Covid Street Outreach – Experienced Evangelists Surprised

Many in Israel are feeling anxious, uncertain and isolated right now because of the covid-19 crisis: the question is, are they more or less open to the gospel as a result? Since coming out of our covid lockdown in the end of May here in Israel, we felt the Lord calling us back out onto the streets to witness. God put it on the heart of Kosta, who recently joined our ministry team, to lead a weekly street outreach in Tel Aviv. As a congregation, we encourage a lifestyle of witnessing to friends, families, coworkers and people we come across in our everyday lives. However, there is a special calling and anointing for evangelists who go out onto the streets to share the gospel.

Kosta and David engaging people on the street in conversations about God and Israel’s Messiah

This week Kosta and David, one of Tiferet Yeshua’s most faithful evangelists, hit the streets of Tel Aviv: with them they had New Testaments and Who is the Messiah of Israel? booklets which detail all the Old Testament prophesies about the Messiah. Both Kosta and David have much experience witnessing on the street, and they were both surprised by people’s reactions to them.

More than ever before, people are open to discussing God and the Messiah of Israel. Kosta and David handed out fifteen prophecy booklets, and five people were willing to take New Testaments – which is amazing. Jewish people have ingrained in them that it is forbidden to even touch the New Testament because it is perceived as an anti-Semitic, Christian book. When we witness to people, we share with them that it is a Jewish book, written by Jews, and that is has the gospel of life which was intended to the Jews first and then to the whole world. More and more Jews are willing to find out for themselves whether this forbidden book, the New Testament, is a Jewish book or not.

The last person Kosta and David talked to left a strong impression on them: he was a young man who had grown up in an orthodox family but had become secular. He told David and Kosta: “You are Messianic Jews? I have been following your teachings and videos! Just yesterday I was watching a teaching by Messianic Jews online.” This man took a New Testament and the booklet with the prophetic messianic scriptures. God is moving and people are open to the gospel like never before. Please pray for us! Just as the Apostle Paul requested prayer to be able to effectively preach the gospel, we need your prayers as well:

“Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel… Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.” Ephesians 6:19-20

“Brothers and sisters, pray for us. Pray that the Lord’s message will spread quickly. Pray that others will honor it just as you did.” 2 Thessalonians 3:1

Feed Tel Aviv Corona Update

by Mordechai Cohen

Every week, we prepare three hundred hot meals and distribute them in south Tel Aviv – a haven for illegal immigrants and a hotbed of drugs and crime. When Israel went into a stay-at-home quarantine in March, we immediately began seeing the devastating effects it caused here on the rough streets of south Tel Aviv.

We know the faces of those who end up here, those pushed into to a life of poverty, prostitution, homelessness and crime by drug addiction. The situation in the area grows worse every year, and the corona virus, which closed most all of the soup kitchens and halfway houses during the general quarantine in April and May, made the situation even more dire.

The New Face of Need

Since Israel eased corona restrictions at the end of May, we have been seeing new faces at our weekly meal outreaches: these people are not criminals or drug addicted. They are not even homeless. They have simply lost jobs and income due to the corona crisis and find themselves on the edge each week, having to choose between paying their bills and buying food. It is heartbreaking to see an increasing number of people in this situation, but we are thankful that God is giving us the opportunity to serve and minister to them.

More New Faces: Workers for the Harvest!

One of the most exciting things that has been happening recently is the fact that the Lord is sending workers into the harvest. For the last several weeks, more volunteers have been joining us to hand out meals on the street. In particular, a devoted group of on-fire young people from Jerusalem has been coming down to Tel Aviv every week to help distribute meals on the streets.

Long after the rest of us have gone to bed, they are out on the streets until six in the morning, ministering to the neediest people in our country who are unseen and forgotten by society: drug addicts, prostitutes and homeless. They have been sending me pictures of people kneeling on the sidewalks in prayer. God is moving!

Please keep what we are doing in prayer! God is shaking our society and giving us the opportunity to be there to minister to those who are most dramatically affected. Thanks to your faithful support of this ministry, we are able to continue being the hands and feet of the Lord here on the streets in Tel Aviv.

Corona on the Rise Again in Israel

On Our Way to a Second Wave?

