Prayer journey for Aliyah – Part 3 

Prayer journey for Aliyah – Part 3 

The day of departure arrives, and my wife and I are driven to the island of Hönö by our friends Göran and Marianne. It feels strange and unusual for me as a ”landlubber” to board this sailing mega yacht, Elida. A big step over the gap on to the ship’s deck and a steep ladder down to a cabin with eight berths. This is to be my nook for the next few weeks. 

Ladder down to one of the passenger cabins

 

Entrances to the bunks in the cabin

I am well received onboard by Captain Stefan, the crew and other participants of the voyage. After a nice party with cake and coffee, songs and speeches to celebrate the start of Elida’s 60th anniversary and blessings and prayer for the long voyage to Israel, the engine starts rumbling and we set out to begin the journey. 

Cake being served at the departure party on Hönö, Sweden

From Ebenezer we are two people onboard. Samuel comes from Germany but lives with his family in Israel. He has been praying for Aliyah for a long time and understands what this prayer journey is about. I am so thankful that there are two of us who can pray together. Jesus promises in Matthew 18:20: ”For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” 

Samuel and I are on the same shift, at 8–12 o’clock, morning and evening. This easily allows us to take two or three prayer sessions together every day. We sense that one of our main tasks is to proclaim God’s Word across the sea. King David says: Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness … Let the sea resound, and all that is in it” (1 Chronicles 16:29, 31). 

We also pray that God will prepare and open the Aliyah routes by sea for the Jewish people, especially from North and South America and the West. In the first 12–13 years of Ebenezer’s operation, we helped tens of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union to come home to Israel by boat from Odessa to Haifa. And we believe that God will use boats and ships again. 

Elida moored in Hönö, Sweden

 

Philip Holmberg 

Ebenezer Operation Exodus

 

If you want to continue reading, you can go directly to Part 4 here: Part 4
Or if this was the first one you read and want to get to the beginning, click here: Part 1

 

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Prayer journey for Aliyah – Part 2 

Prayer journey for Aliyah – Part 2 

An interesting event that took place a week before the meeting in the parliament, and before Elida’s board meeting deciding on Pilgrim 2023, was a Zoom meeting for Ebenezer’s Task Force Ships group. We started this group at the very beginning of the pandemic, in April 2020. Quay, who is a prayer leader in Operation Exodus USA, shared that the Lord had reminded her of a prayer initiative we did in the Baltic–Northern countries in 2016 – the Baltic Sea Prayer. Then we prayed that the sea routes and harbors in the Baltic Sea region would be cleansed and prepared for Aliyah. 

The Baltic Sea from the east coast of Gotland, Sweden’s biggest island.

For me there was something prophetic in what Quay reminded us of. Seven years after the Baltic Sea Prayer, God is opening an opportunity to pray for the return of the Jewish people all the way from Sweden to Israel, via the Skagerrak, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic Ocean, through the Straits of Gibraltar and all the way across the Mediterranean to Israel! 

We prepared a flyer that we sent out internationally along with some information. We started having meetings on Zoom every Wednesday, with Stefan attending as much as he could, to plan and pray. We opened a channel on the Telegram app. We prayed for Elida and the voyage in different contexts. 

And so, the intercessors began to register their interest in joining: from Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus and Israel, even the USA and Singapore! 

But it was not only participants in the voyage that signed up, but brothers and sisters who wanted to pray from their homes, as well. In the first information that went out, I wrote that it would be good to have the same number of intercessors as participants onboard, about 25 people. And even better if there were 50. Now there are almost 180 intercessors on Telegram!

What grace! We could see that the Lord goes before us, He opens doors, He calls people. 

The flyer for the voyage with Elida created by Ebenezer

Philip Holmberg 

Ebenezer Operation Exodus

 

If you want to continue reading, you can go directly to Part 3 here: Part 3
Or if this was the first one you read and want to get to the beginning, click here: Part 1

 

If you want to follow us at Elida on our social media and see more posts, you can click on the following links: Facebook and Instagram
Or if you want to go to our main website: elida.se/en/