EASTwards

My mind has been in the east recently, for good and bad reasons. We'll start with the good.
In the little company that I work, we have an Israeli programmer. Before him, we had a programmer from India, who was very sweet, but not so skillful. And before him, we had a programmer from Ramallah, who was the first who built our system. I like all three of them personally, but with the guy from India, who we had to replace 2 years or so ago, I had a closer relationship than with the other two, and we stayed in touch even though we fired him (I was the one who pushed to fire him, I had to, I really had no choice. He wasn't fit for what we needed. I was sad to do it, but I had no choice. He knows it, and he holds no grudge - I tried to help him find another job ever since, sending him many links, ads, places online where he can find jobs, etc. He knew I was for him, not against him, but he was just not the right person for us). So anyway, we stayed in touch, and he often asked me about Israel, and since I often said Baruch HaShem and other expressions, he asked me about G-d as well.
About 10 months or so ago, we talked on Skype (it's always him asking to talk), and he cried that he and his wife do not have children. They had been married for 6 years at that point, but no children. I told him he should pray, I sent him the book of Psalms in his language with an online link, and promised that I would pray for him and his beautiful wife. And I did.
For the past two months he was trying to constantly contact me and ask me to talk on Skype, but I was very busy, and I do not have patience for aimless talking, so I tried to postpone it as much as I could. And then a few days ago I said OK, we can talk. He put on his camera on Skype, and the first thing I saw was that behind him there was a wall painted with lilach colors, and big pictures of babies were posted all over the walls. I asked him why he had pictures of babies everywhere. He said that he and his wife were expecting. She is 7 months pregnant and the baby is due very soon.
You can imagine my reaction. I had chills all over. I've been praying for them, even though I felt their chances were slim, after 6 years with no children. I prayed in Jerusalem, And 2-3 months later, she conceived. He looked so happy, and I was so happy to hear it. It made my day, my week! It was such a wonderful news! I was overwhelmed with joy. And of course, he started asking me more about Jerusalem, Judaism, Israel, G-d. And I answered. I really hope that this will have an effect on him and his wife. He talked with a friend of him after that, and that friend told him about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the Exodus from Egypt. I was really impressed. Baruch HaShem.
I know it is too much to expect that he will abandon the idols he grew up worshiping, but I hope it is one big push in this direction. He does not have to be Jewish, but abandoning the idols and believing in G-d is a good path for everyone to follow. No idols of any kind. Just G-d. There are already communities around the world of Noahide people - people who abandoned their religions to believe in the ONE G-d with no helpers and idols. They are called Bnei Noah (Children of Noah), and they support the nation of Israel and pray for us, and study Torah, but they do not have to be Jewish or fulfill all of our commandments. They have only 7 commandments to fulfill. I hope he will become a Noahide soon and influence all the idol worshipers around him in India to be that also.

My mind is in the east also because of the crazy thing that's been going on - the Corona Virus. They say that it happened because the Chinese were eating... bats... bats!!! Yuck! And they say that they ate the bats without killing them first, just cooked them live and ate them. This is against the 7 laws of the Children of Noah (Noahides). The world does not have to eat Kosher, but the world must not eat animals with their blood, or drink their blood, or eat a limb of a living animal. This is so cruel and is simply morally forbidden. The corona virus is probably a result of this, just like AIDS came to the world for another transgression, to tell people to change their ways, to correct their paths. I don't know if anyone listens.
We had a nice prayer at the KOTEL (the Western Wall) for the People of China to be quickly healed from the Corona, that this epidemic will stop. I hope it helps, but we can only pray - it is G-d's decision which prayer to fulfill.

And to end it with something good - I got some good news about the professional thing I was talking about in one of my previous posts here. Still not sure I want to share it here, perhaps I'm not yet ready to do it but will do it soon. I was so happy when I got the news. It was such a sweet present from above. I don't know what it would lead to, if anything at all, but even if it doesn't lead anywhere, I'm still happy and content with what it is at the moment. Perhaps I'll write about it here soon. We'll see.

Have a good rest-of-the-week!
R.