N E W S L E T T E R for the Christian who wants to know more about Jews and evangelism. Volume 3:5759 November 1998 Can an atheist celebrate Thanksgiving? Can an agnostic observe the Pilgrim feast? Many professed atheists and agnostics in America expect to do just that! Further, tens of thousands of people who say they believe in God will not include Him in their holiday plans. The very word Thanksgiving implies someone to receive the thanks that is given. The Lord is that someone yet He is often overlooked. Thanksgiving apart from God is like Christmas without the Christ. It is like beautiful wrapping paper on an empty gift box of what value is it? No, unless the Lord is at the center of our celebration, it is impossible to truly observe Thanksgiving. Those early American pilgrims had a wellrooted understanding of giving thanks: they patterned their celebration after the biblical Festival of Tabernacles! Like the children of Israel, the pilgrims celebrated God s goodness as well as the fact that He provides the harvest. True thankfulness to God begins with who He is, not with what we have or hope to receive. Oh, give thanks to the Lord for He is good! (Psalm 107:1, emphasis supplied). Israel s thanksgiving feast was not conditioned on a bountiful harvest. Through feast or famine, each year the people were to remember and thank God for His goodness. With the Feast of Tabernacles, even if the harvest was small, the people were reminded of how God delivered us from bondage in Egypt. You see, we can always thank God for something if we just take time to remember the good things He has done. My pastor, Scott Rubin, exemplifies that kind of thankfulness. Twelve years ago, he received a heart transplant. The same medications that prevent his immune system from rejecting his heart have exacted a heavy toll on Scott s body. He is in constant pain and is vulnerable to many illnesses. If that weren t enough, last year Scott s 14-year-old son Joshua had to 1998 Jews f r Jesus BY DAVID BRICKNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR undergo extensive surgery to remove tumors that had wrapped themselves around his spinal cord. Within months, Scott was also diagnosed with cancer. Just when you thought this family had used up their share of troubles, Joshua went into total heart failure. Doctors discovered that both he and his twin brother, Michael, have the same condition that led to Scott s transplant. For two months, Joshua was hanging between life and death at Stanford Medical Center, awaiting a transplant. Praise God, Joshua received that transplant. But unless God performs a miracle, one day Michael will also need a heart transplant and the family will once again experience all the uncertainty and risk that go with it. Yet, with all the suffering the Rubins have endured, Pastor Scott stands in the pulpit, looks out over the congregation and with tears in his eyes he firmly and resolutely announces, God is good. No matter what the circumstances, Scott is determined to remember who God is. How ungrateful the human heart can be! Have you ever noticed that forgetfulness, pride and ingratitude go hand in hand? We forget who we are (pride), we forget what God has done, and gratitude goes out the window! No wonder God instituted so many special days to remind my Jewish people of all He had done for us. And no wonder Jesus used one of those special days, Passover, to institute a way for His followers to remember the sacrifice He was about to make. They would need to remember and be thankful in the difficult days to come. Remembering the wonderful things God has done gives us confidence that His goodness to us continues, even (and perhaps especially) in the midst of the most painful circumstances. Perhaps this year Thanksgiving isn t coming at the happiest time in your life. It may even be a bitter reminder of the loss of a loved one. Remember, the pilgrims got off to a difficult start in this new land of America. They contended with famine and cold, sickness and death. Many people died in the (Continued on page 2)
Continued from page 1 first year of settlement. Amidst the joy of that first Thanksgiving, doubtless there was also sorrow as the absence of loved ones was keenly felt. Yet they also felt the newfound freedom from oppression, freedom to worship God and the opportunity to start a new life. They knew that God was to thank for this and so they acknowledged the good He had done despite their losses. As Jews for Jesus enters our 25th year of ministry, we too feel sorrow over some of our losses particularly a few former staff members who are not walking with the Lord. There are those whose absence we feel keenly. Moreover, as executive director, I face daily decisions and difficulties that occasionally threaten to overwhelm me. That is when I must recall all the good things God has done. I begin with the salvation He has given me in Y shua. Then I reflect on the thousands of Jews and Gentiles who share that saving faith with me because God has been pleased to use Jews for Jesus for His glory. When I face the trials of leading a large ministry like ours, I can give praise to God for raising up a founding