On May 20th Israel announced it was loosening corona restrictions, allowing many to go back to work and allowing us at Tiferet Yeshua to hold weekly services of up to fifty people. A week after Israel began relaxing corona restrictions, the infection rate began climbing again, causing concern that we are on our way to a second wave of infections. This week alone Israel had its largest daily infection rate (288 cases) since April.

Corona Fatigue

Everyone has experienced exhaustion with the social distancing and mask wearing in public. Once restrictions on restaurants and pubs were lifted, many young people threw off restraint and gathered for large parties. Possibly for that reason alone Tel Aviv has one of the highest infection rates in Israel at the moment. Schools were also reopened and, not surprisingly, they have been a source of virus outbreaks, with some shutting down not long after students returned. The word from teachers and students is that compliance with health guidelines in the schools is shoddy at best.

On June 8th the Prime Minister addressed the nation, warning that we would go back to a general lock-down if the numbers kept rising and re-emphasizing the three rules people must continue complying with: social distancing, mask wearing, and hand washing. Some experts are pointing out that the higher number of infections that Israel is seeing right now is partially due to the fact that the state has dramatically increased corona virus testing which naturally leads to an increase in the statistical infection rate. Additionally, the vast majority (99.6%) of those who are testing positive for corona right now are asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms.

Israel’s Corona Grade So Far

So how has Israel fared with its corona virus response overall? Looking at worldwide statistics, Israel has done fairly well handling the corona virus outbreak. Israel closed the skies early and quickly went into a general lock-down. The death rate from the corona virus in Israel has also been low ( 2% mortality rate) compared to other countries considered in good standing with their corona response, like Germany (5% mortality rate). Currently with the rising numbers of corona infections, the number of serious cases in Israel is still very low (1%) compared to Germany (6%), mainly due to the fact that those who are becoming infected in Israel tend to be younger.

On Our Way Back to Quarantine? 

This week Israel Finance Minister Israel Katz told the media that Israel will put a break on the loosening of overall restrictions but it will not go back to a general shutdown. Instead of a general closure, the plan is to deal with outbreaks in “pinpoint manner with enforcement and quarantine”.

What about flying to and from Israel?

Currently anyone coming into Israel must go into a 14-day quarantine. Netanyahu and top government ministers met with their Greek and Cypriot counterparts this last week to discuss the possibility of removing the quarantine requirement between Israel, Greece and Cyprus on August 1st. The message for Israel’s tourism industry, which is large, is not a good one.

Increasingly experts are saying that the corona virus will most likely be with us for another year or two and that our societies must find ways of living with it in the meantime. The world has changed for good.  As we continue  our small meetings in Tiferet Yeshua, our prayer is that God would protect His people from the virus and that He would continue using us to be a light and blessing to our nation during this difficult time!

Responding to Need during the Corona Crisis

When Israel went into lockdown in mid-March, we started hearing about people in need who had lost jobs or income due to the crisis. As a congregation, we decided to reach out to help those in the community around us: we asked Tiferet Yeshua members to recommend people they knew who were in need, and each week we filled grocery bags for families with enough essentials to help get them through the week.

When we first started out in March, we were bringing groceries to around twelve families. Each week, we were hearing of more families in need so that in the end, we were providing weekly groceries to twenty-three families. Most of the recipients were non-believers, and all of them expressed sincere gratitude that a community of Messianic Jews wanted to bless them. Tiferet Yeshua Elder Moti Cohen who helped organize the grocery delivery shared that a Muslim woman who received groceries asked him what organization was supporting this outreach; when he explained to her that it was a congregation of Jewish believers in Yeshua that just wanted to bless her, her eyes filled with tears.

Miriam, a woman in our congregation who works with the Israeli pro-life organization, B’ad Chaim, recommended several single mothers for our grocery outreach. These were women whom Miriam had counseled through their decision to keep their babies and supported through their pregnancies. Because the corona lockdown closed all childcare facilities for over two months, forcing parents to stay at home to care for their children, these young mothers had fallen on hard times.  Every week during the lockdown we brought them groceries and diapers. It was so special for Miriam to be able to be a part of supporting these single mothers, to see the babies whose lives she had a part in bringing into the world. For us it was an honor to be able to encourage and bless these single mothers who had chosen life for their children.

When we first started our outreach, we posted pictures of  the teams of volunteers shopping and preparing the grocery bags on Tiferet Yeshua’s Hebrew Facebook page in order to share with our members that the congregation was still active despite the lockdown. A non-believer and single mother of a child with special needs saw our post on Facebook and sent us a message asking if she could be included in our grocery outreach because she also had to be quarantined at home caring for her child. Praise God we could help her!

