March 15, 2012

It has been a long time since you have heard from me. So much has transpired and so much is going on - I am inundated with work, and with responsibilities and so the Ami Updates have been temporarily neglected - but here we go again!

Ami started school in the beginning of January at a college in upstate NY. He got on their basketball team as well even though he couldn't play this semester as they were in the middle of the season and he didn't know their plays, etc. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise as starting in the middle of the year was like being thrown into the water and learning to swim. He arrived at school on a Sunday and began class on Monday, and he had to get used to studying in English on a college level, make new friends in the middle of the year when most had already settled into their social niche, and find his place on the basketball team as well. However, Ami has learned to go with the flow and roll with the punches. He has learned to be patient, and to let the Lord lead him step by step. He is a very calm, cool and collected kid. He has also had lots of help and support from the staff and students who are very tuned into foreign students - a professor at the college was the one who coined the term and wrote the book on "Third Culture Kids" and taught at the school 20 years ago, establishing their intercultural department. They have at least 50 foreign students every year (out of 1,200 students). It is a Bible based college and we are very happy he is there.

He told me that his roommate and his friends had decided, before they knew Ami was going to be studying there, to celebrate the Spring Jewish holidays. Then Ami said, "I appeared! Ta-dah!" Anyway, they had a Purim celebration with a festive holiday dinner, Hamentaschen (Haman's Ears in Hebrew), and the reading of the Book of Esther, together with the appropriate boo's when Haman's name is mentioned, and Yay's when Mordecai is mentioned. They will also have a Passover Seder, and onward, I imagine.

PURIM 2012

Back home, we had another Purim drama this year on the fourth anniversary of the bomb attack on our home which so severely wounded Ami. At about 12:30 in the afternoon, a large, closed, brown carton was brought to our door and left by someone. When we looked on our security cameras, we saw a young man wearing a kippa, with a Purim mask not on his face but put up on his head, bringing the package, ringing the doorbell and then running down the stairs. We immediately called the police, locked our steel enforced front door and went into the bedroom furthest away from the hallway. Then we called all the believers in town to warn them about any suspicious packages at their doors or next to their property.

At least 20 policemen arrived, along with the bomb squad that had to came from an IDF base in the Shechem area around 20 kilometers from Ariel, two fire trucks, police cars, etc. blocking off the street. It took about an hour and a half for the security services to understand the layout of the apartment. They thought it was better to not come in through the stairs in case they were booby trapped and because the hallway is an enclosed area. They decided it was better to come in through the window and to take us out through the window. All this was coordinated with the help of our sons who were outside. It took a couple of hours to take us out of our 3rd floor apartment by the window using a crane lift on one of the fire trucks. We had to be taken down two by two - we were four adults and two small children in the apartment- they said they had to be careful as it was a new, computerized lift that they had never used before.

The bomb squad also lifted themselves up through the window with the bomb robot and when they saw the box, they were very alarmed and they called out to the others from the window, saying it wasn't like a traditional Purim gift package and it was suspicious. They told everyone to get back. They sent the robot into the hallway, and destroyed the box which turned out to be filled with food products, which was a relief not only to us but also to our neighbors who had also been evacuated from their apartments as well. They had to move their cars away from the building also.

All these efforts lasted for 3 hours.

The media showed up on the scene, and a report was given on the evening news that night. A representative from the Orthodox community showed up and said that they were doing a project through the elementary school in town to give food packages to needy families and it was delivered to us by mistake, but the media and the security services said they didn't buy that story so quickly and they're trying to find out if it was a bad joke to scare us or if it was truly a mistake.

This is the link to the evening news report where you can see the package being brought to our door. (There is a commercial first, the report will appear after that)

http://www.mako.co.il/news-channel2/Channel-2-Newscast/Article-9a2fe905b83f531018.htm

On the video, in short, the reporter said it was a regular Purim package that was put by our door by mistake, that the package was for another family at another address.



The event was very costly - bringing in all that equipment and man power. The people from the media continue to called us up sounding upset and are telling us that it sounds very suspicious to them, and that if it is a mistake it is inexcusable. The head of the bomb squad told us he had been at our house four years ago, and that we have to always be very careful and not hesitate to call them when something suspicious happens. He commended us for doing the right thing. You can check out more reports www.amiortiz.com

COURT CASE

We were shocked to find out by a leak to the media that Teitel's lawyers and the prosecution were making a plea bargain secretly without the knowledge of the victims' families and victims. His lawyers strategy is to cancel some of the convictions , to plead guilty so there won't be a trial, and then to claim he wasn't responsible for his actions in the past. Their tactic is to have him sentenced to a psychiatric institution where he will be treated for a few years and then released. We have Messianic lawyers working on this, preparing a case for the Supreme Court to block this action if necessary. We trust the Lord but please pray for this as a hearing is set for March 27th when the defense will argue their case. As our lawyer told us from the beginning, because our case is a precedent setting case, if Jack Teitel gets off without serving significant time in jail, there are many people like him who would gladly give up a few years of their lives in a psychiatric hospital in order to do damage to believers.

Psalm 27:2-4

2 When the wicked came against me
To eat up my flesh,
My enemies and foes,
They stumbled and fell.
3 Though an army may encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me,
In this I will be confident.
4 One thing I have desired of the Lord,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.

Thank you for your fellowship in Yeshua,

Leah

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