This past week we had the awesome opportunity to take our young people up to the Galilee for a special discipleship retreat — to walk in Yeshua’s footsteps and to sit at His feet. To teach them the ways of the Lord, to lead them to encounter God and grow in the spirit.
As a pastor in Israel, it is always very important for me to make sure our congregation has a chance to fellowship with fellow Arab congregation and believers, so we develop a sense of unity in the Land, and not isolate ourselves in our communities, as we branch out to bless and be blessed by our Arab brothers and sisters in Messiah, who minister alongside us in Israel.
One of the common misconceptions about Arab believers is that all of them have come out of Islam when meeting Yeshua.
In actual fact, there’s a very large community in Israel of Arab Christians that have been Christians for many generations, and it dates back to the book of Acts 2:11, where we can read about Arabs that became believers in Yeshua, and it was 600 years before Islam even came to be.
Few people are as dear as Pastor Saleem, both as a pastor, a friend, and a brother in Yeshua. He leads a beautiful Arab-speaking church in Nazareth, with amazing believers that are a blessing in this nation.
We invited Pastor Saleem to our Youth Galilee Discipleship Retreat, to teach and share his insight with our youth, minister to them and be a blessing to our young people.
It was particularly important for Pastor Saleem to speak to the new generation, not just the adult one. His message was about two sons coming before the Father as One New Man. The goal is to cleanse the minds of our young people that the media is poisoning regarding Jews and Arabs. To ensure that what they see today; two pastors standing side by side, ministering alongside each other, one Jewish, one Arab — that is the reality of peace, as well as one of the signs of the End Time.
This is the true representation of the Kingdom of God in Israel; a group of young Jewish Israelis receiving the teaching of the Word of God from an Arab Israeli pastor. That is the Kingdom of God in Israel!
As a dear friend of Israel, we ask that you continue praying for Israel: for Jewish people, as well as Arabs. This unity needs to grow and become a light for our nation, as well as for the world.
We’re also praying for Israel’s borders to open, so we can receive dear friends like you here once again, to come volunteer with us, pray and worship with us, see the reality of our unity and take that knowledge back to your nation, to share it with the world.
Blessings & Shalom!