Overall, we provided groceries for the two and a half months that Israel was in quarantine lockdown. It was a difficult and trying period for everyone. But, it was such a blessing for us to be able to help and support those in need around us during that time, to bring the groceries to their homes personally and to see how it touched and encouraged them.

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

We would not be able to maintain our giving fund without the help from our friends around the world! Your support allows us to respond to immediate needs as they arise, like those that came to our attention during the corona crisis, and to be a blessing to the people of Israel. Thank you!

For Fifteen Years I Couldn’t Witness to My Friend. Then Corona Happened

by Tzipi

(Tzipi is a mature woman of God and has been an integral part of Tiferet Yeshua congregation for years. She shared this powerful testimony with us while we were still in quarantine, and it was a great encouragement to us. We pray it encourages you too.) 

Dina (not her real name) and I have been friends over 15 years. We worked closely together in a kindergarten for a long time. When we first became friends, I never talked to her about my faith. At first it was because of the school setting where we worked. Being around the children and their parents made it difficult to have an open discussion about faith (in Israel it is illegal to knowingly “expose” anyone under the age of eighteen to the gospel). When you are building a relationship with someone, and you don’t share about your faith at the outset, it becomes harder to do it as time goes on. Fear creeps in. The fear of losing the friendship.

I told myself that I was waiting for the right moment to have the conversation with her, but the right moment never seemed to come. I wanted so much to share my faith with her, but fear was holding me back. Over the years, as our relationship grew, Dina and I became like sisters. We had family gatherings together. We celebrated holidays together. She became like family, which made the fact that I had never shared my faith with her so unbelievable: I knew my dear friend could not really know me because she did not know about Yeshua (Jesus), the most important part of my life. Beyond that, how could I not share the most precious gift I know of with my friend?

Cancer: a wake-up call!

About three years ago Dina got sick with cancer, which made the pressure to witness to her greater than ever. But I just wasn’t able to do it. During that time, my daughter kept telling me, “How will you be able to look yourself in the mirror if something happens to her? You have to share Yeshua with her. It’s wrong not to tell her, she’s your friend!” I knew she was right.

“Soon. I’ll do it soon,” I would tell her. But I never did.

Corona Changed Everything

A couple weeks into Israel’s quarantine lockdown, Dina called to tell me that she was having a hard time financially because of the situation. I had been volunteering at Tiferet Yeshua to help out with the grocery outreach for the needy that we organized every week during the corona lockdown. I told her that I was volunteering with a project that provided groceries to people in need during corona and that I would be happy to include her in the outreach.

That day when I was bringing the groceries to her house, I felt God saying, “This is it. This is the moment that you are going to witness to her.” The whole way there I was praying, asking Him to give me the words. It wasn’t going to be easy…I had been putting this off for fifteen years!

When I got to her house, I gave her the groceries and told her, “I know that all these years you have questions for me about what I believe.” She waved me off saying, “Yes, yes, I know, you are into the Reform thing (Reform Judaism).” I had always talked openly about God, about going to conferences, but I had never specifically mentioned Yeshua.

I told her, “No, it’s not that. Bring me the Bible (Hebrew scriptures)”. When I witness to people, I prefer that they bring their own bibles so that they don’t think I’m reading something to them out of a different Bible because everyone is always so surprised when they read the prophetic messianic scriptures for the first time.

Dina brought me her Bible and handed it to me. I don’t know how I did it—it was like strength from above was filling me. I started at the beginning, in Genesis. I showed her how it is written that God created man using the plural pronoun, saying, “…let us make man in our image and in our likeness”. Then I went to the story of Abraham and the three “angels”, one of whom is described as the LORD (YHVH). I wanted to show her that God reveals Himself to man in the Hebrew scriptures as a physical person.

The Surprise

Finally, I got to Yeshua. When I said His name, Dina just looked at me. After a moment she said, “Tzipi, I want to tell you something. When I was little, someone put a flier in our mailbox that offered these books. The information in the flier fascinated me, and I wanted to find out more about it. Without telling anyone, I returned the flier in the mail to get the books. The books came in the mail, without anyone noticing. I hid them in my room and started secretly reading them. One day my father caught me. What a beating he gave me over those books! He yelled at me, ‘Do you know what this is? It’s Christianity!'”

