Author: Admin

May, 2021

Our Precious Brothers and Sisters in Yeshua,

“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

He will call on me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.

With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.” Ps 91:14-16 NIV

If more than a year of pandemic that has severely disrupted our lives and left our nations reeling was not enough, here in Israel we are face-to-face with the reality of war yet again within our borders.

This report is primarily a call to you, all our prayer partners, to intercede for the nation and for our peoples. In addition, however, we will update you on the radical reforms we are leading the Beit Asaph community through – our successes and our challenges…

These past few days have seen a rapid escalation of deadly conflict, initially centered on our nation’s capital, Jerusalem, but has now spread as a result of rocket barrages from Gaza upon Jerusalem and our southern cities. Civil unrest is accelerating at an alarming rate in many of Israel’s Arab towns and cities. The IDF is retaliating with deadly force against targets in the Gaza strip and our police force is doing everything possible to quell the rioting. Your news broadcasts will be providing you with disturbing coverage. The reasons behind the present ‘nightmare’ are complex and highly subjective. Of course this wouldn’t be Israel without everybody having an opinion! Our task however, is to focus prayer into the situation.

I have just been interrupted in writing as sirens have started up. We are heading for the bomb shelter!

As I continue this morning it all seems a little surreal with the sounds of hammers and drills from a nearby building site and military aircraft patrolling overhead. Ben Gurion airport was closed last night so no civilian air traffic for the present. We are on a ‘war footing.’ Our son-in-law, Beni, remarked as we came out of the bomb shelter, that ironically the Corona year, 2020, was the quietest year (from a security perspective) in Israel’s modern history!

As Messianic and Christian community leaders, we have mobilized the local Body in prayer. Over the next 48 hours Beit Asaph Life-groups will be gathering physically or by Zoom and praying the following prayer: “We pray for ALL our peoples – for their physical and emotional safety, for the rapid restoration of peace and for consolation for all victims of the conflict, regardless of politics or national loyalties. We pray for our young men and women serving in Israel’s Defense Forces that they will do so in safety and with integrity.”

We are so very grateful for you all and for your willingness to stand with together with us in this call to prayer and intercession.

Beit Asaph Update: We apologize yet again for the long gap between reports (last one in January.) Maala and I and our pastoral colleagues, Lev and Ora, have been working non-stop leading the Beit Asaph community through radical reform.

Here are the steps we have taken: By the end of March we successfully ended the contract on the Beit Asaph facility and stripped it of all contents. We placed 30 cubes of essentials into storage with 24/7 access. We blessed four local congregations with a variety of furniture and even dismantled our stage for one of them. While shedding a few tears as we stepped away from our beautiful congregational facility of 21 years, we signed contract on a small center situated 5 minute’s-drive from Netanya. This center now provides us with a central administrative office, a dedicated prayer room plus a 20 sq meter seminar room for training and group meetings. We love it as it’s situated in a quiet rural setting just a 20 minute walk from our home. This facility is already being well-used and we are making good progress with our neighbors.

Our beloved Ethiopian Messianic friends have opened their hearts and facility to our Beit Asaph youth group for their weekly gatherings.

In parallel to these shifts and changes we now have 12 Life-groups established and operating successfully. Some of these are based on previously established ‘home groups’ but most are new. They are based on location of our members around the central Sharon Valley, and upon language preference. Still not all members are attending a Life-group yet and our hope is to establish another three in the very near future.

The Life-groups learn to operate by common agreement under the supervision of the pastors. They choose when to meet and in what homes. They manage the rotation of responsibilities for their meetings that are based on the four elements of Acts 2:42; “the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer.” The goal is that everybody has an opportunity to develop skills of facilitation in all of these areas, whether hosting or preparing the bible discussion. As pastoral couples we help with the first weeks of getting the groups stabilized and training in skills where there is a lack of confidence. Part of the process is encouraging the groups to focus on the systematic study of Scripture and most are somewhere in the Gospel of Matthew, being reminded of who Yeshua is, what he is, and how his kingdom operates.

