Below is a letter from a lady that was with us on our recent Jordan trip.
MY TRIP TO ISRAEL AND JORDAN – MAY 2013
During the first week of my two week involvement in the ministry, we travelled to Jordan with a party of eight and stayed the first night in a hotel in Amman after visiting the local Christian Bookshop. There were three Americans, two Koreans and three English one of whom was Antony.
The first evening was spent surveying the area as most of us had never been to Amman before and also looking for opportunities to share the Gospel and give out the Scriptures to the local inhabitants. I found this very interesting and rewarding as it gave me a first hand knowledge of the people there insomuch as it was easily identifiable that there were many people who, although professing to being Muslim, were in fact very secular and had no problem in receiving the Scriptures from us. There were numerous police in the area so we avoided distributing the literature when in close proximity to them as we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves but on the whole the giving of the the Scriptures was trouble free. Sadly it appears, although on the surface, that not many of the local churches are involved in this although I’m not aware of the particular difficulties that they may face.
The following day we travelled to a northern town bordering the Jordanian/Syrian border where numerous Syrian refugees are living in poor conditions although one of the local churches was endeavouring to assist those in their own particular area. We spoke with the local pastor who was compassionate in his treatment and care of them along with numerous helpers from various countries. I was surprised however to discover that there were two women who professed to being atheists yet were moved by their own compassion to help these people (An interesting concept of the religion of atheism!!). The thing that upset me the most however, was despite the great need of these refugees, the pastor refused any form of help, including that of food that would originate from Israel. Along with this is that again there seemed to be no-one from the church who was sharing the Gospel with them. When a few of us were standing on the street outside a small cafe, we were approached by a woman who was clearly in some distress, clutching her child to herself. She made it known that what she so desperately needed was some money to purchase her child some milk but instead of that, we went with her to a nearby shop where she indicated the particular milk her child was in need of. She was so pleased with our gift that a big smile appeared on her face and she gratefully accepted the New Testament in Arabic as well as the milk. We visited a family, also from Syria whom Antony had met on a previous occasion and spent two hours with them. They were living in poor conditions, however they were very happy to have escaped Syria and conditions there which were far worse. The man explained to us that both he and his wife still had close relatives living in Syria and that one of his sisters had been killed there but that he also had family who’d managed to escape to Lebanon. We left the town to return to Amman after having distributed more Scriptures to some of the locals as well as the Syrians.
The following day we visited a local Jordanian who is involved in not only reaching out to the Jordanians with the Gospel but also is involved with “Voice of the Martyrs”. Both he and his wife plus one other helper were happy to meet us and informed us all of the work with which they are involved. We spent an enlightening hour there during which time I was particularly encouraged by the obvious desire to share the Gospel.
We returned to Israel after which we spent some time travelling to various places in the north of the country including Akko where we spent some of the time distributing the Scriptures and on occasion, when able, sharing the Gospel with the inhabitants.
During my time in Israel, I was blessed to have been part of the outreach in Tel Aviv plus the time outside the Hebrew University conversing with both Jewish and Arab students although at one time a Jewish lady, not from the university, saw me and approached to tell me that what we were doing was the most anti-semitic thing imaginable to which I countered by saying that not sharing the Gospel with Jewish people was the most anti-semitic thing imaginable. I was quite surprised that she didn’t answer but instead looked somewhat nonplussed by my comment and hastily beat a retreat together with her two children.