Shemen Sasson - Wed., 4/9/08

After the spiritually uplifting time working and reaching out to the Ethiopian Jews in the afternoon, we went to a worship service at a Messianic congregation here called Shemen Sasson. (Jerry, here's a little note for you...it was 2.5 hours long. An hour of worship, an hour of testimonies and half an hour of sermon.) This country is in such a spiritual darkness. Spiritual warfare, religious oppression, hatred between and within religions, and suppression of the truth have created an environment void of love, joy, and peace. Let's continue with that...void of patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Now of course there are kind people, faithful people, people that love each other, but, overall, the environment is lacking in those things. After several days of exposure to that environment we were as spiritually drained as we were physically. What a breath of fresh air it was then to join this local community of believers where Jesus was praised and the Spirit was free to do His work in people's lives. I wish you could hear this picture...


The church was started as a home church in 1992 by a Messianic Jewish family that had made aliya to Israel from America. The father, John Myers, is still the pastor, and one of their six children is now serving as an assistant pastor. He can be seen on the left in this picture. He is translating the testimony the young man on the right is sharing. Another of Pastor Myers' sons can be seen in the background of the above picture playing the drums for the praise time.


I'm just assuming this, but in Israel, unlike in America, you don't follow Jesus because it's just what you've always done or to make business contacts. If a person makes a public profession of faith in this country it's the real deal or else they wouldn't be doing it. Persecution is alive and well. Just ask the Messianic family of the boy who opened a gift the family received anonymously for Purim a couple of weeks ago, only to have it explode. If left shrapnel all over his body including in his eyes and slashed across his neck. It left nuts and bolts in his lungs which could be seen from outside his body and the list of injuries goes on. A miracle of God, even according to the doctors, he shouldn't be alive today. Although he is still in the hospital recovering, he should be fine eventually. This post could have ended on a tragic note when I decided to share that story but with God all things work together for good and even out of this will come good.