A Family Secret

Dina then told me something she had kept to herself for years. Dina’s mother had been sent into hiding in a Christian convent during the Second World War because her parents were afraid that the Nazis would take control of Algeria where they were living. All her life, Dina remembered her mother crossing herself. When she would do it, Dina would ask her, “Mom, what are you doing? We are Jews!”  One day, Dina’s mother told her, “You don’t know this, but there are Christians who you think are Christians, but they’re actually Jews.”

I looked at Dina in shock and said, “Your mother knew about Messianic Jews!”

Spiritual Hunger

That day, we sat together for over four hours, going through the Word together and talking. I had no idea how the time was flying! In the end I told her, “I don’t want you to take my word for it. Search it out for yourself. It’s all here in our Bible.”

On my way home, I called my Mom to tell her. My Mom is a believer, and she was so happy to hear that I had finally witnessed to my dear friend. She and I both prayed for Dina there on the phone, that she would continue reading the Word and that Yeshua would reveal Himself to her.

That evening Dina called me: it was like our four-hour conversation from earlier that day hadn’t been enough. I told her, “Maybe it’s not the best idea for you to talk to your family about this right now. Search it out for yourself first before you share it with your family. They might get worried and start driving you crazy about it.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about!” Dina said. “I already told my brother. He’s intrigued and wants to find out more too.”

Since then, Dina and I talk every day. She is so hungry for God! It’s a miracle.

I told her that I never talked to her about my faith because I was afraid of losing her as a friend. Her answer to me was, “It’s a shame you didn’t tell me sooner.”

***Thanks to your support, we are able to continue special projects like our corona grocery bag outreach which became an open door for Tzipi to share the gospel with her friend***

In the Darkest Places, the Light Shines the Brightest

We’d like you to get to know a very special person. Halel is one of the most amazing people we know, and we are incredibly blessed to have her leading  Tiferet Yeshua’s youth group. She is on fire for the Lord, has boundless energy, a huge heart, and is devoted to helping those in need.  

At the beginning of the corona crisis here in Israel, Halel got a call from a young man, saying that there were many families of African migrants in south Tel Aviv who had lost their jobs due to the crisis – they had no food, no diapers for their children. Halel asked how on earth he got her number: it turns out this young man got to know believers at a conference here in Israel, and when he contacted them about getting immediate help for his community, they gave them Halel’s number. 

“Hello, my name is Halel Goldman and I am twenty-two. At age sixteen when I started becoming more serious about relationship with God, I would go with two of my sisters to the only youth group we knew about in Tel Aviv (my family had started going to congregation Tiferet Yeshua in Tel Aviv).   

To get to these youth meetings we had a long way to go from where we lived at the time in Caesarea (a town in north-central Israel): we had to take a train, buses and then walk for about a mile from the central bus station in south Tel Aviv which is one of the worst areas not just in Tel Aviv, but in all Israel. Walking to youth group each week I ended up seeing many lost, suffering people. The poverty and suffering I saw deeply affected me, and I started to pray about what I could do to help. Sometimes I would bring food with me to give people I saw along the way. I would sit and talk with people and pray for them. God gave me a burden for the people I saw there, and over time it would continue to grow.

Over the years, I began finding different ways to reach out to the people of south Tel Aviv. When I was serving in the army, I decided to start a project that would allow youth from different congregations along with youth who weren’t believers to volunteer with me to go out and serve the homeless in south Tel Aviv. Youth groups from various congregations joined us to learn how to become involved in outreach in a way that would forever change the way they view the needs of those around them.

Last year my dad left his job in the tourism industry to take over leadership of a ministry here in Israel called “Hands of Mercy”. As a humanitarian outreach organization, we realized that it made sense for me to join him in their ministry by adding my project to reach people in desperate situations on the street. We also run a ministry house in Jerusalem that provides a place for disenfranchised youth who have left the ultra-orthodox background who need a warm meal and home atmosphere (this ministry home was continually attacked and vandalized by extreme ultra-orthodox groups at the beginning of this year).

Halel with her father Yariv and a friend.

I continue to go out on the streets two to three times a week. I still see very difficult things, and over time I have gotten to know and develop a relationship with most of the people on the streets in south Tel Aviv: those same alleyways filled with drugs that shocked me when I was sixteen now almost feel like home. My heart goes out to each and every person there. Today when the see us coming with our cart of food, hot drinks (in the winter months), and clothes, they all run up to us, sometimes just for food, sometimes to receive prayer.

