Dear Pastor Dill and the family of God at The Bible Church,
Shalom to all of you there in Waterbury and thank you for your continuing support of my ministry with Jews for
Jesus.
I'm not exactly sure who came up othe the term "the
dog days of summer," but it's never seemed quite accurate to me. As I've been leading Jews for Jesus over the years,
some of the most exciting things seem to happen in the summer. For example, this summer has been marked by the wonderful
success of our seventy-seventh Behold Your God campaign, which as you know occurred in Jerusalem. Since early June,
we've been eagerly following up on the over 1,700 contacts we received during our evangelistic outreach there in May.
Not only have we seen even more than the fifty-eight Jewsih people who prayed with us to receive the Lord during the month
of May, but we've been at work building up a permanent branch of Jews for Jesus in Jerusalem.
Our focus in the Jerusalem branch will include outreach to russian speaking jews; the Haredim or ultra-orthodox
Jews, both men and women; regular outreach to those caught up in the world of drugs, alcohol, prostitution and homelessness.
We currently have missionaries who have moved or are moving from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
By the end of this year we should have our team fully in place. Please pray for this newest branch of Jews for Jesus,
and especially as we discuss: how to establish a base of operations, what the right location is for our team to gather
together, whether it should be an office or a home, etc.
Along with ministry
in Jerusalem, the summer months have been marked by outreach to children and youth, particularly Camp Gilgal summer camps
for children ages eight through eighteen here in North America, In Germany, as well as in Israel. Every year I hear
sweet stories of children who are either praying to receive the Lord or rededicating their lives during the summer months
of ministry. Next year we intend to expand the ministry of Camp Gilgal to France. The French government has a
lot of restrictions and regulations regarding camp ministry, more than any of the other countries we work in. Our staff
has had to spend a lot of time going through government-ordered training programs for camp workers there. All of that
is now complete, so we're set to start next year, and we're excited about that. We'd ask you to pray as we plan and
prepare for tha new Camp Gilgal ministry.
The summer months are also
a time for our Massah program reaching out to Israeli travelers in different parts of the world. We had young Jewish
believers, primarily from North America, traveling in India in July and August. That was preceded by a very extensive
discipleship and training program for these young people that was held in Israel in June and early July. Now we have
teams of Israeli young people who are traveling in India as well and in Peru. Every year on Massah we have the opportunity
to engage in gospel converstaions with Israelis, most of whom have never heard the gospel before. We make contact with
these people out in the mountains of India or Peru, and then we keep in touch with them, primarily through Facebook.
Throughout the year our staff in Israel continue to engage these Israeli young people with the message of the gospel.
Our missionaries have even been able to meet up with Israelis they met in India when they are traveling here in the United
States or elsewhere. This was the sixth year that we had teams of young people traveling like this with Massah.
The program has continued to grow and change to meet the opportunities as well as the discipleship needs of the young people
that we are teaching how to do this ministry.
Along with the teams of
young people currently in India and Peru, now is the time when our college campus outreach kicks into high gear. Our
special focus of ministry to college students here in the US currently includes: New York University, Brooklyn College,
Arizona State University, UCLA, San Francisco State University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Whether
we are handing out gospel tracts, engaging students with questions such as "what are you for?" and then talking
to them about who we are for, or even setting up stands to offer free "brews for Jesus" (that is cold-brewed
coffee) and engaging those who take the free coffee in gospel conversations, we find that college campuses are a wonderful
place to interact with the gospel. You may remember from last year, we released our specialized study that we carried
out in conjuction with the Barna group about Jewish millennials in North America. It was wonderful to discover the greater
openness that exists among Jewish millennials in North America. Unlike previous generations, these young people are
spiritual conversationalists. While that doesn't necessarily mean that they are all open to the gospel, more of them
are willing to engage us in that converations, which of course gives us better opportunities to minister. More of them
are open to the gospel because they have less hangups about the person of Jesus than previous generations of Jews. Many
of them come from inter-married families where they've already had exposure to Jesus and to Christianity. Please do
pray for our growing ministry among college campuses.
Pray for the grand
opening of our new ministry center in Los Angeles later this month. And pray for the establishement of a new ministry
center that we've recently signed a contract to purchase just a block and a half from Washington Square Park in Manhattan.
There is some wonderful history connected to this new center which we ave yet to
occupy but hope to later this year. You see, it was forth-eight years ago that our founder Moishe Rosen wrote his first
Jews for Jesus gospel tract to hand out in that very place. He entitled that tract "A Message from Squares."
Of course it was right in the middle of the Hippie movement when young Jewish peole were very open to the gospel. The
Jesus movement was born in that era, and much of the early days of Jews for Jesus were focused there in the Greenwich Village
area around New York University. Now we're going back there, and I'm so excited to see what kind of ministries that
Lord will enable us to have in that very creative and fast-paced part of the world. This of course means that we're
selling the building that we've occupied in Manhattan for the last forty years located on East 31st Street. Please pray
for God to provide just the right buyer for this building and the funding that we need for the purchase and renovation of
our new facility in Greenwich Village. More to come on this as the plans come to fruition.
So my dear friend Pastor Dill, you can see that around here the god days of summer are not very slow-moving as
that term might indicate. Thank you for being a part of this ministry not only during the summer months, but in the
months to come. Pray for our campus ministry, pray for us as we continue to work in devleloping our branch in Jerusalem,
and please do pray as we go through some of the transition in Jews for Jesus that I have shared in recent newslatters, particuarly
the August and September issues. If for some reason you didn't get a chance to read those, please do take the time as
they are full of information about the way God is leading us now and in the days to come.
You are truly a wonderful partner with us in these things, and I hope you fell a sense of joy and satisfations
as I do in what God is doing in our day and age. May He bless you richly there in Waterbury
Shalom in Yeshua
David Brickner