter with God’s glory in a war zone was in April 2002 when I mediated negotiations in the Middle East during a very serious period of conflict known as the Bethlehem Siege.
The Israeli Defense Force had launched a major ground and air attack on Bethlehem and fighting broke out in the streets in Manger Square as Israeli soldiers instigated an extensive search for dangerous Palestinian militants. Approximately two hundred Palestinians fleeing Israeli troops had broken into the compound around the Church of the Nativity. Over sixty priests, monks, and nuns who lived in this compound were trapped inside with Palestinian civilians and gunmen amongst whom there were several heavily armed militia members. The militants had sought refuge in the square near the church assuming that Israel would not fight within such proximity to a Christian holy site. This fourth-century church was built over the site that Christians had identified as being the place of the birth of Jesus.
I was close friends with the then-deputy foreign minister of Israel, Rabbi Michael Melchior, and I received a series of urgent calls from him, Yasser Arafat, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, to return to Bethlehem and mediate negotiations. On arriving in Bethlehem, I realized how horrific things were. A military operation known as Defensive Shield was underway in the West Bank and a significant amount of the territory was under siege.
At first, the trapped Palestinians ate food stored by the monks and nuns who live there; but as time progressed from days into weeks, conditions seriously deteriorated—food and water had run out and all but one line of electricity was cut off.
There had been deaths inside the church compound, and the innocent civilians held inside and were suffering from dehydration and unable to negotiate with their besiegers. The atmosphere in Bethlehem was dark, menacing, sinister, and full of fear.
The streets were packed with Israeli tanks, military trucks and burnt-out cars. Palestinian fighters had been forcing their way into homes and firing a constant stream of rockets and mortar shells into Beit Jala—a neighboring town that was largely Christian. Israel had responded by sending Apache helicopters to destroy the homes from which the missiles were being fired and, as is so often the case, the Christians found themselves trapped in the middle of a horrific war zone.
I spent long days in intense discussions with politicians; Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders; and a significant amount of time and energy trying to get food to help the people in Bethlehem and the neighbouring towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour. We were faced with a huge humanitarian crisis especially in regard to those living near the church. The curfew was only lifted for three hours every two or three days and even when it was lifted, many people were scared to go out and find food. Consequently, we were constantly trying to prepare large bags of food and deliver them to all those in need as well as to a group of Ethiopian monks living in Manger Square who had nothing to eat or drink.
It was in this climate of desperation, amidst the sound of gunfire and explosions, that I received further news regarding the plight of an older man named Edmond Nasser who had recently returned home from hospital following open-heart surgery and was in a serious condition due to not being able to access the medication required for his recovery. Edmond and his wife lived on the edge of Manger Square in the center of Bethlehem, which was cut off, and the British consulate who knew of my previous medical training had advised them to contact me. I knew when I received the call that God was calling me to rise up and act in His divine strength and would somehow enable me to get to Edmond despite it seeming impossible.
I contacted the local Israeli commander, Shmueli Hamburger, who was a colonel in the reservists and who worked with the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs with oversight of the Christian communities and occupied territories. I passed on the message form the British Consulate and asked him to get me into the city urgently as a man was dying. His response was that it was “far too dangerous” and that I would be “seriously risking my life.” Nevertheless, the voice of God was resonating so deeply with me and I knew that I had to get to this man.
My Israeli driver who knew the area well found a back route into Beit Jala, and we went as far as we could before quickly leaving the car to climb over some rocky barren land in order to get nearer to our destination. This was no easy task as from the place where we had to leave the car, we still had another two miles to go and I was absolutely exhausted. The courage and the boldness were there but it was exhausting. As I stood tired and weary with my medical bag in my hand and my head raised to Heaven asking my Father for divine assistance, I felt faith rise and experienced a wave of deep peace wash over me. As this happened, a man who had the appearance of a local man suddenly appeared from nowhere. I am still convinced that this man was an angel. He came running toward us, and when I asked him his name he said Mustafa (which in Arabic means “chosen one”). This man did not look like an angel in the way that I have seen angels since—he was a normal looking person dressed in normal clothes—however, he carried a unique presence. Even though his name was Arabic and he appeared to be local, his car had Israeli plates on, which was unusual. As he asked us where we wanted to go, I felt another strange peace flood my being—the same tangible peace as I had felt consume me the moment before he arrived. The man drove us at an extremely high speed to the Beit Jala King Hussein hospital where we met with Colonel Hamburger who we then followed to the home of Mr. Nasser.
Upon arrival I was able to dress Mr. Nasser’s wounds, give him the medication that he required, and pray with him and his wife. He made a successful recovery and lived on for several more years. As we left Edmond’s house, Colonel Hamburger very strongly instructed our mysterious driver, Mustafa, to follow his own vehicle very slowly through the city and not to take any other route. However, with no conversation, warning, or explanation, Mustafa ignored all military instructions, hit the accelerator, and sped away as soon as we entered the car. I ought to have felt terrified, yet the strange sense of peace continued despite the high-speed journey, which was full of radical swerves. I felt very much as if I were on a race-car track.
