Help Jordan Heal from Battle Trauma

Highlights of the story

After the horrific events of October 7th last year, as many of you know, our son Jordan has gone back home to Israel to help defend our country on the many, many fronts Israel is fighting.

Being a special combat soldier, he has been active in multiple tasks from Gaza to Lebanon and other key areas wherever needed. Along the way, he has endured many traumatic experiences. And, for the last three months, we lost all contact with him.

So we decided to hire someone to go look for him and find out what has happened. Just yesterday (Dec. 14th) by a miracle, our friend Galit found him on the beach and the connection was renewed. He had just come back to the area that day and it was an incredible divine appointment!

He is physically fine; however, from the little that we spoke, we could tell he is suffering. He has been volunteering for duty repeatedly until the officers in charge said, “Enough! You’ve done too much and need to stop.” So, they released him, and he had nowhere to go and found himself back on his favorite beach where Galit found him watching the sunset into the Mediterranean Sea.

He has seen some intense fighting, had some close calls on multiple occasions, many miracles and amazing stories, but also the loss of lives, of friends and fellow soldiers, sometimes those right next to him.

He wants to stay in Israel for the long term and has somewhat of a renewed focus and vision for his life after his military service. So, in short, we feel we need to bring him to our home as soon as possible for recovery and healing as well as a transition time before he begins his new civilian life back in Israel.

As I (John) looked into getting him a round-trip flight, I was shocked at how much the prices have gone up—easily three to four times what they used to be.

Because of his emotional state, he should not be submitted to multiple stops and long layovers. It will be hard enough for a suffering soldier to sit in a crowded space for the 10-12 hours it normally takes to cross the Atlantic.

As you might imagine, getting in and out of a country in a war has its limitations. Many of the arrangements that I found would take 38-50+ hours to get him to Florida. There used to be direct flights from Tel Aviv to Miami, but that has stopped. Frustrating!

I spent a couple of hours trying to find some arrangement that would be affordable to no avail. It seems like anything that would get him here in under 20 hours costs between $4,000 to $6,000. (I can’t believe I just wrote that!) And that's just the flights, not to mention the many expenses that are waiting afterwards through the process of his recovery.

It is beyond our ability to pay for all that right now, and yet we feel the urgency of flying him home hopefully in time for Hanukkah with us (in two weeks). So, we are turning to you, dear friends. Please pray and consider any contribution.

We would like to ask you to share this request with anyone you know. The generosity of people is a miracle that has spoken volumes to our hearts many times in the past. And we are counting on the love of God to open hearts again to fulfill that need in an urgent way. We greatly appreciate your love and friendship.

We are purposely not posting it on our social media accounts for security reasons. So please use discretion as you share it with friends. Sadly, this is something Israelis have to live with during this time…

Thank you and all the best!