During my two week break in Israel, I got the opportunity to relax on my friend’s balcony and read this book I got a few weeks ago.

It took me a long time to find this book in the UK, eventually, it resurfaced on Amazon UK after being out of stock for a while.

The story of John Pex a Dutchman and his wife Judy who is an American Jew traveled around as hippies and found Jesus and later founded a hostel in Eilat, the far-off obscure city at the very bottom of Israel past 5 hours of desert, which as Judy puts in, is to Israel what Alaska and Hawaii is to the US.

The Pexes are really some of the most pioneering members of the modern Messianic Jewish community of Israel.   As well bring Jewish and Arab people to the Lord, they have shared the gospel to African immigrants and to construction workers from Romania and China that built the modern hotels that have transformed Eilat into a busy Red Sea resort for vacationers.  A few people who accepted Jesus in the book I now recognise as leaders of congregations now.

The hostel itself has a welcoming atmosphere and bunk rooms, and an outside seating area, on Fridays they do a Shabbat service with food, and praise and worship in English Hebrew, Spanish and Russian songs.

I’ve stayed here twice now and love this place and the people there.  Regardless if you are Jewish, Christian or not at all religious but visiting this city especially if you are about to pop over to Egypt or Jordan which are so close by, I would highly recommend this place.

If you have stayed here, or would just love to hear how the gospel has been brought to Jewish people in Israel so effectively I would get this book.   I would recommend to the authors if you can find more places to stock this book, it would be better if I could buy it from a retailer in Israel run by believers 🙂

http://www.shelterhostel.com/

The outside lounge under a Sukka type structure with a palm trunk, is a great place to make new friends and discuss travel stories. I visited here in 2009