#3 - ISRAEL - From Uganda to Israel

Since before our wedding, Ramon and I decided to go to Israel for 5 months. Ramon was in the third year of his Social Work studies and was supposed to do a 10 month internship. We both thought it would be really cool to go to a country where they could really use help, so our initial idea was Africa. Specifically: Uganda. My mom had been there and she knew someone who led a center for victims of the civil war. And at the moment we thought of this, that person also ‘happened to be’ in The Netherlands.

We pictured it completely: this was God leading us. This was what He wanted and it would be great. We practically booked the tickets and knew exactly which visas and vaccinations we needed. We ‘only’ needed to talk things through with that lady. But hey: who doesn’t want the free help of a recently graduated youth worker and a social work student? In our head it was a done deal, so with our spirits up we went to the church where the woman was speaking to present our ideas to her. Before we went there, we did ask God to show us whether or not we should do this, by either opening or closing the door in a very clear way. Because despite our big plans and dreams we were very aware of the fact that God has plans and we were determined to follow His plans over ours. Well, things did not go the way we planned. The woman really appreciated the idea and saw some possibilities, but she didn’t really have the work for us to come and work there for 5 months. It wasn’t a hard ‘no’, but it definitely wasn’t the enthusiastic ‘yes’ we anticipated on. Feeling a little defeated, we came home, where we decided this door was probably more closed then opened. But the idea of going abroad for 5 months was now in our heads and we really wanted that to happen. So we prayed again: God can you show us the place where you do want to have us? At first, it remained silent, so we thought it’d be better to keep on moving. After all, it’s easier to turn a moving car around than a stationary one. I emailed some churches and searched Google for cool internship-possibilities in Uganda and South-Africa. After a couple of weeks of searching and emailing, we still hadn’t found anything concrete that was also affordable for a young couple with no real income.

During all of this Ramon had a job at the Albert Heijn. This job required him to be there at 4.30 AM, but he had to make a half an hour bike ride to get there. And before he left, he had his quiet time. During this super early moment of the day, Ramon felt like God was speaking to him, saying he had to read Zachariah 1 and that we should go to Israel. With that He also told Ramon that finding an internship was not going to cause any problems, so we shouldn’t worry about that. This last part Ramon didn’t tell me at first, not on purpose, he just sent me a very simple text: ‘I think God is telling me that we shouldn’t go to Africa, but to Israel.’

My external respond was: ‘that was not really what I had in mind'. Internally, however, there was a complete panic starting. ‘ISRAEL? The land of the bombs and mayhem? Didn’t God see the news?! It was super unsafe there and I really wanted to enjoy my marriage a little longer than just a few short months! ‘Let me first see if it’s even possible, maybe we can’t find anything and we don’t have to go’. That’s what I was thinking while looking for social work internships in Israel. I couldn’t find any, which I didn’t really mind. I saw Israel as a country where I would spend two weeks of holidays as a retired old lady and then never come back again. Slightly relieved I texted Ramon back: ‘You do know that it’s really hard finding an internship in Israel right? I can’t find anything.’ That was settled, I thought, God 0, Lianne 1. Now back to finding an internship in a fun, not-in-war country. *PLING* Ramon answered: ‘That’s weird, God specifically said, that we’d have no trouble finding one.’ That kind of crumbled my defense, if God could take my first excuse of 11 AM down at 4Pm, with something He already told Ramon at 4 AM, He might have some ideas about all of this. Also, if I said I wanted to follow Him everywhere, Israel should be on the list too.

A little hesitant I started thinking: who did I know that had already been to Israel and has a network we could use. After consulting my mom, we came to a friend from church who had done an outreach in Israel. I contacted her and she gave us a whole list of tips and contacts that I could use to find an internship in Israel. I went through all of them, without success, until we got to the last project: The Israel Project. A foundation that connects people to social organizations to volunteer there for 3 months. The best part: all of the projects had free room and board included and we didn’t need any visas to get into Israel. So I called the project-leader: Chris, who turned out to be the ultimate connection. There was one project that wasn’t on the website yet, but that was a perfect fit for Ramon’s internship: Neve Michael, a place for kids that were removed from their homes due to terrible circumstances. From there on out things went very fast: within a month all the paperwork was arranged and another month later our plane tickets were booked. It was settled: 3 weeks after our wedding, we were going to go to Israel. And that’s where things got really interesting.