As pastors it is wonderful to be so mobile and in contact with the community at a far deeper and personal level. We are finding that we have more time for discipleship and prayer while more and more members are actively engaged in community life and outreach. A recent development is a monthly “Worship in the Garden” at the home of two families who live in community. This provides a perfect opportunity to gather up to 50 people from several Life-groups to fellowship and worship and pray for one another and unite around the Lord’s Table. We hope this will reproduce itself in other locations in our area.

Two big challenges that we’d value your prayers for: a) to help members through their resistance to the changes. A significant number are deeply grieving the loss of their weekly Shabbat services “with the preaching and collective worship and all the things we have held precious and necessary for congregational life. Our intention nevertheless is to hold celebration services every few weeks, once the Corona restrictions lift sufficiently to make them possible again. However, we will not return to the model we once held to.

b) We also need prayer for the re-establishment of our ministry to children. The previous regimen of weekly Shabbat services provided the perfect opportunity to hold 40 minute classes and bible activities. During 2020 children especially suffered from real-time interaction. Now we have a responsibility to get this up-and-running and in fact make major improvements. Ora right now is working on the model and the logistics required to make it work. She would so value your prayers!

Please note: The Corona pandemic was NOT the reason we are making these changes. But it certainly got us thinking! Got us praying! Got us moving! We look forward to sharing some great testimonies with you in the next couple of months…

You are loved and appreciated,

Evan and Lev

\ From Evan Thomas \

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Messiah,

“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the Land and enjoy safe pasture.

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this:

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,

the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.” Psalm 37:3-6

What joy to be writing to you from my desk at our Beit Asaph worship facility in Netanya, Israel. There were many days during the past 9 months when we wondered WHEN we would be able to travel home from NZ and be reunited with Sara and Beni and our beloved community…

Brief overview: Lockdowns and restrictions on meeting forced all of us into conducting our services, prayer meetings, seminars and board meetings ‘virtually.’ In this way, being in Netanya or in Whakatane made little difference. Grateful for the internet, we were able to adjust and carry on. Our NZ evenings became our work time dedicated to connecting with congregants and colleagues during what was daytime in Israel. This freed up our NZ days to enjoy the beauty of New Zealand. 

Bring away for nine months made our time far more than a visit. The relationships we have enjoyed over many years deepened, especially with immediate family members and close friends. But this gift of time also gave us the opportunity to form new relationships and sharing our lives and the values of the Kingdom became a rich experience. 

Our arrival home was also such a blessing. Coming from NZ, which is a ‘Green country’ because of its success in managing the Corona virus, it was not necessary for us to go into quarantine for the usual 2 weeks. In addition, the second national lockdown was lifted the day we left New Zealand so it was straight home and into the loving arms of Beni and Sara with the fridge and cupboards well stocked in our little apartment that we had left in January, just newly renovated.

The picture in Israel: There is so much for us all  to pray about! Nationally, the situation is bleak. Poor management of the Corona virus during the summer resulted in record numbers of daily cases, overwhelmed hospitals and medical services and a high number of deaths directly attributed to the virus. The impact on the national economy has been frightful AND there is no end in sight. The numbers of local businesses closed is so disheartening and while the recent lockdown greatly reduced the daily cases of Corona it of course added to the economic crisis. Public demonstrations against the PM continue all over the country. The government here is in desperate need of your prayers!

Public cooperation in managing the crisis is ‘patchy’ at best. Covid-19 is still broadly within the community and numbers of local pastors and their families have been struck with the virus. This is an important matter for prayer as Arab churches and Messianic congregations need their leaders so much right now. This is particularly relevant as we are entering the season of the former rains, which announce winter is about to begin and viruses of all kinds become particularly virulent.

Focus and Priorities: In the short term, Beit Asaph like all other worship communities around the country is in ‘emergency mode’. Our congregants are tired and frightened and under stress due to the added pressure of economic hardships. At this point, there is no indication when services (other than virtual) can resume – even with limited numbers and people are desperate for fellowship. 

We are grateful that some of our home-based groups are functioning and our youth have been meeting weekly since the lifting of the recent lockdown. We are delighted to be able to report that although we cannot have any form of “Shabbat school” for our children (up to the age of 12 years), parents have ‘stepped up’ and are providing spiritual input for their children at home. These same parents have provided the ‘backbone’ of the Shabbat school and in the past years and as such are skilled teachers. They are also taken much initiative to link up with other families (family: family) and using Shabbats to provide fellowship for their kids in nature.  