As our car arrived from our “alternative” route at the District Command Office, Colonel Hamburger ran to Mustafa’s vehicle and greeted us with anxious trembling and tears of relief. On returning from Edmond’s house, someone had thrown a bomb directly at his vehicle and it has landed and exploded just behind it. If we had heeded his instruction and followed his car, we would have been caught in the explosion and killed outright.
I have reflected on this event a lot over the years and I am still convinced within my spirit that this mysterious (almost silent) driver named Mustafa was an angel who, in accordance with the meaning of his name, had been commissioned to assist us. He had appeared seemingly from nowhere, did not charge us a fee, and he disappeared at a speed. Furthermore, during the thirty-nine days of the siege there were no other vehicles or taxis allowed in the town, so his presence there was a mystery. The only people on the streets outside of the short curfew hours were the army and me. This mysterious man had been peaceful, serene, and fearless and seemed to have carried a unique knowledge and intuition of what was happening—that is to say, he had a level of awareness, insight, and aptitude superior to the earthly knowledge and wisdom of the military. It seemed that he had been assigned to us for the specific task of entering the danger zone, reaching Mr. Nasser, and ministering to him. Though without uniform, he appeared to be of a man of superior rank to the military colonel whose orders he ignored. His level of skill, insight, authority, kindness, and aptitude was simply not normal. Due to my position, I personally had been and continued to be a very familiar face in Bethlehem; I knew many families well, as well as drivers and assistants, yet I had never once seen this man before and I never once saw him since. When I enquired as to who he might be, no one knew. To this day, I do not understand what happened, but what I do know is that on that day, I experienced the overwhelming presence of the Prince of Peace and the full backing of Heaven as I undertook one of the most dangerous of tasks.
As I returned to the scene of conflict, I could see that tensions were steadily intensifying. A group of Franciscan monks had decided to remain in the Church of the Nativity compound as voluntary hostages in order to show solidarity to the Palestinians and reduce bloodshed while many of the Palestinian civilians who were trapped inside were experiencing a double siege as they were fearful to come out onto the streets even if they could, lest they be blown up or fired at by the army. The decaying bodies of men who had been shot inside were eventually carried out on makeshift coffins while dehydrating people trapped in the siege had been reduced to using water from the well to boil lemon leaves from the lemon trees that grew in the courtyard.
The Palestinian negotiating team attempted to exchange food for the release of civilians held in the church; however, the gunmen refused to accept the offer and the thirty-nine-day period of mediating negotiations that followed remained tedious, exhausting, and seemingly impossible. Yet within all of the turmoil and frustration, I could feel God’s glory rising in and on me. I remember one night when we were right in the heart of crucial negotiations I returned to my base in Jerusalem at the Mount Zion hotel, and as I began to sing in the spirit alone in my room and pray for divine acceleration, redemption of the captives, and a solution to be released I became covered in gold and silver. This was the only time I have had gold and silver land all over me at the same time. In fact, only very rarely have I seen supernatural silver appear as most often it has been gold. The suit that I was still wearing was literally covered in gold and silver, and when I looked in the mirror, my face and hair were covered in this dazzling glitter. This was a great sign to me of God’s glory and Him releasing His “ownership” of Bethlehem, His possession.
As I looked at myself glittering in the mirror, my mind turned to Haggai 2:8: “The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,” and the burden of frustration instantly lifted from me as I felt God’s hand of ownership and intervention being released. I felt energy and joy fill my body and began to see light at the end of the tunnel as I knew that silver represented redemption and that God’s redemptive activity was being released. Clarity would be provided in the midst of confusion and strife. Right there in my hotel room as I stepped beyond physical exhaustion and into a place of intimacy with God, I was experiencing the glory zone within the war zone.
During the next few days, the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, stated that the trapped gunmen had a choice of either facing trial in Israel or accepting permanent exile; however, the Palestinians refused to agree. The seemingly endless stream of inconclusive meetings thus continued, and then on day thirty-nine the great breakthrough that I knew I had been promised finally arrived. The Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Defense Force agreed to release the terrorists from the church and send certain men to Gaza and others abroad. The suddenness of this agreement was itself a miracle; it was an abrupt interruption to a long series of scenarios that made any form of solution increasingly impossible. During the morning of day forty, on arriving at the airport to return to my family, I received messages from church leaders and intercessory groups literally all over the globe. They had been praying fervently during each day of the siege for God’s glory to cover me, for divine wisdom, angelic assistance, and supernatural protection to be released to me and for the liberation of all those held captive. We must never underestimate the prayers of the saints.
It was only after the siege days that I began to see how the inner fortitude and reliance on God that I had experienced in this time of crisis was preparing me for life and victory in the war zones of Baghdad. During those early years of diplomatic work in Israel, I had no idea that my future would be spent in Iraq, but God did. It was my involvement in the Bethlehem siege that marked and shaped the ministry I was to fulfil. This difficult thirty-nine days established and illuminated my calling, exposed the need to step confidentially into divine strength, and sensitized me to a new dimension of God.
