During the celebration of Sukkot, the biblical festival of the tabernacles, it is very important to rejoice and celebrate the Lord, because God has commanded us this way in the book of Deuteronomy.
“And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are within your gates”. Deuteronomy 16:14
In Israel, great joy is felt as families meet to share food and celebrate together inside the “Sukkot” or “tabernacles” carefully assembled and decorated for the occasion.
However, there is a discouraged sector of the population that finds it difficult to rejoice and have joy during this biblical holiday.
Anxiety And Depression In The Elderly Worsens
Anxiety disorders affect a large percentage of the elderly population warns the World Health Organization, and the figure rises considerably if we talk about depression.
Throughout life, many social, psychological, and biological factors determine people’s mental health, and in addition to the general causes of stress that everyone faces, many older adults are deprived of the ability to live independently due to mobility difficulties, chronic pain, frailty or other mental or physical problems, so they need long-term care.
Also, among the elderly, experiences such as pain due to the death of a loved one, a drop in socioeconomic status as a result of retirement, or disability, among other problems, are more frequent.
All these factors can cause the elderly isolation, loss of independence, loneliness and anguish, worsening their situation since it has been shown that mental health influences the health of the body, and vice versa, for example, older adults with Diseases such as heart disease have higher rates of depression than those without medical problems, and conversely, the coexistence of untreated depression and heart disease in an older person can worsen the latter.
Elderly People In Israel Suffer From Depression
According to data compiled by Israel’s Ministry for the Elderly, most elderly people in the country do not enjoy their lives, half suffer from depression and most have financial difficulties.
In Sderot and the entire region adjacent to Gaza, it is even more evident the large number of elderly people who struggle with serious psychological disorders due to the challenging insecurity situation they face on a daily basis, where they only have 15 seconds to take shelter in a bomb shelter every time the bombing alert sirens sound and the subsequent paralyzing roar of the rockets being intercepted by the “Iron Dome” anti-missile system or crashing into a nearby building, it fills them with anxieties and fears that linger in their hearts for a long time.
Being one of the most vulnerable sectors of society, the elderly in Sderot also suffer from serious economic problems, generally living in old apartments belonging to the council home program or in residence homes without much assistance from the authorities and feel a deep loneliness, resulting in all this together in the development of severe emotional disorders and deep depression.
Healing The Soul
Our “City Of Life” ministry devotes much of its efforts to support the hopeless elderly in this region of Israel by providing comfort, love and understanding in an attempt to help them enjoy their final years despite the difficult environment in which they live. they find each other.
With the purpose of relieving their sorrow and gladdening their hearts, this Sukkot, The Feast Of Tabernacles, as it was commanded by God to rejoice, we have successfully organized an extraordinary concert where the duo of professional musicians “Shalom Mitzion” guided by the Spirit delighted them with classic Jewish melodies of all time along with new praises bringing them peace and joy.
To the beat of the music, the jovial grandparents sang, rejoiced and remembered old times in an atmosphere of happiness, forgetting even for a moment their worries and anxieties and feeling valued and loved.
At the end of the concert, we had the opportunity to bless them with a special gift set and express words of affection to end this wonderful day that they will undoubtedly remember with great pleasure.
Many of them, grateful, approached our team expressing how happy they were to have been able to participate in this event and that they returned home with an inexplicable cheerfulness in their hearts, something special that they could not describe in words but that gave them hope and desire to enjoy life again.
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Our team carries out different projects in support of the suffering elderly of our city Sderot and the region along the border with Gaza where radical Islamic terrorism in Gaza perpetuated by organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others ravages the population giving as a result psychological, economic and social problems.
You too can bless them and be part of this commitment of obedience to the Lord together with us by joining in our goal as there are still many families to reach with the help and together we can achieve it.
Our role as the body of the Messiah is to bring hope to this lost world and illuminate in times of darkness creating an impact on society, so our ministry is committed to reaching as many people as possible who suffer, and many of them depend on our commitment and dedication for the work of the Lord.
You can be part of and impact the lives of more people who need help in our city and together show them the way, the truth, and the life.
We invite you to be part of our ministry so that together we can bring hope to our border town of Sderot.
Our work would not be possible without the help of partners like you, so we ask you to consider in prayer the possibility of a monthly commitment that will allow us to continue with the Lord’s work here in Israel.
Sincerely yours
Pastors
Michael & Dina Beener
and CLM Israel Team
“City of Life”
Messianic congregation and Outreach Center
Sderot, Israel.
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