June 22, 2011, Madera County, California. A head on collision involving a 4x4 truck and passenger car stops traffic on highway 41. Several motorists run to give aid. One of them was then 62-year-old Vietnam War vet, Bob Anthony, who ran to the car. “I found a rock and broke the windows, and I could see there was people in there,” he said.

In the back seat were a four-year-old girl and an infant still strapped in a car seat. The driver, 28-year-old Brittany Gilchrist, was pinned under the dashboard, unconscious; smoke was filling the car. Bob said, “I was yelling at everybody, 'we got to get them out of here,' because when I got a whiff of that smoke and it knocked me off my feet, I, you know, I didn't want her to die.” 

A couple of men got the children out, while Bob and others pulled Brittany from the wreckage. Seconds later, the car burst into flames. Motorist, Brenda Harris, was sitting in the gridlocked traffic, just a few cars away. She said, “I could see, you know, in, in the distance there, you know, the, the fire. And I could see obviously it was a bad wreck. I need to start praying cause that's what I do when I see a wreck, turn off the radio and start praying, 'Lord God, I just want to intercede for these people in this accident. I pray you save them, protect them and give them life.'” 

When EMS took over, they determined Brittany was bleeding internally, had multiple fractures, and in critical condition. Her daughters, with non-life-threatening injuries were taken to a nearby hospital. The driver of the truck was uninjured. Meanwhile, Skylife arrived to take Brittany to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno. In flight, she coded twice. 

Brittany’s husband, Marc, arrived about the same time the chopper landed. He saw his wife of 5 years hooked up to a ventilator before she was taken to emergency surgery. “She wasn't really conscious. She was moving around a bit but didn’t know what was happening,” Marc said. “Seeing her like that, it really just says like, oh my gosh, she might die. This is real. So, it was just overwhelming. And then I went back in the room, and I just broke down. I think at that moment I do remember praying and I was just...said, 'please, just please don't take her. Just whatever has to happen, just please don't take her.'”

Brittany would need two surgeries to repair her legs that were broken in several places. Their main concern though, was the massive neck trauma she’d sustained and whether she’d broken her spinal cord. Marc said, “But there was so much left uncertain that we, we couldn't be sure of anything. So, it was a matter of like, yes, she's out of being in the extremely critical situation where she might die at any moment, to then the surgery, to then, you know, is her spine in it? Is she going to walk again?” 

As for their daughters, they had been taken to Valley Children’s Hospital. Four-year-old, Cambria, had two broken arms and would stay in the hospital for two months. 5-week-old, Shaelin, had only a few cuts and was sent home with relatives. 

Meanwhile, people began to pray for Brittany. Among them was the motorist, Brenda, who had never stopped. “And then two days later when I went to work, I heard it was Brittany, the nurse I work with," recalled Brenda. “I put her on prayer lists at our church, but then I also have a group of friends in Bible study and ask them to pray because she was very close to death.” 

Finally, an MRI confirmed there was no spinal fracture, and her neck would heal in time. Still doctors were unsure she’d walk again. In and out of consciousness Brittany was taken off the vent. Brittany said, “I knew how severe it was. I knew that we were here for a reason, that God spared our lives. And actually, that's my first, like, thought or memory, not necessarily of like a place, but was feeling...was that God had us, that we were alive for a reason and that He was going to take care of us. And that's really where that peace, you know, came from.”

Over the course of more than a year, Brittany had two more surgeries and continued rehab. She finally walked on her own, returned to her nursing career and today continues to see healing. “There are days that it's rough, you know, where I’ll do a few things and then you have to pay for it a couple days afterwards. But there's been improvement. The Lord has given strength in it. So, you know, not every bit has been healed, but He has in chunks, you know, as He heals and as He, you know, what He has for us, you know, we're like, 'okay, Lord, whatever you have, Your will be done.' And He's done that,” said Brittany. 

Bob Anthony and two others were later honored with the American Red Cross Real Hero Award for their efforts. He and the family are grateful God’s hands were on them all that day and for the prayers that has sustained them. Bob said, “With the grace of God, we were all there and we were, we were able to help.” 

“I’m thankful I was there that day too,” said Brenda. “It was just amazing.” 

Marc said, “I looked back on it and I said, 'God was there.'”

“And they said, I wouldn't walk again. I wouldn't be a nurse, you know, but although they said the accident was unsurvivable too, so, and we're here. So, you know, with God, all things are possible,” said Brittany. 
 