At least 30% of the congregation is needed to join to home group form of spiritual fellowship. Home groups and smaller specific prayer meetings will really help change this picture. Lev and Ora and Evan and Maala are taking this on as a project to change this picture. Please pray for this.

Our worship facilities remain largely idle apart from very small-scale activities. This is having a significant impact on income from tithes and offerings despite having systems like PayPal in place. A precious testimony from my colleague, Lev: a number of the brothers and sisters from our community had spoken together and invited him to pop around to their homes. They had been collecting their tithes but because they were used to giving them during Shabbat services, they had no way of giving. They were so full of joy at being able to be faithful when he called round on his way to the bank. Beautiful!

In the long term we must carefully consider our options and be creative in ways to encourage fellowship among the saints and outreach to the broader society. These are the big goals while at a specific level develop programs for our kids. We must find ways to utilize our expensive facilities while reminding our community of its financial responsibilities. These are not easy tasks in this present ‘climate.’ Each day as we perceive and understand the situation around us, the burden gets heavier. We need your prayers personally, congregationally and nationally perhaps more than ever!

We are so grateful for you all. We are also totally aware that you all have your own huge challenges to overcome. If you can spare us just a moment or two and uplift us in prayer, we would be so appreciative. We’d love to hear from you too. Please note the Gmail address at the beginning of this report.

In His service together,

Evan and Maala (for Beit Asaph)

To donate please check out our website as listed above. There you can find details for your convenience. We’d so appreciate your help as the need is great as we approach the end of the calendar year.

July 25, 2020

To Our Precious Brother and Sisters in Yeshua,

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement: In this world we are like Yeshua.”       I John 4:16, 17

  We chose these verses as a most appropriate greeting to you all. In this incredibly challenging season when nothing seems certain, it is important that we remind one another of the certainty of God’s love. Our lives have been disrupted by the Covid pandemic and there does not appear an end in sight. For times like these, the Apostle’s call to persevere needs to be a part of our daily conversation and prayer.

  It is now six months since Maala and I flew from Ben Gurion – first to Switzerland for service together with our Palestinian friends, Nihad and Salwa. As we parted none of us could have anticipated what was about to unfold. Our plans included a much-needed holiday, and continued with my writing, interspersed with visits and ministry to supportive churches. We were to be home by mid-April and back into a full schedule of weddings, both home and abroad, mission trips to Ethiopia and Germany, and of course our daily lives as local Israeli pastors. And yet here we are still in NZ living with the uncertainty of when we can return home…

  We sincerely apologize for not communicating with you sooner. For the past two months we have been on standby, thinking we would fly out with just a few days prior notice. There was even talk among Israeli Embassy officials of a rescue flight as had happened in several other countries, for stranded Israelis. We kept thinking our next communication to you would be from Israel. Our travel agents, both here and at home, keep reminding us ‘to sit tight’ and our daughter, Sara, reassures us daily not to risk the complex and uncertain flights that might get us home or leave us stranded somewhere with cancellations en-route.

  Our colleagues Lev and Ora, together with a broad team of young adults, have done a stellar job in our absence caring for the Beit Asaph community in Netanya and its surrounding settlements. Israel’s ‘lockdown period’ paralleled our own here in NZ but there with restrictions on gatherings more severe and prolonged. So priorities changed to caring for the needy and elderly, who are fearful and confused, and our young families who are faced with unemployment and mounting debts. Visits, wherever possible, to pray and encourage and deliver groceries became far more important than the enormous energy and resources required to maintain services.

  Our young people helped us upskill with computerized means of communication like “Zoom” and “Google Meet.” These and many other forms of social media enable us conduct a wide range of tasks from elders’ meetings and prayer forums to on-line services. Maala and I even managed to conduct a wedding by Zoom and live streaming for one of our young couples. That was an interesting exercise coordinating time zones between NZ (us officiating), Israel (location of the couple) and Holland (the bride’s family.)

