October 7th Special

Deborah Ben-Adirat (0:03)

I didn't think that October 6th, 2023 was the last night I'm going to sleep in my bed, the last night I'm going to tuck my children into their bed, surrounded by their stuffed animals.

Noam Ben-David (0:15)

Look at the skies, they make fireworks for us. And I looked at the sky, and that was not fireworks, that was rockets in the sky.

SPEAKER_3 (0:34)

Welcome to InGrace with Jim Scudder, the senior pastor of Quentin Road Baptist Church in suburban Chicago. He is a strong advocate of the nation of Israel and leads annual tours to the Holy Land.

Jim Scudder, Jr. (0:49)

This is Jim Scudder, and this is a very auspicious day, a very sobering day. This is the third episode And that was the. anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel. October 7th, 2023 was a horrific day, the worst loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. And we, as Christians, can never let this happen again. That's why I believe we have to support Israel and the Jewish people. Now, we also believe we can go to Israel, we can stand with Israel in Israel. So we have a solidarity tour coming up, and it's in February, you really need to get to Israel. You need to see the land, you need to experience the miracle, you need to show your love to the Jewish people. You can get a free brochure when you call InGrace 1-800-78-GRACE, 1-800-78-GRACE.

And we also would love for you to get the book, The Spiritual War Against Israel, Defending Biblical Zionism and Understanding Israel's Place in God's Prophetic Plan. This book will give you all the answers to combat the lies people are saying about Israel. And this is my thank you for your gift of any amount to InGrace to help us do the mission God has called us to do. 1-800-78-GRACE, 1-800-78-GRACE, to get the book, The Spiritual War Against Israel, or go to ingraceradio.com.

Today, we're going to be featuring the testimonies of three women. They all spoke at Quinton Road Baptist Church in Lake Zurich, Illinois. I wanted our people to hear these survivors of October 7th. The first one is Deborah Ben-Adirat. She's a Chicagoan, but made Aliyah to Israel. And she was there with her husband and two little girls at a kibbutz in the northern part of what's called the Gaza Envelope. So just south of Ashkelon, Ashgad, is where they lived in Kibbutz Zakeem. So I want you to hear what she has to say.

Deborah Ben-Adirat (2:36)

Terror did not start on October 7th for us in the south.

We have rocket days. Growing up in Chicago, we had snow days. Living in the south, you have rocket days. It's normal. My daughter's bedroom doubles as our ma'amad, the bomb shelter, and every home in the south needs to have one. And it looks like a regular room, except that the window has, on the other side of the glass pane, you have big metal sliding doors that really close when the neighbors are being feisty, so you close those windows. It has a secure door that should defend against rockets and shrapnel, but you can also put in a regular bedroom door. So my girls sleep in this room in their bunk bed, and the metal door just always stays open, and when they come in and out, they close the regular door. And this is just like how we live, you just know if you're gonna live in this beautiful community and have a petting zoo and beautiful daycares and beautiful scenery and cows and community, and the con, the price you're gonna pay, is you live near the Gaza border and you're gonna get rockets now and then. Something else started happening, I would say about two or three years ago.

We would wake up on a Friday with this horrible burning smell, and it was Hamas who were, our kibbutz is about a mile and a half from the border, and Hamas would burn piles of tires on their side, but at the border fence.

It's, I mean, it's toxic. Where are the environmental agencies? I don't think that's legal. Piles and piles of tires. Not only does it just smell disgusting, it had this black, smoky soot that you could go out to our yard, and I want to cook, and I picked the basil, and I'm like, we're not eating this. And I'd say to my husband, why do we let them do this? You know, he doesn't have any military intelligence. He's just Israeli, and I want him to have all the answers. And he's like, I don't know, but what can we do about it? It's on their side. Our soldiers are all along the fence, but they can't say, hey, stop burning tires on your side. So this is something we just suffered from, like, every Friday for the last few years.