By God's grace, even during a pandemic with all of the restrictions and challenges, God has been providing opportunities to serve our community. We are certainly not on our normal activity schedule, but we have been able to hold limited events inside and a number of events outside. As we are writing this update now we are only a couple of hours away from an event for young adults. We are limited by the government to fifty people indoors and we reached that registration milestone after only a day or so of advertising it. We invited a local worship leader to bring his team and one of our staff will share his amazing testimony. We are excited to be able to hold, even this limited events and we expect a mix of believers with a few of their unsaved friends.
A couple of weeks ago, Jason was able to lead a tour of young adults to two ancient Biblical sites in the desert. The theme of the trip was Ancient Worship in the Judean kingdom. The trip was of course subsidized by our ministry and we were also able to treat the group to a meal in a beduin style tent on the edge of the desert. My friends, this event was a huge success and several of these young adults are coming to this evenings young adults dinner.
We offered a similar tour of Jaffa at the end of November and we can see the level of interest in these outings is definitely picking up. A lot of people really want to see the connections between the Bible and the places that we can visit. It might surprise you to hear that most Israelis think of these Biblical sites as Christian tourist sites and as a result they generally don't go to them. So, when we can show the connections with the Old Testament scriptures it opens the door wide for wonderful conversations.
We are in the process of planning the next trip for February, and we would have liked to do it sooner, but have to push it back a bit mainly because of the weather, but also because we need to raise the finances to subsides the bus. I'll just share a short tidbit from the last adventure. Janice, as you may recall is now working part-time with our ministry and her focus is really on mentoring and discipling young ladies. During the tent meal, she manned the Bar-b-Que while, I, Jason, took the group to the last site. She wanted to make sure the food was cooked and ready upon our arrival, so that she could have time to mingle with the ladies and she did. She was able to have some amazing and deep conversations which led to many calls and invitation to our house for dinner. This kind of ministry just brings us to life. We love the one on one relational ministry that these kinds of events help us develop.
Our big family news is that our oldest son, Yonatan, had his Bar Mitzvah two weeks ago. This is a rite of passage in which the child takes upon himself the responsibility to obey the Lord and his commandments. In rabbinic tradition, this means the young man is now able to read the scriptures from the Torah scroll and participate in corporate prayers. It took a lot of preparation but of course our oldest excelled and performed the ceremony extremely well. In addition, to the Bar Mitzvah he chose to also honor the Lord and the spirit of the ceremony by committing his life to the Lord publicly in baptism. So it was a tremendous day and as parents we couldn't be more proud.
As we look to the future we do have a few prayer requests. First of all, pray for health for our family and extended family. Janice's father is still very lonely after losing his wife of 50 years in early 2020. He needs to come to faith and be introduced to the Great Comforter. Jason's father has had a number of surgeries recently to help improve his mobility. Pray that he continues to gain the ability to walk and care for his own needs. Jason is planning to visit the Kansas City area in March and early April to raise funds, visit supporters and meet new potential prayer partners. So far, only one meeting has been confirmed and we could use your prayers that God will open the doors for more invitations. We have not been on a speaking tour since the Fall of 2019 and by God's grace we have not had a drop in giving. However, the US dollar has weakened significantly against the strengthen shekel which means our buying power in Israel has dropped significantly. Probably a few hundred dollars a month less. Unfortunately, the outlook isn't good for us, on this issue. They are saying this is a trend that will continue. So, we could use your prayers, since the Israeli economy is very expense and this month we learned that Tel Aviv is now the single most expensive city in the world. We moved outside of Tel Aviv proper in 2015, but we are still in the suburbs, as is our ministry center. So, please pray for a successful speaking tour for Jason this spring and that he will meet many new people who would like to pray for and support our ministry. Also, please pray for our boys education. We are still a homeschooling family and we recently had a meeting with the homeschool inspector, but we haven't yet received our mandatory approval. So please pray it comes soon. Of course, please continue to pray for our ministry activities, Bible Studies and one on one ministry!
Thank you for being a part of our ministry! You are dear to us.
Blessings in Messiah
Jason and Janice Rose
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