  As “lockdown” unlocked, Israel attempted to reboot its severely damaged economy, while maintaining border restrictions and grounding its national airline. It looked promising for a while. Then like in many parts of the world, a second wave of the Carona virus has hit and this time even more severely. Today, Israel’s economy is in tatters with tens of thousands of businesses closed permanently and over 20% of the workforce unemployed. Our political leaders have not provided the strong and stable leadership required to cope with such conditions and have been found wanting. Recent comments from colleagues paint a picture of national sadness, anger and confusion. This past weekend tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in the streets of Tel Aviv, fed up with regulations that have crushed the will of the people to persevere.

  And so we implore you to join us in prayer for our beloved but beleaguered nation. Maala and I mistakenly thought back in March that Israeli society would cope very well, given our track record in times of national crisis. However, an unseen enemy proved to be very different to visible enemies that could be dealt with through military means. Biblical history provides many examples of God allowing wars, plagues and tragedy, all part of the broken human condition, to bring us to our knees so we might look up to Him.

But there have also been multiple times when as a people we have shaken our fists in anger and turned our backs on God.

  So again we ask you to pray with us for Israel’s restoration – firstly, to turn back to Eloheinu and to seek His face in an attitude of humility and seeking forgiveness. We love the well-known verses found in II Chronicles 6: 22–42, that speak deeply and clearly into our nation’s present situation. The context of these verses is King Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the Temple he has built for God. These verses also contain an exhortation specifically for God-fearers from among the nations in your responsibility towards Israel in times of crisis.

  Please also pray for the Body of Messiah in the Land – both Jewish and Arab and also the multitudes of Gentiles affiliated with our communities. Many are ‘stuck,’ confused and suffering. As despair sets in, many are losing faith in their leaders. Most are hurting through the lack of social interaction we loosely call fellowship. And in some sectors of the Body, such as among West Bank Christians, the financial strain is extreme. With massive unemployment and little or no social welfare systems in place, thousands of families are struggling to feed their families let alone cover rents, etc. Maala and I are so grateful to our beloved “Philippus” supporters in Germany who have responded to our appeal for our Palestinian neighbors, with tens of thousands of Euros. These monies will literally put food on the table for so many.

  The West Bank and many Israeli cities are under lockdown as the virus spreads again. The impact on widespread mental health, let alone the economy is devastating. Please, please pray!!

This unique season has shown us how essential it is to dig into God’s Word and maintain a consistent devotional life. In so doing we rediscover the importance of our role as prayerful intercessors for our families, our respective communities and our nations. Despite a largely successful battle to suppress the pandemic nationally, we have been privy to some of the political and social issues that we find deeply troubling. This stirs us to pray each day.

  In September, NZ will hold general elections. The present government is in a very strong position, largely because of its handling of the pandemic. It is a very liberal government and this is reflected in its recent law-making. Full-term abortions are now legal and with the September elections two referendums will take place. One is to further liberalize the use of recreational marijuana and the second to legalize a person’s choice to end their own life. The latter is of course a ‘red flag’ for Jewish people as legalizing euthanasia in Nazi Germany provided the perfect justification for the “final solution.”

  Missions: We are continually in touch with Miriam who chose to remain in Uganda despite the pandemic. She is happy and proving to be very fruitful, especially amongst the myriads of children. We also have one of our young men from Beit Asaph, Elyakim, based with a local congregation just outside Kyoto, Japan. He too is working with small children and supporting the community with his skills as a worship leader and evangelist. Please keep these gifted young people in your prayers!

 

So lots to do and be, dear friends in this very special time. Let’s make the day count while it is still day. We’d love to hear from you and gain from your insights and personal experiences during the course of the year to date. We are so grateful for your continual support both for us and Beit Asaph. Please let us know how we can best serve you also.

  All our love and sincere appreciation,

 Evan and Maala

 

September, 2019

Our Dear Brothers and Sisters in Messiah,

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (Yeshua’s prayer from John 17:20, 21)

 

What a summer it has been. Our temperatures have remained consistently in the 30’s Celsius, which has added stress to the tensions we feel politically and in areas of national security. The threat of war from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah across our northern border is constant as are missiles from Gaza into Israel. According to today’s news Israel is preparing for a wide-scale campaign in Gaza. These are terrible times and we thank you in advance for ‘standing in the gap’ for our nation.

Continue reading “Prayer letter September 2019”