leader like Moishe Rosen, whose principles and hard work cleared a path for his successor to lead us into the new millennium. I thank God for so many of you who have been with us over the years to help us withstand opposition and move ahead for God. And I thank God for those of you who are just now beginning to see Jews for Jesus as your ministry. The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad. (Psalm 126:3) Thanking God for His goodness and remembering the good things He has done gives us confidence to thank Him for the good things He has yet to do. People who don t know the Lord have no concept of this kind of thanksgiving. Limited by their own experience, they can be thankful only for what they see. But those who know the Lord can see and celebrate through eyes of faith. We can give thanks for what we have yet to apprehend because we know the One who has promised is faithful. John Piper calls this future grace, the yes and amen of God s promises. A thanksgiving without the hope of future grace is tenuous at best. It depends upon our present circumstances, and even should those circumstances be highly favorable, experience teaches us that they will shift. Problems and difficulties creep up like fog on an ocean breeze. In the last few months our society has been rocked by calamity and uncertainty. Scandal, terrorism and the threat of financial collapse have left many Americans fearful about the future. How can we celebrate Thanksgiving in such a climate? The certainty of what God has done, combined with the certainty of His future grace, should promote within His children a heart of thanks thanks that will always be ready to surface in outward celebration when opportunities arise. Through future grace, the child of God expresses gratitude with a surety the world can never know. Late one evening I received a phone call from Avi Snyder who supervises our ministry to Russian Jews around the world. The news from Russia was not good. Chaos was mounting. The Russian ruble was in a free-fall. The government was near collapse and our bank account in Moscow had been frozen. What should we do? Avi and I prayed together and determined that God was presenting us with a great opportunity to proclaim the good news. Our 30-plus staff in Russia and the Ukraine should redouble their efforts to get out the gospel at once. We needed to write a new gospel tract in Russian titled, When all else fails... We have a message of salvation that people need to hear. It troubles me greatly when I hear Christians who believe the best way to prepare for the Y2K problem is by hoarding supplies and planning to hole up in some remote cabin in the woods to safely ride out the storm. Brothers and sisters, if chaos and calamity strike our country in the year 2000, that is the time to be out on the streets declaring the love of God in Jesus Christ. If I have anything to say about it, that is exactly what all of us in Jews for Jesus will be doing on December 31, 1999! We have a hope, a certainty that the world is dying to know. Let s pray that God will help us to sow some true thankfulness in the hearts of unbelievers by planting that good gospel seed. We can offer no greater blessing than the opportunity for people to know Christ: For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. (2 Corinthians 1:20) And as you join us in watching some of those people respond with gratitude to God s offer of salvation, you will have even more for which to be thankful. You can join us in saying with the Apostle Paul, For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. (1Thessalonians 2:13) WE EXIST TO MAKE THE MESSIAHSHIP OF JESUS AN UNAVOIDABLE ISSUE TO OUR JEWISH PEOPLE WORLDWIDE. JEWS FOR JESUS INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS: 60 HAIGHT STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102-5895 NOVEMBER 1998, VOLUME 3:5759 ALSO WORKING IN: AUSTRALIA, CANADA, FRANCE, GERMANY, ISRAEL, RUSSIA, SOUTH AFRICA, UKRAINE and THE UNITED KINGDOM EDITOR: RUTH ROSEN; ART DIRECTION: PAIGE SAUNDERS; DESIGN: DANIELA KOGER
We have been pleased to be a member of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA) for many years. This year, we are delighted to have a member of our Jews for Jesus staff, Susan Perlman, serving as President of this fine organization. (This is in addition to her many responsibilities at our Jews for Jesus Headquarters in San Francisco. We are all trying to figure out when Sue finds time to sleep and have concluded that she doesn t.) Please pray for: God s grace for our entire staff to be long on memory and short on pride, that we may be truly grateful on Thanksgiving and every day (pp. 1-2) godly wisdom and strength for our new team at the top in New York: Avi Snyder, Mitch Forman and Karol Joseph (see more prayer requests pp. 4-5) our trainees (Natalie Sachs, Katie Abramson, Moshe Shuai and Gary Leese) to draw close to the Lord and to one another, and for each one of them to have victories and successful training for further ministry with Jews for Jesus (see more prayer requests pp. 4-5) our New York staff and volunteers as they hand out broadside tracts at the Macy