After months of waiting, we finally got on our flights to Israel, and eventually arrived at Mt Carmel in Haifa. The venue for Celebration for the Nations (Celebration Israel) this year was set at the Mt Carmel Conference Centre (Kehilat HaCarmel) in a village called Druze.

Everyday there were worship/intercessions in the afternoon and evening except the 12-hour worship on Wednesday (10am-10pm). The worship teams from various countries such as Israel, Wales, England, Korea, Japan, China and France took turns to lead the worship in 1.5 hour slots each day.

It was certainly a rare opportunity to take a whole week from work and just do nothing much but worshipping God; it was also certainly a highly sensational and ultra enjoyable experience.

There were different styles of worship. For instance, different languages were spoken, different musical instruments were played, different genre of songs were sung and different forms of worship although there was one common denominator, i.e. honouring God. Here I saw various forms of worship and praise such as singing songs with full lyrics, singing songs with minimal words and even without words, dancing, and playing instruments.

Here are some snapshots from Celebration Israel:

One of the Korean worship teams, One Voice has developed Korean traditional dance and music into a worship form for the Lord:

 The walks of trials and hardship which Aija Kim went through made her a gifted and anointed pianist:

The Korean dance team, Father’s Love danced from their heart of worship:

One Voice took to the streets of the Druze village. They wore traditional costumes and danced and played music. Some of us followed on behind to bless and give gifts to the curious neighbors and passers-by:

‘How Great is Our God!’ in about 20 different languages:

Such devoted worship made a Messianic Jewish attendee say –

       “For the first time, the gentiles made me jealous!”

The week seemed short and had gone quickly. I simply prayed to God, ‘Let this not be a once-a-year or one-off experience; let our heart of worship not be left behind in Israel; allow us to cherish the joy and honour of worshipping God with our first love and to live our life in such a way all the time’.

I believe that perhaps we have rehearsed for the 6-hour worship as mentioned in Nehemiah 9:3 and are ready for it now?!

(Story by Jessie)