The First Rains in Israel

Dear friends and ministry partners, I hope this update meets you with hope and expectation in Messiah Yeshua.  It has been a while since we wrote a more personalized update. I hope to explain why briefly.  But first, let's talk about rain.


Sukkot in Israel

We are currently celebrating the Biblical Feast of Sukkot (Tabernacles), one of my favorite holidays because the Bible explains that one day all the nations of the world will come to Israel and celebrate this weeklong feast together. 

Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem kshall go up year after year to worship lthe King, the LORD of hosts, and mto keep nthe Feast of Booths. 17 And if oany of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship lthe King, the LORD of hosts, pthere will be no rain on them.

(Zech. 14:16-17).

It is normal to eat and sleep in these booths. For the first in many years, we were able to set up a booth outside, on our rooftop (rather than in our living room). We have been eating our meals daily in our booth (or sukkah). Last night we decided to sleep in the sukkah. The kids were really excited about it. We watch an old movie in the sukkah and fell asleep really late only to wake up to RAIN at 4am. For some of you this sounds obvious, but for us, we can't really remember the last time it rained. We generally go from five months whichout rain and the FIRST RAIN is considered a huge blessing after so long. 

I was pondering this, in the morning. rain represents God's blessing on the land of the people of Israel. But more specifically God uses it to represent his provision. Without rain there is no food. It may be a surprise to many who have visited but we are still a very agricultural society. Our produce is farmed locally and our supermarkets carry most things seasonally only.

So why is this RAIN so significant to me (Jason) personally. As I was pondering this it occurred to me that God has blessed us abundantly over the last few months in ways that we could never have imagined. We were celebrating Sukkot in our own sukkah on our own rooftop of our own apartment that we just took possession of. We had only ever dreamed that God would provide us with the necessary downpayment to buy an apartment in Israel, but God had a better plan and turned our dream into a reality. In retrospect, this rain on us in the middle of the night is almost as if God is jokingly reminding us and saying "did you see My hand of provision? Look what I have done for you!" Well, that's one interpretation certainly! But even if the rain was really only meant for the fields and not just our rooftop, we must respond, "Thank you Lord for your provision for us!"


The purchase of our apartment was not as smooth as we had hoped and prayed for, but it was clearly the hand of the Lord. Here the process is very different that what we experienced in the USA. You may recall that when we returned to the USA in 2013-15 on furlough, we decided to purchase a house rather than rent, hoping one day that they Lord would turn that purchase into a downpayment in Israel. In the Fall of 2020, Jason's family left Minnesota selling their homes and our's as well. The profits from the sale together with an unexpected inheritance (and some savings & unexpected gifts) was enough to purchase our apartment in a town called Petach Tikavah (Door of Hope). Thank you LORD!!! 

For the first time in Israel, we have an apartment in which we can BBQ on our balcony, camp on our rooftop and park in our parking space. Each of these was a prayer request in and of itself and the Lord provided them all! The sellers turned out to be dishonest, and that led to some unfortunate extra expenses but nothing the Lord couldn't handle. The move itself was challenging for many reasons but the timing was the biggest challenge, because we didn't want more than one month of overlapping mortgage and rent. In the end we moved in and still needed to do quite a bit of work to adapt the apartment to our homeschooling and family needs. Needless to say, from early July through the end of August we were spending every free moment fixing, adapting, unpacking painting, spackling and planning. The good news is that we are settled, even though every decision isn't made yet. We are so blessed for the Lord's provision. It is  like the fresh smell of the first rains!

Ministry during the Pandemic


For the majority of the summer we have not been able to hold events at the Mercaz (our Ramat Gan Ministry Center) because of the guidelines for safety. The fourth wave of the pandemic has been quite a challenge. When we were allowed, we held two very successful events and lots of young adults came out. We were challenged to learn the names of the many new faces we didn't recognize. Thinking about provision during the pandemic, I would like to thank you, our prayer and ministry partners for supporting us during this time. During or just before the pandemic our staff at the Mercaz grew from four to seven. Gaining three new staff has really enhanced our ability to share the Gospel and that is well illustrated by this story. One of our new staff Moti has a large online presence because of his outreach videos that he does in Hebrew. One famous Israeli gamer started talking about Moti's videos and Moti was able to meet together with him and answer his questions. Recently, this incredibly charismatic personality posted one he believes that Yeshua is the Messiah on his social media for his many followers to see. We are so proud of our staff taking the time to reach people wherever they are to share the truths of God. 

As of right now, our numbers are still quite high, our hospitals are warning us that they are overwhelmed and our researchers are saying in few weeks that numbers will start dropping. So please pray that we will be able to return to normal operations soon. Until then, we will continue to  try and find creative ways to meet people, share the Gospel and make disciples.

Contact us If you want to learn more about our ministry, to encourage us, or to let us know your prayer needs!  We would love to hear from you! 


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