The photo above is the safe room and bomb shelter at Kalia Kibbutz with its date plantation and gardens bordering the Dead Sea next to Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

One of the most meaningful lessons I’ve learned in Israel is about safe rooms and bomb shelters since they constantly face threats of wars and attacks. So many rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza, Syria, or Lebanon that Israeli law requires all new building structures to include reinforced security “safe rooms,” somewhere to go to remain to outlast attacks and survive. Their name in Hebrew is “Merkhav Mugan,” literally “protected space.” I know many people who’ve used them but thankfully no one injured in such attacks.

Residential safe rooms are comfortable for short-term stays in the event rockets are launched without enough warning for people to reach public bomb shelters. Their use might be like the adage, “If you carry an umbrella, it won’t rain.”

I learned on an early viair to Israel to stay aware of the distance our daytime travel or nighttime sleeping locations were at any given time from target areas. On that trip my team and I landed in Israel two hours after the 2012 Gaza War broke out. I got up early to join our hostess hearing radio news to see where bombing and combat areas were expected for the day. We heard the broadcaster say something like, “If you are four miles from today’s target area and hear the siren, you have sixty seconds to get to your safe room. If you are two miles away, you have thirty seconds. One mile—15 seconds. If you are closer than that, just STAY in your safe room.”

We stayed alert and aware of how long it would take us to get to safety at any given moment.

And then the Lord impressed me that He is our safe room and instead of me dashing in and out, invited me to abide in the shelter of His care.

Psalm 91: ¹ “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. ² I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”