June Ministry Update! Jason and Janice Rose




Dear friends, God has been gracious to us and allowed us to continue to serve Him even though the season has been difficult. We recently held many large events that a few months ago we were sure if we would be able to have them or not. This is not to say that Covid is totally behind us... in fact, Jason just got out of mandatory quarantine after being infected for the second time. Fortunately, only Jason seems to have been affected and he did isolate in our separate unit upstairs. What we are trying to say is that we have been pretty busy in ministry and we want to share with you some of the activities, but obviously not all.

We have had a wonderful worship night, young adults Kabbalat Shabbat meal, and other community events with several non-believers joining each time and having amazing conversations with our friends and staff.  We continued to be amazed at the new faces that join us each time, as our community has continued to grow inspire of the pandemic! Praise God for  continuing to use us as a light in our nation, neighborhood and community.

Bonfire

In May we had quite a few events. We held a bonfire in the desert town of Arad with worship and food for young adults.  Many people came and we tried to make it easier by hiring a bus for the college students and young adults without private cars in the Tel Aviv area. Some young families came too and we have a wonderful time fellowshipping with each other and sharing with a few non-believers who also came.  

The event itself was excellent. One interesting side story is that Jason got a lot of extra exercise as he ran to catch up with a small group of children who were wandering into the desert at sundown without an adult, flashlight or a cellphone! They were about a half a mile away on the horizon when we finally spotted them climbing over a rise. They were just little dots on in distance!  When Jason finally caught up with them he heard them arguing about going back. It appears one of the younger kids had refused to return and they didn't want to abandon him in the dark. Very thoughtful of them right?

Tour for Israeli Young Adults


In June we held a special tour for young adults to the ancient city of Banias, better known in the Bible as Caesarea Philipi. This is the location, where Jesus asked his disciples, "'Who do the crowds say that I am?'"(Luke 9:18 ESVi), and “And he asked them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Peter answered him, 'You are the Christ'" (Mark 8:29 ESVi). To make the adventure interesting, pushed along by the powerful streams flowing from the ancient city of Banias, we took the group rafting on the Jordan river, near the source of Mount Hermon. The water spring of Banias was legendary and even today is a huge source of water for the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee. 

Banias


It was a long bus ride to the far north of Israel and we were not really sure if people would sign up. In the end sixty-six people wanted to join, but due to cancelations, illness and other reasons our final number was still far above our expectations. Forty people were able to make it. Let's be clear, forty is a lot of people on a trip like this... It is a good thing that our ministry received two large donations to cover headset systems, precisely for this reason. Praise God that we had the opportunity to use them.
   

Touring with Holocaust Survivors

In addition, we also led a large group of holocaust survivors on a similar adventure... obviously not rafting or hiking but they went to an ancient site where, Saul the King was killed. It has an amazing view of the Galilee.  Jason was supposed to lead this trip, but he came down with Covid at one of our recent events for Israeli backpackers and had to be in quarantine. 




Guiding Jason's Parents

Nevertheless, Jason did get a chance to guide some very dear people also. His parents are in the country visiting and Jason has been able to take them to some interesting sites that not every tour gets to see. Like the caves in the picture below with his mom and the Roman Theater at Zipori in the Western Galilee. The latter was a city during the time of Jesus and was not far away from Nazareth. Some speculate, Yeshua (Jesus) might have gone there for supplies in his younger years.


Zipori


Family News

With all of the sickness going around and when we still had mask mandates, it was difficult and too busy to fit all the birthdays in on time. So we decided to consolidate and celebrate two birthdays at once. Benji and Shimon's birthday are just one month apart and most of their best friends were able to come to our home to celebrate.


Other News

Jason will be heading to Alabama this Fall. We are still dreaming of taking the whole family and although we have heard airfare is unreasonably high, we did find some very inexpensive tickets. We don't have a lot of funds to cover the additional expense of the kids, so we would appreciate your prayers for this need. Chosen People Ministries policy is that staff must cover the cost of their children from their personal finances, which is reasonable and gets us out of trouble from the IRS - who can cause a lot of trouble. If the tickets weren't so reasonable, we wouldn't necessarily even consider it, especially since Yonatan, our oldest has decided to enter the public school system this Fall. However, the Jewish holiday provide a lot of days off during this period and it seems still quite reasonable. So we would appreciate your prayers for these considerations.  

Of course, one of the goals of the trip is trip is to continue to fund raise for Janice's part-time salary, so that it can be raised to the full amount. There is another important activity that is being planned. Moody Bible Institute is celebrating 100 years of the Jewish Studies Department and many alumni, like Jason, will be going to show our support during the annual Missions Conference, which will have a Jewish Studies Theme this year. Some of our staff will even be speaking at the Missions Conference in front of the student body. The Professor of Jewish Studies, Michael Rydelnik has been a mentor and friend of Jason since his college days and we would like to show our support to him and his wife Eva for their many years of service to the Lord and training of so many who are actively reaching the Jewish people for the Gospel. Eva, is also a treasure and taught a few classes as well. It is worth taking a moment to lift her up in your prayers as she just underwent surgery in her battle with cancer.

Prayer Requests

  • Of course, please pray for Michael and Eva Rydelnik and for their ministry at Moody Bible Institute.
  • Please pray for the planning and preparation for Jason's trip this Fall, whether by himself or with Janice and the boys.
  • Please pray for Yonatan as he takes up a new challenge to go to public school joining a special music emphasis class, where hopefully he will shine like the rising piano star that we know he is.
  • Please pray for Jason's parents to enjoy their time as the visit with us and enjoy seeing the land of Israel.
  • Please pray for our family's health and finical situation as we adjust to owning our own home and all of the expenses in keep it up.
  • Please pray specifically for our finances as the rising inflation has made prices here skyrocket, and since our new mortgage is tied to the price index - mortgages are very different here than in the USA.  The bottom line is that since our income is in dollars, we have less shekels to spend because of the weakness of the dollar and now everything costs more.
  • Please pray for the search for a new permanent location for our ministry center. We found one new potential location. We are praying for the Lord's will on if and when to proceed.
  • Please pray for God to continue to bring us new staff, new ideas and inspire us with renewed vision to seek and share with the lost.



 

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