Have you ever had a flashback of a dramatic event or experience that brought back raw emotion? Sometimes it is like a gut punch that knocks the wind out of you and seems to return you to the very moment of experience.

Having been at the Nova site and Sderot in Israel only a couple weeks ago, it has been no surprise to encounter flashbacks of what we saw and experienced there. I am so thankful our small group was able to go to such places and see the raw aftermath of the October 7 massacre. It is impossible to truly understand the gravity of the horror without being there, and it provides a basis from which to accurately and appropriately share the story.

Yet, as much as I prepared myself for what we would see and experience, there truly is no way to fully come to grips with the impact of physically being on the very sites where Hamas terrorists unleashed the most demonic attacks imaginable on human life. Raw emotion appropriately lingers and seeing footage of the very places we visited causes every sense to dump out vivid memories and associated sights, sounds, smells and feelings.

Today I’ll share some flashbacks brought by the video below, not to stir emotions, but to re-emphasize the reality of what took place that awful day in October 2023.

• We spent a couple hours at the Nova site getting the lay of the land as it was that day, and imagining what it was like to be there. The drone footage in the video paints a clear picture of what we saw in context of where everything was located during the festival.
• At the site, we read stories of tragedy as we strolled through the forested campgrounds. This video put us right back at that place.
• We drove portions of the very route described in the video. We saw some of the specific bomb shelters along the way and imagined unknown, faceless young people who were killed or traumatized there. Those young people are no longer totally unknown and faceless.
• We visited Sderot, where we were given a tour of the city including exactly where and how Hamas entered, how they attacked the city center (particularly the police station), and the streets they patrolled. All of which are clearly identifiable in this video.
• Ori and his friends took shelter in abandoned student housing, which we saw while in Sderot. The scene in my mind is now more vivid than before.
• The interviewer is Pastor Israel Pochtar of Beit Hallel, the congregation in Ashdod in which we packed and distributed hundreds of food bags for new Jewish immigrants. The young woman interviewed regarding the loss of her friend is his daughter.

Yes, it is difficult to go deeper and deeper into the tragedy via flashbacks, except for this one truth: God’s grace is sufficient for all, and it was manifested in Ori’s story! He and his friends endured unbelievable trials and tragedy, yet God brought miracle after miracle to save their lives. More importantly, Ori is now connected with the Pochtar family at Beit Hallel. I don’t know the young man’s spiritual condition, but God has graciously surrounded him with loving people and a great congregation. May his life be yielded to Yeshua!