Our vision is to help people get off the streets, and we have succeeded in getting scores of people into rehabilitation programs here in Israel. There is still a great need out there on the streets: one need in particular that has become apparent to me is that there is no Hebrew-speaking rehabilitation center for women run by believers here in Israel. It has been my hope and prayer that we will one day be able to open a rehabilitation center for Hebrew-speaking women from the street.  Amazingly, through the crisis of the corona virus, God has opened the door for us to useour ministry house as a place for women in crisis, which is an amazing answer to prayer!

With God’s grace, we have been able to continue to provide food and support to many people in several cities in Israel while  time training volunteers, believers and non-believers, to serve in love and patience. We also want our volunteers who go out on the street have first aid certification: so many people on the street needlessly suffer injuries from simple cuts and scrapes that become infected, so it is a great help when volunteers are professionally trained to know how to safely disinfect and dress simple wounds.

Halel administering first aid to a man on the street.

We would be so grateful for your prayers right now as we are still experiencing persecution and financial difficulties. We would be happy to have you join us sometime on one of our trips out to streets to see what God does when you follow Him to serve the poor and needy. Blessings from Israel!”

Because of your support, we are able to respond quickly to needs on the ground here in Israel, like supporting Halel’s project to help the Nigerian families in need in south Tel Aviv. Thank you for standing with us!

Crisis, Spiritual Hunger and a Prophetic Dream from 20 Years Ago

by Olga Gez

Here in Israel we went into coronavirus home quarantine the week after the holiday of Purim on March 18th. Now, the week after Passover, we are still in quarantine, although our government is slowly trying to ease restrictions. The same storm is hitting people all over the world, but, as a certain Facebook post I recently read pointed out, everyone is in a different boat: this crisis is hitting everyone financially, emotionally, and spiritually in different ways.

Being Broken

For me personally, it has been a challenging time, and the week of Passover was especially difficult. My husband and I usually host a large Passover meal for our extended family (I love to cook, especially the Tunisian and Moroccan dishes I grew up with). This year, however, because of the quarantine restrictions, I decided to cook Passover meals to bring to my elderly in-laws who live nearby, for another family member in a difficult situation, and for another elderly lady from our congregation.

As Passover drew near, we were in our third week of total quarantine, and my family and I were starting to feel the effects. I suddenly found that I couldn’t sleep at night, and my exhaustion during the day made it all the more difficult to deal with the challenging situation, not to mention all the extra work I had taken on for the holiday.

As part of the team at Tiferet Yeshua, I have a calling to be there for others: one of my daily activities, even more so now, is to call our congregation members, pray with those who need encouraging, and coordinate with our team to help those who are in immediate need. I didn’t realize it at the time, but trying to be there for everyone, including my immediate and extended family, I was reaching a breaking point.

This last week I was sharing with a sister in the Lord about the difficult time I had been having during quarantine. At one point she said to me, “Olga, even though you’re exhausted, do you realize that you have been witnessing to people right and left?”

It hadn’t occurred to me as something out of the ordinary, but actually it was! I had told her how a family member who had always been antagonistic to the gospel was suddenly open to hear about Yeshua and was even willing to take home some literature to read about the Messiah in prophetic scripture. This family member has been completely broken through the corona crisis because his wife fell into clinical depression during the quarantine and had to be hospitalized. I also had an opportunity to share with one of my neighbors who spent time in a Yeshiva (a Jewish religious school) as a young man. Now, because of this crazy situation we all find ourselves in, he is suddenly seeking and open to hear about Yeshua.

A Prophetic Dream from 20 Years Ago

When we first went into quarantine, the Lord had put on my heart a powerful dream that He gave me almost twenty years ago when I was a brand new believer—a time when I was still immature in the faith and living in compromise in many ways. However, it is amazing to me that, despite our weakness and immaturity (think of Peter the disciple), the Lord will still give us deep and amazing revelations!

In the dream, I was dressed in the clothes of Moses, and I held his staff in my hand. I was walking the streets crying out to those around me, “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand!” The sky overhead was dark and foreboding, and I saw an explosion far away to the north, like something happening somewhere else that I knew would come to Israel too. As I walked the streets, crying out to those around me, I could see that my words were going into the hearts of many, and God was touching them. There were others who did not receive my words, and I could see their hearts harden and turn away from God.

