Displaying items by tag: distress

In a distressing incident involving a firm of funeral directors in Hull, East Yorkshire, a widow was shocked to discover that her husband’s ashes, which had been made into jewellery, might not be his. After investigating, the police have removed the bodies of 35 individuals and suspected human ashes. The woman, who lost her husband eight months ago, is now faced with the harrowing task of identifying his body. This development is part of a broader police inquiry, which has led to the arrest and subsequent bail of two individuals. Many families have raised concerns about receiving incorrect ashes following funerals. A friend of another affected family from Beverley described how women in the family had turned ashes into crystal jewellery, only to learn the deceased had been in a freezer all this time, raising questions about which ashes had been used. The police have received over 1,000 calls from the public and are conducting formal identification procedures for the recovered bodies and ashes.

Thursday night was storming, and in the hills of Samaria, a few miles north of Shilo, an Israeli bus traveling from a nearby settlement veered into a guardrail, broke through and plunged down the 230 foot embankment, coming to rest on its top.  This is in an area of the contested “Territories” with communities of both Jews and Palestinian Arabs, but which is patrolled and under the oversight of Israel.  A Palestinian family witnessed the crash from their home; they immediately called police, then tore out of their home, down the hill to render aid. When police, ambulances and troops arrived to help, there were the Arab family members down in the ravine in their pajamas in the pouring rain with flashlights trying to extract survivors and help those who were wounded.  Working together, all were pulled from the wreckage, and taken up to the road where a medical helicopter was waiting.  Two were dead, seven others wounded.   A Captain medical officer at the scene credited the quick work of the Palestinian family with saving lives.  One observer commented how the “complex reality” of the region was underscored by the arrival of troops to assist.  They had been part of a brigade a few kilometers away in hot pursuit of a Palestinian terrorist who during the previous 24 hours had carried out two shooting attacks.  When word of the accident reached them, they decided to split up so that some could come assist.  When they arrived at the bus, there were members of a Palestinian family working in the rain to administer aid to Jewish settlers trapped under the bus.

When word of the accident was written up in Israeli newspapers, it was with a kind of wonder at the grace shown by this family to Jews in distress.  “Palestinian Family was First to help Bus Crash Victims, Call Police”  read one headline; “Palestinian Family saves Israeli lives in Nighttime Bus Crash” read another.  There is great distrust and hostility between Arab and Jewish communities in this area. The name of the family wasn’t given—likely to protect them from reprisals by their own neighbors for daring to offer kindness to Israelis in distress. 

We are touched by the actions of this “Good Samaritan” family—in the heart of modern-day Samaria.  It is so essential that we realize, for all the contention and hatred roiling in this most-contested place on earth, that God’s merciful Spirit of grace is working, crossing through borders and ethnic and religious walls.  And “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.”

PLEASE PRAY:

*  Blessing upon the “nameless” Palestinian family which came to the aid of the stricken Israeli bus.  Pray that the light of God’s Grace will shine into their lives, and illumine them on the path He has for them.

• A capacity in Israel to see one’s “neighbor” beyond ethnic lines, even, when possible, beyond the lines drawn  in active regional conflict.  That we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, whoever they are—because God does.  That we must not depersonalize the souls of those on “the other side.”
• For the Spirit of God in kindness to draw Palestinian Arabs into revelation and the salvation of the One who loves them, who is the Saviour of the World.  When this happens, may it not be they more than any others who will be able to provoke their Hebrew neighbors to the jealousy Paul speaks of in Romans 10 and 11.  So that All Israel shall be Saved!

Martin & Norma Sarvis,

Jerusalem