s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and for those who receive them to also receive the One who is deserving of all our thanks Traditions abound at Thanksgiving time. One time-honored tradition at our New York branch is handing out hot chocolate the night before Thanksgiving to crowds who gather to watch the inflating of giant balloons for the Macy s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Then we have a big outreach the following day at the actual parade. Last year nine staff and eight volunteers handdistributed 11,550 broadside tracts. It s a great way to say thanks to God for all He s done for us and to invite others to give thanks to the One from whom all blessings Outreach worker, Masha Leibovsky, handing out tracts at the parade. flow. So while you are saying your Thanksgiving prayers, please offer up one on behalf of our New York team and the people they will be reaching. salvation for Windie (p. 8) spiritual growth for new Gentile believers: Tony in Los Angeles and Nick in Pittsburgh (p. 8) grace and strength for new Jewish believers Avner, Flora Belle and Geraldine in the San Francisco Bay Area (p. 8) the Mendelsohn family as they continue to settle and seek partners in ministry in Sydney, Australia 3
I arrived in New York this September along with four young Jews for Jesus. All of them are eager to learn as much as they can about serving the Messiah, first here in New York, and then around the world. When I was a trainee back in 1990, our whole class was American. Today, three of the four trainees are Hebrew-speaking internationals! God seems to be equipping us to do much more to make the Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people WORLDWIDE! Please pray for this team of trainees: Katie and Moshe from Israel, Natalie from South Africa and Gary from the U.S. Pray that they will grow to be fruitful workers ready to be sent out into His harvest fields. And pray for me, that God will give me wisdom and discernment as I minister into their lives. Avi Snyder Mitch Forman Karol Joseph F or some time we ve needed a team of leaders to share the opportunities and burdens New York City presents as our flagship/training branch. Thanks be to God, such a team is now in place! Meet Avi Snyder (a native New Yorker) My wife Ruth and I joined the staff of Jews for Jesus in 1978. We toured with our mobile evangelistic drama team, The New Jerusalem Players, served with the Chicago and Los Angeles branches and then in 1991, our family moved to Odessa, Ukraine, along with Elizabeth Terini. Our goals: bring the gospel to our people, and establish a completely indigenous Jews for Jesus ministry. As reported last month, God honored the desires of our hearts! Now we are back in New York a microcosm of a Jewish universe. The nearly 2,000,000 Jewish people living in the greater New York area come from all over the world. Many are from Israel and more than 300,000 are from the former Soviet Union. What a challenging, diversified mission field! Those of us privileged to help meet that challenge are co-worker Karol Joseph, who conducts our training from the Manhattan center; veteran New York missionary Mitch Forman who coordinates the daily evangelistic operations with our multi-national staff; and me. I coordinate our ministry to Post Soviet Jews around the world and help keep our eyes and hearts open to international opportunities that the Lord continues to place in our path. Please pray: as we proclaim the Gospel to the mosaic of Jewish people living in New York as we prepare Jewish missionaries to carry the message around the world as we produce the literature that will help us communicate the gospel in whatever land our Jewish people reside Meet Mitch Forman (who never intended to be a New Yorker!) Never would have been my one-word answer to anyone who asked me to move to New York. I grew up in Boston, a modest neighbor of the Big Apple, and to me that meant never liking anything about New York City! When I graduated the University of Massachusetts in 1981, I wanted to be a world-class chef. That meant moving to either 4 San Francisco or New York City, the two food capitals of the United States. I didn t even blink as I packed my bags for California! Little did I know it was there that I would hear the gospel and ask Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. I also encountered Jews for Jesus in California. I offered to cook for the 1989 Summer Witnessing Campaign, thus tasting my first serious service to the Lord. Eventually I took a staff position as head of Purple Pomegranate Productions, but before long I knew I wanted to serve as a full-time missionary. So in January 1993 I moved to New York City! I reasoned I would be sent elsewhere after my year of training but I came to love New Yorkers as they are always ready to stop and talk. It might not be what you want to hear, but many are open to the Lord. I was glad when asked to stay. This summer I had the joy of leading our New York Witnessing Campaign, then I became part of a new leadership team in New York City. Whereas I once said never, now I hope my wife Kina and I will be in New York for years to come! Meet Karol Joseph (guess where she never wanted to live) Jesus, I ll follow you anywhere, but please, please anywhere but New York! That was my prayer back in 1990 when I was accepted onto the staff of Jews for Jesus. I didn t know then that New York City was to be our new missionary training center! So, I left my home in Boston and moved to New York. The training was demanding, but that year God delivered me from fear. I discovered the joy of ministry and of seeing lives powerfully changed through the gospel. I even saw God change my heart for this city! In fact, by the end of the year, I was disappointed to return to Boston; now I only wanted to stay in New York! But God had other plans. First I served in Boston, then several years in Toronto, and finally in Los Angeles before the news came that I could go back to New York. This time I would be the trainer! I had come full circle. (Continued on page 5) Natalie Sachs Katie Abramson Moshe Shuai Gary Leese Meet Natalie Sachs An old high school friend who knew I was struggling over whether or not to accept the gospel brought me to a Jews for Jesus Friday night service in Johannesburg. The only thing I remember was Andrew Barron wondering aloud whether his wife Laura (who was away at the time) would like the beard he was growing. Six months later I called Laura in desperation, wanting to reconcile my Jewish identity with the knowledge that I needed Jesus. We began to have Bible studies and before long I gave my life to Jesus. I continued to meet with Laura, and a year and a half later I served on a NYC Summer Campaign. It was the most growing and spiritual experience of my life! After Campaign I returned to South Africa and continued to involved myself with the Jews for Jesus outreach there. At the beginning of this year I was accepted as a missionary trainee. Please pray that I would not just learn but internalize all the lessons and that God would truly break my heart for the salvation of my Jewish people. Meet Katie Abramson About nine months ago I was at home in Israel. My mother had told me that some people from Jews for Jesus were coming to see Aaron (my brother) about some Summer Witnessing Campaign. To my surprise, they invited me to join my brother that summer in New York City. Raised in a believing home, I had rebelled somewhat and had recently rededicated my life to the Lord. I prayed about the offer, then accepted gladly. I finished my army service and I was off! It was such a great experience. I talked to hundreds and hundreds of people about Jesus about how much He loves them and wants them to believe in Him so that they may have eternal life! I also prayed with 5 many people to ask Jesus into their hearts and lives! I was so blessed that I wanted to continue telling people about Him fulltime. So now I am training with Jews for Jesus to be an outreach worker in Israel. Please pray for me and for the work we will be doing in Israel. Meet Moshe Shuai I was less than a year old in the Lord when the man who had been teaching me the Bible told a friend of his, Come to Haifa. There is a young believer you have to meet. That friend happened to be Efraim Goldstein, who is in charge of our Jews for Jesus outreach in Israel. He also teaches at one of the Bible schools (which I later attended). Efraim and I established a close relationship and he encouraged me to participate in the 1997 Summer Witnessing Campaign. Before that campaign I wasn t sure what direction to pursue in my life. Through the Campaign, God showed me that He wants me to be an evangelist with Jews for Jesus. After Campaign, I began accompanying Efraim as he visited people to tell them about Y shua. I returned to New York for the 1998 Summer Campaign and am now living there, training to be an outreach worker. Please pray that God will bless me here because English is not exactly my language. And pray that God would use me in future ministry in Israel. Also please pray for the salvation of my family and friends. Meet Gary Leese I was ordained for ministry a year ago September yet I never felt that God was calling me to preach in the local church. After months of prayer, I sensed God telling me to prepare for full-time service in June. My time was scheduled with ministry opportunities through the first two weeks of June, so naturally I began asking Him what I was to do beginning the third week in June. Against that backdrop, I was leaving a Mexican restaurant in Chowchilla, California when I noticed a Jews for Jesus van in the parking lot. Since I m a Jewish believer in Jesus, my curiosity was piqued. I returned to the restaurant, noticed a man reading The Jewish Voice and began a conversation with him. That s how I first met Stephen Katz and the ministry of Jews for Jesus by divine appointment! Stephen described the Summer Witnessing Campaign and when I found out it began the first day of the third week of June, I knew that I had my answer. I completed the 1998 Campaign and knew this was the ministry God had told me to prepare for, full-time. I ve joined the staff as a trainee and am very excited about this opportunity to be a part of what God is doing to fulfill His Word and bring salvation to my people.