As the siege was drawing to an end, I was reflecting on the miraculous protection of life that so many families had experienced despite having their homes destroyed. Within one single week, one of my beloved families had seen the sudden birth of over thirty tortoises in the garden. The father of this family is a close friend of mine named Joseph and he is a carpenter by trade. Joseph is a very God-fearing man, and during the siege he had spent each day in fervent prayer. The sudden birth of the tortoises in the garden had taken place as liberation drew near and they became a great sign to all of us. Never had such an unprecedented number of tortoises appeared in a garden within one week. People were astonished and neighbors would go in to witness and photograph the sight. These multiple tortoise births signified the divine physical protection that God had granted us during the siege. Though we had no body armor like the tortoise, we had a naturally supernatural shell of protection and refuge, a transportable “hiding place.” The mysterious tortoise births also signified multiplication and longevity as tortoises have one of the longest lifespans in the animal world. I believe that their birth was a prophetic sign not just of the preservation of human life but of the protection of God’s purposes for His people in Bethlehem, the longevity and endurance of their faith, and the multiplication of the harvest in the region. As God had redeemed Bethlehem from the hands of terror, so He would see to it that the work He had begun in His people would be brought to completion and passed on from generation to generation.
Throughout the period of rebuilding that took place after the end of the siege and during the Intifada that followed a few years later, Joseph the carpenter and I had regular experiences with angels. In many instances the angels appeared as visible walls of radiant light, and one would often feel a sudden wind, breeze, or electrical charge. They always emerged during times of great danger. On one such occasion, I was standing on the roof of a newly acquired building in Beit Jala where we were just about to start a school for the Aramaic speaking Christians, when a missile flew past me and missed my leg by literally two feet. (As I mentioned, these were before the days of my having military body armor in Iraq.) As the missile passed beyond me, I could feel myself enwrapped by a holy presence, and I knew that I was being protected and surrounded by angelic majesties.
The school building on which I was standing that day was developed—and just last year, I was at the graduation of the first generation of those who had been toddlers during the siege. They spoke at their graduation of how their families had been raised from the ashes and how their lives had been marked by God’s faithfulness and divine favor. These young ones are living oracles and their parents have not allowed them to forget or discard the stories and testimonies of their ancient and familial heritage. They have not forgotten their Creator or Redeemer in the days of their youth, and they are the true heroes of Bethlehem. Many of these “children of the siege” are now at universities in Israel and in different nations. They carry a deep and sincere love and reverence for God and my continuous prayer is that they will remain radical lovers of Jesus, that they will become audacious and anointed liberators who know and release God’s glory in the days ahead.
This small town of Bethlehem—“the House of Bread” and the dwelling of kings, the place where David and Ruth experienced the depths of the living God, the home of the sacred well (physical and spiritual) from which David craved water, the birthplace of the Bread of all Life, the town whose soil is marked by blood, infanticide, and glory—remains a place where the lamp of the Lord has most assuredly not been extinguished. Praise and worship continue to arise from the Christian minority that remains, and a radiant light shines forth within the darkness. In this humble town invaded throughout the centuries by Muslim armies, Crusaders, and Ottomans, on this soil marked by bloody massacre and intense glory, households of light remain united in their adoration of King Jesus. These are households who, though few in number, have taken their stand for righteousness, love, and truth.
Reflections
Sieges are mentioned frequently throughout Israel’s history and referred to throughout the Old Testament. A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by sustained attack or a well-prepared assault. A siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by a quick assault and which refuses to surrender. Thick walls and gates of ancient cities enabled the ancient watchmen to resist besiegers. The Hebrew word for “siege” is mâtsôwr, which translates as a “hemming in.”
Similarly, on a spiritual level sieges, blockades, and the feeling of being “hemmed in” can take multiple forms. The feeling of being hijacked, sabotaged, invaded, surrounded by adversarial forces, and trapped by the enemy takes place within relationships, finances, careers, and within so many experiences of life. It may even be that you experience a siege in your body or that at night you find yourself besieged by nightmares.
As I experienced in Bethlehem, sieges can be exhausting and long, yet God truly does enable us to withstand. He is our strength, our fortress, and our great liberator. Like David we must stand firm and hold fast to the knowledge of who He is: “The Lord has become my fortress” (Ps. 94:22 NIV).
Rest assured that during times of siege, God is still present, His glory and His life-giving joy are still available to you, and His angels are active. He is still on the throne. It was during the siege that the Holy Spirit surrounded me and imparted wisdom, might, and counsel that enabled me to persist even when things seemed impossible. As my good friend Michael W. Smith sings in a recent song: “It may look like I’m surrounded but I’m surrounded by You.”1 This must be your anthem in times of crisis and besiegement.
Prayer
Father, I lift up to every reader and each family represented. For those who feel besieged in their bodies, relationships, workplaces, finances, or communities, I ask that You move powerfully upon them, release Your angels in their midst and bring divine liberation and deliverance. As they abide in Your presence, release overwhelming joy and let Your promise that “those whom the Son sets free are free indeed’ have its full effect in every home.