Olga singing blessings during Passover Seder 2016

While I was sharing with my friend about my experiences during the corona quarantine, I realized that this dream the Lord gave me from so many years ago is for now! I may feel tired and broken at the moment, but God is still using me to witness to those around me who are open to the gospel like never before. And it’s not just me: during Tiferet Yeshua’s congregational Zoom meeting, Tiferet Yeshua elder David Trubeck shared how secular friends of his from the military who were never open to the gospel have suddenly started asking him questions about his faith. Elder Moti Cohen and others who witness to the poor and needy have been seeing unprecedented hunger and openness for the gospel. Other outreach ministries in Israel have been experiencing the same thing.

Pray for the Harvest

At the beginning of the quarantine, Pastor Gil shared with all of us that he felt that the Lord would use this crisis to turn the hearts of many unbelievers to seek Him, and that is exactly what is happening. Would you stand with us during this time to pray that the Lord would bring in the harvest here in Israel? There is such resistance to the gospel here—Israelis have so many hurdles to get over to be open to the gospel—and we need your prayers! God is moving, and our prayer is that what is happening here in Israel through the corona crisis will happen all around the world.

Looking for Answers in the Wrong Places

by Victoria Trubeck

There’s something that I would like to share with you that has been burning in me since the coronavirus outbreak began. In light of the extraordinary period that we are living in right now, when our day to day reality has been disrupted and we don’t know what to expect, many of us are asking, “Why is this happening? How and when is this all going to end?”

Looking for answers is a perfectly natural human thing to do. More than that, we are living in a generation that is used to having an abundance of information at its fingertips: a steady stream of news, information and updates are available to us on our smartphones at any given moment so that we can always know what’s happening right now. The one piece of information that is sorely missing from all our information options is: what is going to happen next? One of the greatest challenges that most of us are facing right now is uncertainty, the inability to plan and navigate our lives in the near future because we don’t know what will be the day after tomorrow or even three months from now.

Are We Turning Prophetic Words into Horoscopes?

One of the things that I’m discovering when I look at my Instagram or Facebook feeds is that people are frantic for answers and solutions: “This is going to be over by Passover!” I saw a video post that someone shared which calculated the gematria values of the Hebrew word “coronavirus” and the Hebrew phrase “after Passover” to prove that the coronavirus will be gone after Passover. As much as I found that post ridiculous and humorous, it clearly shows how desperately we want to be able to determine when this will end so that we can get back to our day to day lives. The fact of the matter is, we don’t know when we can get back to our lives. It’s also possible that we will never get back to the “business as usual” that we knew before corona. I can’t count the number of posts I have seen which cite this prophet or that word saying “It’s all going to be over by this and this time” or “It is all going to end this way…”

If clouds are full of water,
    they pour rain on the earth.
Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,
    in the place where it falls, there it will lie.
  Whoever watches the wind will not plant;
    whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

  As you do not know the path of the wind,
    or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
    the Maker of all things.

~Ecclesiastes 11:3-5

Our ability to comprehend God’s plans and ways are limited. Always looking to external sources that may be as wily as the wind and clouds in order to figure out what to do will cause us to be inactive and unfruitful. If our focus is on the latest prophetic update or the latest word from this or that high profile preacher or speaker, we will most definitely miss the incredible opportunity that God is giving us right now: He wants to teach us something about the things we actually have control over in our lives—the condition of our hearts: what motivates us, what is the state of our thought-life, how are our relationships with others?

An Amazing Opportunity

More than anything, this crisis is offering us an incredible opportunity to bring our hearts before the Lord. And if we make that our focus during this time, we will be less drawn to trying to figure out the external issues at play in this pandemic and focus on that which will be fruitful and bring a harvest in our lives. In that place, I believe that God will give each one of us His deep understanding through time in prayer and meditation on His Word. He will renew and re-calibrate our understanding of the truly important things in our lives, like our relationships with our families and loved ones, how to let God transform us into better people through this, and how we can be there for others during this crisis who are in worse situations than our own.