Todah (hd wot) conveys the extension of an open hand, as if to offer a sacrifice. The open hand is a symbol of humility: with it a person indicates to God, I withhold nothing from you, and with the same open hand a person shows willingness to receive. It is impossible for the proud to be grateful because they do not recognize themselves as undeserving. Sacrificing our pride and approaching God with an open hand not only enables us to recognize God s grace, it enables us to receive it. To obey God: Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him and bless His name. (Psalm 100:4) To magnify God: I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. (Psalm 69:30) To make God known: Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples! (1 Chronicles 16:8) Freely: And when you offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, offer it of your own free will. (Leviticus 22:29) With food: If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer, with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil, or cakes of blended flour mixed with oil. (Leviticus 7:12) By writing Psalms: On that day David first delivered [this psalm] into the hand of Asaph and his brethren, to thank the LORD. (1 Chronicles 16:7) With singing and shouting: And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD: For He is good, For His mercy [endures] forever toward Israel. Then all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. (Ezra 3:11) MEANING APPLICATION PURPOSE HOW TO THANK GOD In the New Testament, (eu*caristiva) eucharistia is used to describe worship through grateful language. It is from this word that eucharist (a word many churches use to describe communion) is derived. Jesus gave thanks for the bread and the cup at Passover before He identified himself as the Lamb about to sacrifice His own body and blood. (Luke 22:19ff) By giving thanks in this context, the Lord exemplified the attitudes of humility and obedience in His sacrifice. He then told His disciples to use the same ritual of thanks to remember Him. Communion is an act of grateful, humble worship for what Jesus did for us. To obey God: In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18) To separate all we do and say as an offering to God: And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (Colossians 3:17) To sanctify all foods, thereby promoting fellowship between believers of differing cultures: For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving. (1 Timothy 4:4) To glorify God: For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. (2 Corinthians 4:15) Continually: Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. (Hebrews 13:15, see also Colossians 4:2) For everything:... giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:20) In ways that edify others: Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the uninformed say Amen at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you say? For you indeed give thanks well, but the other is not edified. (1 Corinthians 14:16-17) With confidence, as an appropriate partner to our petitions: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6) We hope you will explore meaningful and fun ways to incorporate some of this information into your own Thanksgiving celebration! And by the way, the enclosed thank-you card from David Brickner will be available (blank, of course!) for purchase. For more info, write to the address at the bottom of page 2 or call 415-864-3900. 6
Part four in a series, condensed from a paper presented to the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism by Moishe Rosen By the end of World War II, there was no longer a need for the large institutional missions that provided relief and aid to the poor on a regular basis. That need had previously been a strong draw to bring Jewish people within talking distance of the missionary. However, distribution of literature and Bible portions remained a big part of missionary work in the previous generation. One fellow stood on 34th Street in Manhattan by the side of Macy s Department Store with a sign that proclaimed, Free New Testament to any Jew who will promise to read it. He offered the pocket-size Prophecy Edition New Testament. I was told that this was the best size to offer. Jewish inquirers could keep them on their person all the time, thus avoiding the fear of having family members find New Testaments or other Christian literature around the house. Tracts, for the most part, were discourses or sermons. They were generally well written and studded with Scripture from beginning to end. Many of them were testimonies, also packed with Bible verses. Henry Einspruch had a special literature ministry. In the late 1930s, he translated the New Testament into high-quality Yiddish and published it with a superb binding. Many of the Jewish newspapers reviewed Einspruch s New Testament. Surprisingly, he received accolades for his style of Yiddish and applause for his translation. Not so surprisingly, he was also reviled for publishing the New Testament message. Through the Lederer Foundation, Einspruch also published several brief books and lengthy pamphlets. Dr. David L. Cooper was a contemporary of Henry Einspruch. He produced the Messiah series of books, which were sent free to all rabbis