“My name is Synthia. I am twenty two years old. I have been sewing  for two to three years. I enjoy it. I can sit here all day doing it, especially kids' clothes.” - Synthia

Before moving to Nairobi, she grew up in a rural part of Kenya.

“My mother is a farmer. I used to sell bananas. The education there was not that good. Because of health challenges, I couldn't perform at my best level.” Synthia

Bad living conditions eventually caused her to contract typhoid like symptoms. But then she was invited to a ministry supported by CBN’s Orphan’s Promise called Our Home.  Here children are given everything they need to thrive, including a quality education and resources for their future success.  Synthia recovered from her illness and excelled in her studies.

“I had a dream that one day I’ll go to Niarobi, so when the opportunity came I knew that my dream was coming true. Staying at Our Home was a very good impact. I learned to be responsible at Our Home. Mum Ruth, really instilled responsibility in us. For the first time I saw her, I just told myself, "This is a mum." I got to know God on a deeper level. Every Sunday, we would go to church, and then we came back home, and did devotions. We were asked to speak up in front of people, and that gave me a lot of courage.” - Synthia

She also learned that God gave her the gift of sowing.  We paid for her college courses in design and tailoring. Now as a seamstress she makes enough to rent an apartment and help others. She regularly visits the children at our home and uses her skills to make clothes for them.

“So, Synthia, I have been in children's homes before, but these children are so happy and they're dressed so beautifully. I'm stunned to learn that you made all of those clothes. You studied this.” - Terry

“In school, you are taught to use patterns. But as you go outside and work with people, you learn to use free hand. What really helped me to become as good as I am is my teacher back in college. She really encouraged me. And the advantage I had was the children here at Our Home. I felt so good when I saw them wearing what I had created. In class, when people would want to make clothes for children, they would call me because I was like an expert.” - Synthia

“What does that make you feel, obviously, there's a creative gene in you that's amazing.” – Terry

“I always feel very, very blessed. My biggest happiness is the kids. I love seeing them smart. That's my vision, to always make them smart.” - Synthia

“I can tell they know they look good. Yeah. That's because of you. Wow. What a wonderful gift.” - Terry

“Actually what motivated me the most is when you grow up at Our Home, you see people blessing you, you keep receiving blessings. You receive, and you also learn to give. I give, and I chose to give to Our Home.” - Synthia

“Synthia has a gift, she could take that gift and run with it. Synthia is here giving back to

the place that gave to her. She's only twenty two and knows the value of that. Don’t have to say more.” - Terry

“I want to say a big thank you to Orphan's Promise for the support I received because getting that kind of support is rare. I thank God I came. It's by God's grace. I pray that one day I can also have the same kind of heart that you have of supporting orphans and vulnerable children.” Synthia

What a beautiful example of how CBN partners share the love of Jesus around the world with people in need! If you’re not yet a partner, we invite you to join us today. Help bring God’s love through initiatives like clean water wells, medical missions, feeding programs, and so much more—all in the name of Jesus! Join us today and become a part of what God’s doing through CBN partners.

THE GENIUS OF ISRAEL

“All of Israel is responsible for one another.” – Talmud Savuot 39a
 
At a time of global challenges and personal stress, Israel consistently ranks high in metrics of life satisfaction.  The United Nations’ “World Happiness Report” in March 2023 surprisingly listed Israel at number four.  A year later, even though the nation was embroiled in a war for its existence, Israel dropped only one spot (by contrast, the United States of America fell from 15 to 23 in that same time frame).
 
The Jewish state also scored high in a number of other metrics.  It has the world’s ninth-highest life expectancy (the average Israeli will live four years longer than the average American).  The country shows fewer signs of social decay, with the lowest rates of suicide and drug overdoses, and the third-lowest for alcohol consumption.  Teen suicide rates in Israel is 75 percent lower than in the United States.  Loneliness, while reaching epidemic proportions in the West, has actually fallen by twenty percent in Israel.
 
So what is their secret?  Why are Israelis so happy?  The Genius of Israel, based on the book of the same name by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, explores this answer.
 
CONNECTIONS       

“[Judaism] managed the delicate balance between both giving equal weight to individual rights and collective responsibility.” – Paul Johnson, British historian
 
According to author Saul Singer, Israelis are happy because of two main factors: the first is a connection to family and community; the second is a sense of meaning and purpose. 
 
Typically, as countries get richer, the people have fewer children.  This leads to an aging populace, and many nations have fallen below the replacement level of fertility.  Israel, however, has dodged this trend.  They are, in essence, enjoying a “seventy-year baby boom.”
 
