Israelis Experience Jesus’ Love in New York City

Washington Square Park (a short walk from our New York center) has always been a great place to invite people to chat about spiritual matters. That’s where Tehillah Walker, one of our interns, met Eliana, who was visiting from Israel.

Tehillah says, “Eliana was curious about our chalkboard, inviting people to write what they are thankful for. I explained that we were with Jews for Jesus, told her a bit about our community events, and we exchanged contact information. We talked about having coffee when she returned from Indiana, where she was going to visit a friend.”

Eliana was in Indiana when Israel was attacked on October 7.

Tehillah says, “I messaged her that I was praying for her and her family. She told me that she needed to get back to Israel to serve in the army. Chaim Birnbaum and I picked her up from LaGuardia Airport, took her to breakfast, and then drove her to John F. Kennedy International Airport to catch her flight home.”

I told her that I trust God to protect me.

Chaim says, “Amazingly, Eliana and I recognized each other; we had met three years ago in Israel!” (Chaim served with our Tel Aviv team for several years. He and his wife, Vered, relocated to New York last July.)

Over breakfast, Eliana asked Tehillah why she wasn’t afraid to wear her Star of David openly. Tehillah says, “I told her that I trust God to protect me. After we dropped her off at Kennedy, I texted a blessing that I had prayed for her.”

Chaim adds, “When Eliana got back to Israel, she sent us a picture of herself in uniform and thanked us again.”

Thanks to partners like you, Eliana is one of thousands of Israelis who are currently experiencing the love of Jesus. Please pray that God will watch over her and that the gospel seeds planted in her life and the lives of so many other Israelis in the midst of war will blossom into faith in Yeshua (Jesus).

Ministry to Israelis: How God Is Working

God often works through seemingly random circumstances even as we make plans to share the gospel with our Jewish people. Tehillah “just happened” to be doing outreach in the park on a particular day to help with a church group that had joined us as part of their short-term missions. Eliana “just happened” to be there that same day, shortly before the war in Israel broke out. Little did she know when she gave Tehillah her contact info that God was providing a way for her to get home seamlessly in the midst of crisis.

And how had Chaim “just happened” to have met Eliana three years earlier in Israel? He was checking out trails for our Massah program, a short-term discipleship/outreach where normally, we lead a group of Israeli believers on South American trails. While hiking, they connect with many other Israeli travelers. But three years ago, COVID curtailed air travel, so our team needed to look for local trails instead. Which is how Eliana met Chaim and heard, though briefly, how some Jewish people are followers of Jesus. Who could have imagined that they would reconnect three years later in New York City?

God brings our plans to fruition through the prayerful support of friends like you.

This story gives you a bit of a snapshot of the following three principles we’re committed to as we reach out to various communities of Jewish people:

• Go and Tell (as in going to Washington Square Park and setting up opportunities for spiritual conversations)
• Love and Serve (as in airport runs to help Israelis get home)
• Come and See (invitations to join us for community events or coffee to find out more about what it looks like to be Jewish and follow Jesus)

We think and pray through very specific plans that implement all three of our “pillars of evangelism.” God brings our thoughts and plans to fruition through the prayerful support of friends like you, as well as His amazing ability to orchestrate situations and circumstances.