This has been a busy summer with lots of evangelism, on almost a daily basis for around three months solid, with many people spoken to and many scriptures given out and many seeds sown. We had two teams one with 8 members and another with two as well as others joining us.
It has been a summer of opportunity, with very little opposition; we have given out hundreds of Hebrew New Testaments to Israelis, with much interest by those who accepted one as well as many New Testaments in many other languages.
Pray for this harvest, that He will send some to water the seeds sown.
This is my last day in Kurdistan – a little different trip.
We distributed less aid but will be continuing though aid continues through local churches after my departure.
We spent a lot of time in a caravan park with approximately one thousand caravans going from caravan to caravan, sharing and explaining the gospel and distributing audio Bibles while encouraging those who can read. We were telling the nominal Christians to read their Bibles, their Muslim neighbours read their Koran and are affected by it so we should read and know our Bible, and it should affect us and the society around. Islam is in darkness and the Gospel is Light, their neighbours follow a dead prophet but we follow a living Saviour. Sadly many of the nominal Christians are illiterate , partly the Roman church is to blame , it should have taught them to read the scriptures but it much preferred to keep them in darkness and thus under their submission, keeping them illiterate and thus ignorant. To that end the use of audio Bibles is a great tool in getting people to actually hear and understand the word of God for the first time. These audio Bibles are also rechargeable by solar power which in summer temperatures of 45-50 centigrade is an added bonus.
The Caravans have water and electricity but the electricity is not 24 hours and it very often goes off in the afternoon which is difficult during these summer months as the temperature is around 105 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Hell is hotter and the gospel is more important than social comforts and we told the people that if the Isis would have killed them many of them would have gone to hell, they escaped ISIS but they need to flee to Jesus Christ.
We plan to go back next month and deliver more aid and try and help people who live outside of the official refugee camps as many of them are now being taken care of by the UN and other aid agencies.
The number one need is the Gospel so we plan to take around 200 audio bibles to distribute and also to distribute those we have already stored there. I plan to go to the states in October to raise awareness of the situation and the needs for the winter. I will be in the state of Arkansas, so please pray for all these things.
This is a short letter of a woman who spent nearly a month with us my journey to Israel 25/06/15 – 23/07/15.
My first days were spent with 8 American ladies who had arrived in the land two weeks prior to my arrival. They came with zeal to serve The Lord by sharing the Gospel with first, the Jewish people and also the Gentiles. The day after my arrival I joined them along with Antony Simon on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem to hand out the Scriptures and to share the Good News of the Lord Jesus Christ. We explained that we were Gentile ladies who wanted to thank the Jewish people for the Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, that speak of their Jewish Messiah, who came first to His own people but also for the Gentiles. The reaction of the non-religious Jews was softened as we spoke of our love and prayers for them and of our desire to share about their Messiah resulting in a number of them happily receiving the Hebrew New Testament together with the book, “Betrayed” which was written by a Jewish man from New York about his daughter who became a believer in Yeshua whilst away from home studying at a university.
These encounters with Jewish people continued daily as well as opportunities to speak with Muslims and tourists from a number of nations. There were even those who came to us to ask for The Scriptures which in itself was a blessing. We prayed daily for opportunities to share the Gospel but also for boldness, courage, wisdom and discernment that we may do the work that God has called us to for the glory of His Name.
It saddened us to hear that many believers in Yeshua failed to speak to either Jewish or Arab people about the Messiah but stated that they were merely in Israel as tourists. Another thing that saddened me was the fact that the numerous Christian organisations operating within Israel don’t actively share the Gospel but have told their volunteers that it is in fact illegal to do so. This is not an uncommon comment amongst the Orthodox or Ultra-Orthodox community to us but it is nevertheless untrue as not only I but many of us have either shared the Gospel or offered The Scriptures to the police and other officials and have not been arrested. When asked as to whom we should obey, God or man, there has been silence in reply.
I started keeping account of the number and names of people I spoke to but gave up after two weeks of doing this as there were so many people we came into contact with to share The Scriptures. Our approach varied insomuch as it was dependent on the person to whom we spoke. There were many young as well as older people smoking who were used as a conversation opener, that is, we stated that smoking was dangerous and would kill the smoker and once that happened, where would they spend eternity. Many people considered themselves to be good so we pointed out that there is only God who is good and that all have broken His laws and were therefore criminals in His eyes. The consequence of which was eternal punishment unless they repented and turned to the only one who could save them, Him being Yeshua the Messiah. We explained that His very Name means God is salvation and that He is also God who is with us. Yeshua Immanuel.
There were many who refused The Scriptures but were happy to take the book, Betrayed, but there were also a number who refused both so we asked those people if they had a Tanach, (Old Testament) which many said they did, so we encouraged those people to please read their Tanach and ask God Himself to give them understanding of His Word, promising that if they did this with a sincere heart, then He would reveal His Word to them. We also stated that it was much better to ask God rather than the Rabbis as it was He who gave The Scriptures in the first place. We did come across those that were atheists which we stated surprised us as one of the evidences that God exists is the fact that the Jewish people still exist and are now back in their land after nearly two thousand years. We told them that no other people group has been out of their land for more than three hundred years and has continued to exist as a people group but more importantly was the fact that The Scriptures declared that the Jewish people would return to the land in the latter days.
One afternoon, Lisa, (a resident of Jerusalem and musician at the assembly) Michelle, (an American lady) and I travelled to Gilo (a suburb of Jerusalem), to post stickers and magnets, notifying the Russian people living in the area of a free tour with Lisa, to the Garden Tomb and other places of both Biblical and historical interest within the Old City and surrounding area. This is a weekly tour spoken in Russian as there are many Russian speaking people within Jerusalem.
One of the many blessings was to work with not only Antony, but believers from other nations in doing this most privileged and blessed work. During one evening there was a group of seven of us of various ages and from different nations sharing the Gospel some of whom I may never see again this side of eternity but who were blessed brothers and sisters in Messiah.
Each Friday evening, we travelled to Tel Aviv with two teams, one to share the Gospel amongst the numerous foreign workers in the market place area and the other team to Rothschild Street to share with mostly the Jewish population residing there although we did encounter people from other nations.