Victoria is part of Tiferet Yeshua’s leadership team and office manager

Egypt and the Coronavirus: Coming through the Narrow Place

by Gil Afriat

As Jews around the world prepare their hearts to recount the story of how God brought us out of Egypt, God is highlighting new significance in certain elements of the Passover story as we find ourselves in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis which is bringing nations around the world to their knees. In Hebrew we call this time “The Exodus from Egypt”, and I feel that God is bringing His bride, the international ecclesia, through a spiritual “Exodus from Egypt”.

Finding a Clue in the Hebrew Word for Egypt

In Hebrew, the word for Egypt is Meetzraim which literally means a very narrow place. To come out of Egypt, the Children of Israel had to pass through a narrow, difficult way. They were afforded salvation from the curse of death by putting the blood of the Passover lamb over the entrance of their homes. However, in order to come into the Promised Land, they had to go through numerous challenges and difficulties which would test their faith in the God who had just redeemed them from death and freed them from slavery.

Coming through the Narrow Place

I believe that right now during this time of Passover God is bringing the Body of Messiah through a very narrow place—a place of troubles, difficulties and hardships. In order to pass through this “narrow, difficult place”, God is removing from us the excess baggage which hinders and holds us back. In his unfailing love and grace, He is shaping us through these difficult times more into the image of His Son.

The Mixed Multitude in the Narrow Place

“Then the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children. A mixed multitude went up with them also…” Exodus 12:37-38

Passover has deep literal and symbolic meanings for the past, present and future, and the “mixed multitude” coming out of Egypt clearly shows that God’s plan from the beginning was to have a special people from every tribe, tongue and nation (Exodus 19:5-6, I Peter 2:5, Revelation 1:6; 5:10). So, what happens when a large number of people have to go through a narrow place together? They naturally have to get closer to each other! In addition to the many things God is doing in our hearts if we allow Him during this time, He is also calling us to a deeper unity and connection with our brothers and sisters in the faith around us!

Feed Tel Aviv During the Covid-19 Crisis

by Moti Cohen 

In all the years that I have been serving on the streets,  the situation of the homeless right now in Tel Aviv is the worst that I’ve ever seen. Homeless shelters have closed because of the coronavirus, making the number of those living on the streets right now five times higher than it was a month ago.

Because there are quarantine restrictions in Israel at the moment, meaning that no one can congregate in closed spaces, all the food distribution we’re doing is out on the street. There are actually restrictions against being out on the streets as well, but the Israeli police are allowing us to continue our outreach: they see it as helping keep the public order and peace because they understand that these helpless, starving people might start breaking into stores or houses in order to steal food.

We have been working in the area for years now and know all the places where the homeless and drug addicts hide out. We have found places where people hadn’t eaten all day (we head out to the streets in the evening around eight). It was hard for me to see people who ravenously devoured the food we brought and were asking for more a moment later. Remember that it is still the rainy season here in Israel, and it’s still very cold at night. It’s a difficult thing to see so many people sleeping on the filthy ground, in stairwells and bus stations.  During this virus crisis, now is the time that we need people serving on the streets, to be there for people who have absolutely nothing.

Moti and two volunteers from Tiferet Yeshua sharing food and the good news to a man on the street

It’s like Going to War

I prepare all the sandwiches at home ahead of time, wearing gloves, and wrap each one in cellophane. My children have already become experts at wrapping and packing hundreds of sandwiches: they are home because of the quarantine, so our sandwich making is an excellent activity to keep them busy! When I head out to the streets, it looks like I’m heading out to war with my face mask, googles, gloves, a hat and several layers of clothes which I spray regularly with disinfectant while I’m out. We have started doing the food distribution from the back of my car: we park, open up the hatchback and let the people come one at a time to help themselves to sandwiches, bottles of water and hot tea. We are careful to have all those who come to take sandwiches keep the two-meter distance from us and from each other as required by the government guidelines.

Moti and David Nachmias from Tiferet Yeshua handing out sandwiches and drinks from the back of Moti’s car

The Miracle in This Mess

There is a miracle in the mess of this situation: more and more homeless have been willing to go to the Messianic drug rehabilitation centers we recommend to them. This week alone at lease four people living on the street started a new chapter in their lives as they received Yeshua as their Messiah and started in rehabilitation programs. Additionally, so many people we know from seeing them every week on the streets are asking us to pray for them in Yeshua’s name when they see us, many more than any other time in the past. Of course, because of the restrictions due to the virus, we must pray for people from a distance, but despite that, we can clearly see that people are so much more open and hungry for the truth than ever before!