Darkness and Light
As we continue to live in a time of war, threats from all sides, and a critical time and place in history, we also see God doing some powerful and amazing things here in Israel. As I write this newsletter, we are under immediate threat of attacks from Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel’s people and government are severely divided. However, through war, we believe we see God doing a sovereign work in Israel among the Jewish people.
We have seen at least 10 Jewish or Israeli people in or connected to our congregation come to the Lord and to believe on Yeshua in the months before the war until now. This may seem like a small number, but for our congregation, and for a short amount of time in Israel, this is rather significant. What’s more astounding is that many of these people seem to have come to faith by a sovereign encounter – a dream, a spiritual experience where Yeshua revealed himself, or just this itch to read the New Testament. Then they found our congregation in order to find out more and develop their faith in discipleship.
In these dark times, we remember the words of Isaiah 60: “Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”
Developing Disciples
We are seeing God’s light in the midst of darkness. One of the new things we’ve launched is a discipleship program at our congregation. There are many discipleship programs out there, but not a lot are tailored towards people that are Jewish, grew up knowing about the one God, and have the perspective of their history as God’s people. So we curated our own 8-week “Foundations Class” to teach the foundations of our faith and coupled it with one-on-one discipleship meetings. We brought around 10 new believers through the pilot course and are continuing to disciple them in their new faith and walk with Yeshua. Please pray as some of them are very new believers, have not told their family about their faith, and some have been called back to the army to operate in Gaza.
Concert
In May, we celebrated the release of Daniela’s new album “Symphony,” with a recorded concert. It was a beautiful time and we hope to be making this available for you to watch later this year. If you haven’t yet listened to these new songs, you can go to our YouTube link or look them up digitally wherever you listen to music.
Prayer and Praise
Please continue to cover us in prayer. We are not only under attack from other nations, but sometimes spiritually and physically as well. I (Matthew) spent almost the entirety of July laid out sick from an unknown virus. I am recovering now, but it highlights the importance of being covered in prayer.
We had asked you to pray for our son as he was having some difficulties he was having with his emotions. Praise God! After meeting with a psychiatrist, we found him the help and simple adjustments needed. He was not depressed as the school had believed, and because of these adjustments, he is now in a much better place!
Some of you were also praying with us that that we could move into a newer apartment that had an adequate safe room from missile attacks. In April were able to move into a much newer apartment by the grace of God!
Prayer Requests
- Pray for security in Israel and a quick return of all hostages.
- Pray more Israelis to come to faith by a work of the Holy Spirit.
- Pray for God to enable us to disciple these new believers.
- Pray for continued covering on our health
- Praise God for all the answered prayer!
