This week the TV7 crew in Jerusalem powered through seasonal illnesses, with several key personnel compelled to work from home. Despite the inconvenience and hardships that resulted from this, we continued to produce our daily news casts and special programing according to the usual schedule.
This included two episodes of Jerusalem Studio, our news analysis show which brings together some of the top experts in Israel’s strategic community to discuss the most pressing issues of the day. The focus of these shows will be the continuing and escalating threats from Iran and Israel’s preparations to confront that threat, along with the increasingly complex interplay between other regional players and the ever-present competition between great powers.
On the subject of great powers, we continued preparations this week for the launch of a new show entitled Powers in Play, which will include analysis of the interplay between global players and the effect of their activities on the Middle East broadly and Israel in particular. The purpose of this show is to provide our viewers with the literal “big picture” of how global events affect the State of Israel and how our viewers can pray into these issues.
Our prayers for the nations and for our community here in Jerusalem also continued this week, with a special emphasis on the health and well being of local Believers. We would like to encourage our supporters around the world to continue lifting up the family of John Theodore, an elder in one of Jerusalem’s congregations, who remains in critical but stable condition as he battles a severe COVID-19 infection.
On that subject, we ask that our viewers and supporters also continue lifting up the efforts by Israel’s government and public health sector to grapple with COVID-19, as the country recently passed a grim milestone of 8,000 COVID-related deaths. Although the rates of infection and morbidity have dropped in recent weeks, prompting cautiously optimistic statements by some health officials, there are still many Israelis in the hospital fighting for their lives and many more trying to manage side effects ranging from grief over the loss of a loved one to economic hardship from a lost job.
Israel’s tourism sector, where many Believers work, has been hit particularly hard, although there are plans to allow entry of tourists into the country on 1 November, provided they can give proof of having been vaccinated.