05/19/02 Jerusalem, Israel
Greetings
We returned safely (by the mercy of God) last night to Jerusalem from
the "Shantipi" festival that was held in north/central Israel near Afula.
The festival was an extrememly large event, with some saying up to 40,000
attendees. It was said that 5,000 people were refused entry because of fears
of overcrowding. This event was different in many ways from the previous
festival in that it was more family oriented, and very commercialized. There
were large concerts every night, with popular Israeli perfomers, etc. There was
also a new age prescence there, with a reported 100 workshops.
For the second time, a Christian man named Gary generously paid our way in (through the funding
of an evangelism committee). He had organized a large group to be there, with
probably over 20 believers. Some were from Africa, Germany, Korea, and a few of us
from the United States. They had rented a space for a booth, which they had stocked
with literally hundreds of Hebrew New Testaments and other Christian books. We took
shifts between manning the booth, providing prayer groups, kitchen duties, and
walking around to be available for the witness. It was a blessing to work there
with them, and we made many contacts. It was encouraging that so many people- many
of whom had never read it before- were willing to receive the New Testament.
Many people, who seemed reluctant at first to receive the New Testament, claimed that
they were "Jewish", and only read the "Bible" (Tanakh/Old Testament). Others mentioned all
of the evils done by the establishment in the name of Christianity. After sharing personal
testimony and some reasoning,
many of these people showed a change of mind/attitude towards the New Testament,
and were willing to look into it. Others couldn't understand why we were giving away all of
these books for free, and yet others were seeking out a copy of the New Testament before we
even spoke to them. So, needless to say, we were encouraged that the Word of the Lord was
being distributed so freely.
One last testimony about the concert:
One night, as one of the "headlining" bands was playing; myself, Steven, and an Israeli believer
named Aaron were walking around together. We went into the crowd, and I started listening and
understanding some of the lyrics. It was suprising to find out that they were singing right from
the Psalms in at least one song. These are bands that I believe are played on the radio in Israel,
and seemed to be very popular- as many people were singing right along with them. At least one
other band had lyrics that were either Biblical, or were in relation to the Almighty. The thing
that struck me is that the Tanakh (Old Testament written in Hebrew) is a big part of what has made
up the culture of these people. It seemed as though it wasn't offensive at all to them to hear
popular musicians sing about God. To make it a little clearer, if you could picture
a top ten artist in the states- who you hear on the radio often- singing songs which quoted
from the book of Psalms, and had a large arena of young people singing along with words like,
"The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore..."
(Psalm 121). I am not sure if this paints the picture which we saw, but I believe it taught us
something about the depth of the Scripture's influence on this society- even the secular society.
In the end though, inspite of the godly heritage of the Jews, it is clear that Yeshua is still the
stumblingstone and rock of offence... may they fall on Him and be broken and changed
(Romans 9:32,33) "Behold the goodness and severity of God..." (please see the entire verse- Romans 11:22)
I thought it good to mention our plans as of late. It seems as though (after prayer, consideration,
and waiting), that Steven and myself are of a mind to work in the direction of heading back to America
(as the Lord works things out for us) We have been offered work in Tel Aviv doing
painting for some Believers, which could provide the finances to fly back soon. I again would like
to thank those that come here to read about what we are doing- and more importantly who have prayed
for us all along the way. We felt very grateful today for all that the Lord has done for us so
far here, and we commit our way unto HIM in faith.
Shalom for now, and here are our email addresses again if any of you would like to make contact:
achsteven@yahoo.com
Shalom