My name is Yoel. I live and serve God in
our Tel Aviv branch where I train our new missionaries and interns. I would
like, if I may, to bring you to my place of ministry for a while... at least a
paragraph or two, and show something about my life you might not expect.
Imagine you are walking down Tel Aviv
beach toward Jaffa. You should be imagining certain things that are very true.
You hear the sound of the waves, and watch families arriving to enjoy the
coastline. You should feel the middle-eastern heat... but as the sweat trickles
down your face, one thing you don't expect is the sight of an iron cross atop a
steeple. Yet there it is off to your left, like a steak at vegetarian barbecue.
'Surely I am back home...', you think to
yourself. You look around for large cars and various fast food restaurants. But
no. The iron cross is not a vision induced by dehydration. You have not been
dreaming.
You are staring at the top of an old
church built by a German group of Christians in 1905. You walk to it. As you arrive,
the service is beginning. 'But it's Saturday! Are these people confused?' No.
The main service is on Shabbat (saturday) morning and the congregation is made
up of Israeli believers, fellow Americans, Scandinavians and Africans. As you
enter you would see large stain glass windows that light up the church in reds
and blues. As you look back you see me in the foyer, my wife Adel and my four
children (probably doing something loud).
Yet, next to me you would see something
that you would have thought didn't belong in this apparently strange and
foreign building. This place of stone walls and stained glass two minutes from
a Mediterranean beach front. Yet what you see next to me would be Israeli
seekers. Young Israelis wanting to find out more, or older Israelis on a
walking tour of historic Jaffa that drop in on Shabbat to see what the building
is all about. Yet when they enter they
don’t meet a tour guide with a prepared speech on the history of the
building. They meet an Israeli Jews for Jesus missionary with time to sit and
talk about why they too, as Jews, could find a home in Jesus.
It was just a few weeks ago that I met a
young man called 'Shmuel' in that way. His family comes from Europe and he has
found his way to reading and knowing about Jesus but wants to know how to
commit his life to him. His first line to me was, 'I want to be baptised'.
Since our first meeting at the church, 'Shmuel' and I have met to talk more and I
believe that he will soon be a complete member of community in body and in faith.
I praise God for the incredibly
un-Israeli way in which our church building stands out in Tel Aviv and how it
draws hundreds and thousands of Israelis every year to its doors because it is
not quite normal. As a Jews for Jesus missionary, I too stand out with my
t-shirt and my message of a crucified Jew dying for the sins of his people and
the world. Yet somehow, that is by God's Spirit, people are drawn to the door
of Messiah where he waits to welcome them in.
Yoel Ben David