THE HERO

I listened to the story, and after an entire purse pack of Kleenex was used up, I knew I had to hurry home and write it down while I still remembered.

As if I could forget it.

"It's a true story," the preacher said. "A story of remarkable heroism."

Rami is a farmer in Israel. He lives ten miles from the border of the Gaza Strip.

You probably know where this story is headed.

Early on a recent Saturday morning, Rami was woken by a phone call. It was an old friend who needed his help. The man was hysterical. He had just received a frantic call from his son, who was attending an outdoor music festival near Rami's farming community.

It was October 7, 2023.

At 6:30 a.m., sirens went off, warning the party-goers of an incoming rocket attack. It was bedlam. People were running, screaming, looking for shelter, trying to escape an onslaught of armed militants on foot, motorcycles, trucks, and even battery-powered paragliders, who had come to kill, rape and torture Israelis. Bullets were flying everywhere. Dead and mutilated bodies lay lifeless on the trampled ground.

The son of Rami's friend was hiding in a clump of bushes while the massacre was going on all around him.

Rami added the boy's number to his cell phone, and the two began to talk as Rami drove toward him, following the coordinates from Google Maps, which brought him to his exact location. As he came out to meet his rescuer, dozens of stranded people came out of hiding to get to the truck. As many as could fit piled in.

Rami called his son-in-law, who lived nearby, and told him what was going on. His son-in-law made preparations to receive the survivors as Rami deftly navigated the backroads to avoid the terrorists, and he brought the young people to safety.

Mission accomplished.

Yet, his phone was blowing up with more pleas for help. He drove back from the safe house to the concert site and back to the safe house again and again and again, bringing more and more young people out of what had become a heinous massacre of innocent people.

Rami's son-in-law reports approximately 700 people were saved in those critical hours until the Israeli Defense Force could secure the area.

On one of those rescue missions, Rami saw a young woman being assaulted by four terrorists. Though Rami is Jewish, he speaks fluent Arabic, having worked alongside Palestinian workers on the farm for so many years.

“I was unarmed and outnumbered. I spoke to them in Arabic and told them that I was a Yemenite Muslim coming to alert them that soldiers were closing on them,” he said. “I advised them to leave the girl and escape while they still could. In that moment, I felt fearless,” he added.

The girl survived.

364 civilians were killed that morning. Forty were taken hostage, many of whom still remain in captivity to this day.

The war rages on.

Rami says, “On that fateful day, the hand of God touched me and guided me to do this. To me, those children were like my own children, and I needed to get them to safety.”

Hereos are ordinary people who, by the grace of God, are able to do extraordinary things.

Rami Davidian is a hero.

Pray for the Israelis   Pray for the Palestinians