Dear
friends,
Today
there was a lot of action concerning harrassment and
persecution by the Hassidei Gur
(aka datim and haredim). In the morning two men came to the chess
club where we were giving out free clothes to anyone who wanted them. They harrassed the people who came by and
told them that we kidnap children and take them to
Then
things were quiet for awhile. Then Mendel showed up again and attacked
the chess and domino players. They are all former Soviet military of KGB
officers. They tried to distribute flyers to these men, which state that
we burned down our own chess club for the insurance. (Private clubs in
Later,
I tried to grab a brochure from Mendel's hand that he was using to show a photo
of a baptism (supposedly of a child that we had allegedly kidnapped). I
tried twice, but he was quicker than I was. Another shop owner called the
police to come and arrest Mendel. But Mendel told the police that I had
attacked and hit him. Therefore he wanted to file a complaint against
me. The officers asked for my identity information, which I refused to
give in front of Mendel. So we went inside and talked. They could
see that we were telling the truth and asked me to go with them to the police
station and to file a complaint.
After
arriving at the police station I was turned over to an ethnick
Ethiopian officer who is not sympathetic to the believers here. I asked
if they would give my identity information to Mendel. They said that by
law they would have to. This is strange as they never give information
the other direction. So, I refuse to press charges or file a complaint,
which they couldn't understand. They want as many complaints against him
as they can collect. Why, we don't know as they never enforce any of
their own injunctions or orders of protection, especially when it comes to
Mendel.
The
officers were shocked when I refused and didn't understand. But I told
them that if Mendel got ahold of my ID, then they,
through their connections, would put me on a black list and I would never be
able to return to
J*
was able to get some of his most important footage today.
This evening the datim were waiting at the
restaurant, where we have our weekly fellowship dinner, when we arrived.
First, they were able to convince the local security not to allow any of the
shop owners to park in the area of the shopping center. That rule wasn't
in effect earlier in the day. Neither we nor the restaurant owner were
allowed to park near the area of the restaurant. All except the driver of
our van exited and began to watch. Joel was the first out of the van and
immediately began to film the guard's actions along with numerous angry
Israelis, who were supposed to be allowed to park there and taxi drivers, who
were entering the area to pick up customers. The guard finally called the
police who came, not because of the new regulation, traffic tie-up, etc., but
to complain that he was being photographed and filmed. When the gate was
finally opened, it slammed rather hard against the side of a taxi, almost
breaking the windshield and endangering the passenger.
The
Hassidei Gur were waiting in front of the restaurant, which was catering
two events at the same time, ours and a birthday party. These goons were harrassing everyone who came into the restaurant and
causing problems for everyone in the area.
When
it was getting time for us to leave, the restaurant owner called the police,
which told her that they weren't going to come. But she strongly demanded
that they intervene. When we exited the restaurant the group had grown
from 3 to well over 20 yelling and screaming demon-possed
men. J* went
out with his video camera rolling. I kept snapping photos with my digital
still camera. There were 3 police officers, basically doing
nothing. (At one point they shook the hands of the leaders of the
demonstration.) There wasn't enough space in the van for everyone, so J*
and I stayed behind to film and photo what was happening. Then shortly,
the police left, leaving J* and me surrounded by this frenzied mob. (The
police never even noticed us anyway.) A lady passing by, who only spoke
French, tried to find out why they were so angry with us. I couldn't
speak French, so they told her a lot of lies about us.
One
of the things that they keep saying is that we kidnap children, baptize them
and take them to
Eddie
and Lura finally arrived back at the scene and rescued J* and me. We are
safe. Thank you for your prayers. We will be leaving on Thursday to
return to the
Following
all that, we had a meeting with the local pastor and two leaders from his
congregation. It ended up that we really need to pray for each other and
get the word out for people worldwide to pray.
These
Hassidei Gur have told the
local believers that if they don't leave voluntarily, they will be carried out
in coffins. Three people have been beaten. Mothers with small
children are being surrounded in public places and threatened. So far,
they have been able to escape. But there could easily be a time that they
won't be able to.
V*