Part of this is due to the government’s promotion of pro-family policies such as paid maternity leave and free daycare.  Part of it comes naturally: companies themselves are flexible to their employees’ family needs, and so people don’t have to choose between children and a career.  Israeli communities as a whole also play a major role in the development of children.  Strangers look out for children in public, and it’s natural for Israelis to be heavily involved in the lives of their grandchildren and other members of their extended families.
 
This sense of community is on display every Friday night, when the Jewish people stop to share the three thousand-year-old ritual of Shabbat.  This observance is understood to be spent with family and friends.  And rather than treating it as a day of restrictions, Israelis use it as a day of rest.  Jonathan Medved, an Israeli entrepreneur, says it’s a time to have fun, eat, drink, read a book, go to the park, etc.  Most importantly, it is a time to reflect on something bigger than yourself.  That is a message taught to Israelis from the cradle to the grave: it’s not all about you.  Each and every person gets the sense that they are part of a larger purpose.
 

THE WAR AGAINST HAMAS         

“As I go around Israel, I see a country that has taken every curse thrown against it and turned it into a blessing.” – Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
 
One of the reasons why Israelis have major senses of community, unity, and shared purpose is through military service, which has become a great equalizer in the nation.  “You have the son of a billionaire, and the son of a cab driver... they’re sitting in the hull of a tank together,” says Dan Senor.  “When you’re in this experience together, it makes it harder to look at different people in your society as ‘the other.’  They’re like crucible experiences where they look at one another and say “that person is my fellow citizen.”
 
Israel also does a great job a maximizing its human potential.  Women play major roles in military combat.  A program called “Roim Rachok” helps train autistic students to be able to use their unique skills to make a contribution to the war effort.  These students – normally overlooked – are often later recruited by tech giants such as Intel and Microsoft.  Saul Singer says “We have a better job of understanding what everybody can do and giving a sense to everyone that they are necessary.”
 
After the October 7th attacks, many Israelis volunteered for service.  As one Israeli soldier said, “They understood that the country’s calling.  And when the country calls, you show up.  Period.”  These volunteers went far beyond helping in just a military capacity.  Ordinary citizens, who may have aged out of fighting, dropped everything to assist their fellow Israelis.  Some grilled food for IDF soldiers.  Others went to agricultural settlements to pick oranges, milk cows, and harvest crops.  Because they had a sense of purpose, they were quick to serve.
 
This unity-in-the-face-of-adversity has made for a stronger nation.  Singer adds, “I think Israel may be the most resilient country in the world.  Because we’ve had so many shocks over so many years and because we build resistance into the way we raise our children and we grow up,” says Saul Singer.  “We talk about post-traumatic stress, but there’s also something called post-traumatic growth, which is that you don’t just bounce back.  Resilience is when you bounce back to where you were before.  Post-traumatic growth is when you bounce back to something better than you were before.”
 
TIKKUN OLAM

“Repairing the World”
 
This sense of a “larger purpose” extends beyond their borders, as seen in their commitment to “Tikkun Olam,” or “repairing the world.”  According to Jonathan Medved, they see it as their duty as global citizens to do just that: “Israeli is supposed to be a country of blessing.  A country where we are basically leading and challenging humanity to make things right, to do what’s called ‘Tikkun Olam’ to fix the world.”  They demonstrate this by providing life-saving medical care for children from Gaza, West Bank, Syria – places they are technically at war with – as well as helping refugees and other victims from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Turkey.

Indirectly, Israeli advances in agriculture and water conservation have helped other countries find solutions to food and water shortages.  Israeli-made technology include the flash drive, wireless printer, and the chips that power many smart devices.  Other breakthroughs include new methods of cancer detection and treatment, a way to help paraplegics walk, stents for cardiac patients, and more.
 
THE ORACLES OF GOD
 
After the completion of The Genius of Israel, Erin Zimmerman resumed work on The Oracles of God, a series of feature-length docudramas about the creation and canonization of the Bible.  The first installment, The Story of the Old Testament, was released in Spring 2023.  She is currently working on The New Testament (scheduled release 2025), which has been filming on location in Israel. 
 

For more information on The Genius of Israel or other CBN Films, Click the links! The Genius of Israel  CBN Films

CREDITS

Writer / Producer / Director of CBN Films; selected credits include Emmy-nominated documentaries Made in Israel (2014, Outstanding Special Class Writing) and To Life: How Israeli Volunteers are Changing the World (2018, Outstanding Special Class Series & Outstanding Writing Special Class), plus docudrama The Hope: The Rebirth of Israel (2016, Outstanding Writing Special Class).  In Our Hands: The Battle for Jerusalem (2017) debuted in U.S. theaters as one of the highest-grossing documentaries of the year.

