Worship in the Streets of Jerusalem

The hotel we stayed at in Jerusalem also housed a group of students from Calvary Chapel Bible College and we decided to join them for our weekly worship service. The location was an unusual one: the middle of an outdoor mall.

This entire trip, I have been playing my clarinet during our worship services. Usually I hold back and barely play since I am so insecure about playing without written music in front of me. So on this particular night, I was dreading the worship service. Especially since it was going to be in front of many strangers. On the walk over to the mall I was in constant prayer with God asking Him to give me peace and to just allow Him to play through me. Thankfully, He answered my prayers and people told me they got chills and teared up.

It was an amazing night of worship and definitely a highlight of the trip for many of the people involved. Many times we had an audience of 50-100 people watching or joining us in worship. During the first song, a woman (Eleanor) took off her shoes and joined us in worship. Everybody that was there agrees that she was either an angel or an amazing lady sent by God. After a while she left, but that would not be the last time we would see her that night.

About fifteen mintutes later a man came over and started yelling and screaming and claiming that we were worshipping an idol since we were playing right next to a statue. Suddenly, Eleanor popped up and gave us encouragement to continue playing and to stand our ground. She said, "this is what happens when you start praising Jesus, opposition arises" and that is completely true. My professor's wife went over to thank her for being such an encouragement to our group and Eleanor held her face in her hands and started asking her questions about how she was doing. That turned into another testimony for my professor's wife that only she can tell accurately. But while Eleanor was praying for her, the man kept screaming and Eleanor's friend rebuked him in Jesus' name and said that God would silence him. All of a sudden, these men came and moved him out of our way and he never bothered us again. It was an intense moment for all of us.

Next, a Jewish man  stood in the middle of all of us and said, "There's only one God, folks. I'm sorry to disappoint you." But we continued to play and he listened. He borrowed one of our guitars and started playing a song for us. We respectfully listened and thanked him for sharing that, but then we continued with our worship afterwards. Once he heard the word "Jesus" he yelled "Jesus? No!" but he didn't bother us.

There were some points where I felt that extreme opposition was going to arise. For instance, when a guard with a rifle came and was creepily watching us and started talking to some of our members. Or when a well-built Christian man from the crowd started staring down a Jewish man that was opposing us. Or when a Jewish man was looking over my shoulder to read the lyrics of our songs. But through it all, God provided and we are definitely learning to trust Him more.