and Jewish doctors in the United States. If I recall, it was a set of nine books that were extremely well written and indexed. The prose was a bit difficult to understand, but the books were published at a time when people were accustomed to reading at a more difficult level. I m sure that Dr. Cooper s books must have influenced some unbelieving Jewish people, but I know firsthand that they served another purpose as well. His set on messianic prophecies influenced an entire generation of missionaries and taught us messianic prophecy. Another interesting character of this era was Dr. Lawrence Duff-Forbes. His widely circulated booklet titled Out of the Clouds was written in rather flowery prose. Dr. Duff-Forbes was an Australian who came to this country to attend the Hebrew Christian Alliance. He was a mysterious, even shadowy person. No one was sure where he received his doctorate, or in what field it might have been. Nevertheless, he began regular Friday night meetings in the Grauman Mortuary Chapel, where he donned the regalia of a cantor or rabbi. He rented time on a local radio station and proclaimed himself a rabbi in the Jewish messianic movement. more to come... 7
From Los Angeles, missionary Holly Meyer reports, I was reading Moishe and Ceil s Witnessing to Jews while riding a bus. It was the chapter that explains the WOW (Witnessing on the Way) approach, and how ordinary situations can provide opportunities to see if a person is interested in the Lord. Well, a young woman sitting near me sneezed, and I said, God bless you. She thanked me. I thought about the WOW approach and quickly responded, Do you believe in God? She said, Yes, but we re not talking to each other right now. In the few remaining minutes of the bus ride we introduced ourselves. Windie explained that her father is Catholic and her mother is an Israeli, and she is confused. I briefly told her my testimony, and asked her if she d like to get together to talk further about Jesus. She was agreeable, so I promised to call and plan a time. I jumped off the bus at my stop and thanked God for this divine appointment. Please pray that Windie will indeed meet with me. We ve talked several times by phone but she overslept and missed our first visit. bits Also from Los Angeles, branch leader Tuvya Zaretsky says, I was handing out tracts at the Santa Monica pier when a young Hispanic man, Tony, walked by and took a tract. He made a quick U-turn, came back and said, I need to find God. It turns out that Tony had had a near-death experience the night before. He was convinced that the Lord had spared his life to give him one more opportunity to know the Savior. (He d been listening to a Christian radio station for several months and was convinced of the gospel but did not want to surrender to Jesus.) Soon I was leading Tony in a prayer of repentance. Later that evening, I saw him waiting for a bus. He asked for some tracts so he could give them to people on the bus. Already, he wanted to tell others about Jesus! from the branches weeks and we wondered if we would hear from him again. But when he returned, he was anxious to continue meeting and studying the Bible. As we completed our study of John 3, Avner readily admitted his need for Jesus and invited Him into his heart! Also in San Francisco, Diane Cohen worked for many years as a nurse and now she has quite a ministry to elderly Jewish women. Recently two of the women she s been meeting with accepted Christ: Flora Belle, with whom Diane had been meeting for several months, and Geraldine, with whom she has been meeting for several years! Praise the Lord! Rick Dumas, one of our co-laborers (volunteers) as well as a long-time friend and supporter, organized a special outreach in Pittsburgh, PA. Suzanne, one of the volunteers, tells the following story: I was handing out tracts at a Pirates game when a man who had earlier taken one came back and began asking questions like, Why do children suffer? and Does it really do any good to pray? I told him about Jesus and answered his questions as best I could. Then I told him I had prayed for him earlier that day. He looked startled, so I explained, Before I came, I prayed and asked God to give me words to say to the person out there who has a seeking heart and honest questions and who really wants to know Him! He seemed to melt as he said, Really?! I read this paper and just couldn t go into the game. I had to come back and talk. I invited him to pray and repent of his sins, and he did! He walked away with joy in his heart and a spring in his step. Please pray for our new brother, Nick. (Nick was one of six people who came to faith during this outreach. While none of the six were Jewish, seven Jewish people did ask to receive more information about Jesus.) From San Francisco, branch leader David Mishkin reports, Avner is a young Israeli computer programmer who called our branch to learn more about Jesus. Garrett Smith and I visited him and he seemed very eager to study the Scriptures. Then he went back to Israel for a few Many of our co-laborers work strictly behind the scenes, while others look for opportunities to do direct evangelism. If you would like to know more about this program, please contact Cecilia Butcher at the address on the bottom of page 2. 8