“I remember I ran up and down the street just over and over and over again.” 

It was a hot, summer day in rural Alabama when an 8- year-old, Pam Whitehead, learned her father had brutally killed her mother. He was later sentenced to 50 years. “Just screaming, and running up and down the street,” recalled Pam. 
 
Eight years later Pam would see another violent man go to prison – the foster father who’d taken her and her younger siblings in after her own father went to prison. It was Pam who reported him to police for beating and sexually abusing them.  
 
Pam said, “The anxiety that was in me, I could not hold down a lot of food. I was so scared. That 10-year-old girl that I see in that picture, so scared.”
 
Pam was 11 when she figured out alcohol made life bearable. “I liked it, and it took away the feeling, the pain, and so I knew from that moment that if I didn’t want to remember anything, I didn’t want to be responsible for anything, I could just drink,” she said. 
 
She did hear about God and Jesus occasionally when her foster mom took Pam and her siblings to church. “I didn’t think He cared about me. I didn’t think He saw me. If you cared about me. How? Why would you allow all these things to happen to me?”
 
Pam had endured the hell for 8 years before finding the courage to go to authorities. Now 16 and an alcoholic, she took little comfort when her foster dad was sentenced to twenty years and decided swallowing a bottle of pills was her only chance for peace.
 
Pam said, “I needed help. I was depressed. I was anxious. I couldn’t eat. I felt terrible because my brother and my sisters were being separated and all of that coupled with the trial for my foster father led me to suicide.”
 
After the failed suicide attempt that earned her a brief stay in a psychiatric hospital, Pam would continue to fight depression, suicide attempts, and alcoholism for years to come. Her numerous trips to rehab were unsuccessful. Pam said, “Not drinking, never crossed my mind, like, how could I live without it? I just thought, this is how I have to live the rest of my life.”

Pam’s twenties would be a string of disappointments and failures. She joined and got kicked out of the army. A marriage ended in divorce in which she lost custody of her son. She got pregnant again and had an abortion. To fight the depression, she used alcohol and cocaine to fight the loneliness and fear of being alone. She also turned to sex. “I had a lot of rage and a lot of anger, and so the idea was, I’ll get you before you get me, because I didn’t trust anybody,” said Pam. 
 
Her friends tried to talk to her into getting help, but Pam wouldn’t listen. Now approaching 30, she felt beyond anyone’s reach including God’s. She said, “There’s no way I can come back from the things that I’ve done, the lies that I’ve told. The secrets that I have that nobody knows about. He knows that, there’s no way.”

Then one night, at a party she couldn’t get drunk, no matter how much she drank. “And this voice comes out of nowhere and says to me, ‘This is your life. You’re always on the outside looking in. Even in a room full of people, you still feel all alone. But I am with you.' And I was like, who is that? I didn’t know that voice and I got mad because it was the most honest thing I’d ever heard in my life. It was so true. No matter where I was, no matter what room I was in, no matter who was there, I was still alone.”
 
Pam again went to AA, and this time got sober. Still, she refused to let God into her life. Four years later that would change. Now 32, on the verge of another divorce and raising a daughter, Pam was again facing her childhood pain and fears that no one wanted her. She agreed to go to church with a friend who told her she’d find everything she needed through Jesus. Sitting in the service, Pam realized her friend was right.

Of that moment Pam recalled, “I want you. I did. I want you and I need you. And that day I asked Him to come into my life and I surrendered.”

Pam said, “Yes. He gave me hope cause I didn’t have any, I had none.” Pam says as she poured over God’s word, the depression lifted. She was also able to forgive the men who caused her so much pain and found the freedom to move forward with her life.   

“I wanted nothing more than to be rid of my old life and so the scriptures came alive to me and I believed them, and I’ve studied them, and they’re written on my heart. And, now for me that’s, it’s alive in me. It’s everything.”

Today, both Pam and her husband, Robert, are following Christ and are happily married. She is the executive director of Prolove Ministries and leans on what Jesus did in her life to help others feel loved and find their way.
 
Pam said, “Oh, I can’t even imagine not walking in this freedom. Man it’s the best place to live. It really is! That hope that we have in Jesus Christ, and knowing that this isn’t all there is. This life right here is not all there is. There is more, there is more.”