Monthly Archives: November 2002

Cultural Glasses

Posted by Matthew on November 29, 2002 None comments |

“And I will shake all the nations and the desire and the precious things of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts.�? Haggai 2:7

It’s been tricky trying to find time to write up another update because of all the things we are being kept busy with at this school. We have been studying much about culture with some days going from 8am to 10pm. We have learned a great deal about how we see and judge other cultures through our own “cultural glasses�?. In every culture—every tribe, language, people—there are treasures/desires that God has placed, that can only be fulfilled or redeemed by Jesus, and part, if not most, of doing missions is finding out what and where these values are within a culture, and then showing them that they too have a place in heaven. Jesus gave an example of how to do this when he was only 12 years old, just sitting and listening in the synagogues and answering their questions afterward, and also with the Samaritan woman at the well. I have also seen how ethnic diversity was always intended by God from the beginning and didn’t result from the rebellious tower of Babel incident. For example, you read of different languages, territories, nations, families, etc. before the tower of Babel story (Gen. 10). Then the rebellious act of the people seeking to be one “lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth�? (Gen. 11:2-4) so as to go against God’s eternal purpose of blessing all families/peoples on the earth through Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3). Paul talks of this as the “mystery of Christ�?, how “the nations/gentiles should be fellow heirs…�? in Eph. 3:2-13 and also in Acts 17:26. And of course the model of his outreach to them in 1 Corinthians 9:22,23.

Next week and the week after are two long weeks of a world missions “Perspectives�? course. Which we are doing along with the DTS. Sleep will probably be little.

The Israelis are of course uptight and checkpoints are on the increase (places where they block roads or stop cars/vans). The bombing in Jerusalem a few days ago was treated as a routine procedure, no real surprise or fear in the people really… Although Bethlehem has been placed under curfew once again (closed from going in or out, and certain hours when you can be out of your home.) and other Palestinian towns are also being raided.

This Monday night is the highest point of the Ramadan. It’s called the Night of Power, when, they say, the Qur’an was delivered. 600,000+ Muslims cram in and all around the temple mount around the mosque to pray the one night they believe that God will actually answer ay prayer request they might have. I am told the spiritual activity is massive ad the Muslims open themselves up to trances ad visions and such. We will be praying through the night taking turns. You who are in the west, feel free to join us!

In two weeks we travel with the DTS to Turkey and will visit the seven churches. After that we will be on to outreach. It’s likely that we (John and I, the only 2 males in the SOFM) will be doing some English teaching in Nablus (using the Bible as the textbook of course) a city in West Bank, for there is great demand among Arabs to learn English. Other outreach targets are to be determined.

Ok. Khalas. Enough for now.
Matt

Jewish Feast

Posted by Matthew on November 5, 2002 None comments |

November has finally rolled around. I’ve been exposed to a lot in the last few days. Last Friday evening I had the rare opportunity to attend a Shabbat feast with the Jews along with Andre, a DTS student from Brazil.
It was a fiasco. The rabbis apartment accommodates about 80 people for the feast, but about 120+ showed up. More tables and chairs were crammed inside. Soon the rabbi was isolated in the middle of the room with no where to move. It was loud and the rabbi found it difficult to keep attention on himself for the next couple of hours. Food was constantly passing on all sides of me and over my head. Our table became a mess. But somehow the host family kept up and everyone was fed. The old drunk guy with a Vodka bottle hanging out of his jacket was loud and constantly interrupting. They tried to keep him under control in the kitchen with little success. Why did they let him in? I do not know. Some Jewish guys at our table were being loud and obnoxious. Afterwards, as we left we noticed a couple tables were placed just outside the front door. It was quite a night. But it didn’t end there…

With stomachs full of chicken, bread, salad, and cake, we walked to another part of the Jewish neighborhood to a Torah reading/singing meeting for youth. It was a large building in which only males were allowed to enter. The majority of the attendees were orthodox Jews wearing gold-colored robes, large round Russian-style hats, black shoes and black or white socks. They all had long curly side-burns and let their beards grow out. They stood on bleachers beset around in a great room; in the middle, there sat the elder Jews and rabbis at long tables, directing the reading and singing. There were hundreds of Jews gathered and singing together. The sound was indescribable, but it was loud and filled the room. Heads bobbed like a jack-in-the-box back and forth, back and forth. We stuck out pretty good with our simple little kippahs on our heads. It was tragic how empty and godless their ‘worship’ was.

In a translated Jewish prayer book that I read at the feast it said in many places: “…God who has made us holy by his commandments.”

Living in Jerusalem

Posted by Matthew on November 1, 2002 None comments |

Greetings in the name of Jesus.

I’ve had a month now getting situated here in Israel, and have been getting involved in a lot of things.

Living
I am living in a dormitory at the top of the Mount of Olives inside the Augusta Victoria complex which contains a big Lutheran church, hospital, and a World Vision headquarters. Living in Jerusalem is not bad really, at least as an American. Walking down the streets in the Jewish areas like Ben Yehuda and Jaffa Street, where many bombings have occurred (the Sbarro pizza place for instance) you see armed Israeli soldiers and heavily armored jeeps everywhere.

Outreach
In the evenings another Matt and I have been walking down the street to a small coffee shop where local Muslims gather every night to hang out and play cards. We have made friends with many of them, and even talked bits about Jesus. They are very welcoming people. The first night we stepped in and tried their Arabic coffee, they let us have it for free. They also showed us how to play some of their card games. I am still looking for opportunities to really talk to them about Jesus, although they know that we are “Nushrani” (Christians). There hasn’t been hardly any problems with the Muslims and us Americans, though they are clearly not fond of Mr. Bush. There was one incident just after I arrived here with Matt, who is a DTS student, who got mugged by an Arab trying to steal his laptop. He was not alone, but was walking with two girls in the evening. They were fine, but Matt had come out with a bloody nose, and still has his laptop.

Some afternoons/evenings we have gone up the road inside the Augusta Victoria complex to a small store where Arab doctors and residents hang out and play backgammon or table tennis.

Traveling
There have been a few small attacks around Israel in the last month, which has created difficulties for us as we were doing Islamic studies in Bethlehem which gets closed up whenever things are tense. Sometimes the DTS leaders living in Bethlehem would get stuck, and sometimes we would have to postpone teaching. One afternoon in class, 20 fighter jets flew directly over the town at a low level creating a really loud noise and interrupting our lecture. The two weeks of Islam is done however, and I’ve had about as much of it as I care to have.

Nablus
Just the other day, on Wednesday the 30th, we took a trip with two Window Ministries staff—Andrew and Stevie, to the town of Nablus, a Muslim city where many terrorists have come from. We went through two check points, showing our passports, and when we told the Israeli soldier we were touring the Holy Land, they seemed confused: “Holy? …are you sure you want to go there?…If you want to go, I won’t stop you…” I noticed at the checkpoint where the Arabs wait to leave Nablus a variety of things: an Israeli soldier pushing an Arab woman back pretty sternly because she was too close for their liking. A crowd of people also wanting to go through but getting pushed back, and an Arab man with a blood stained shirt with his hand inside it holding his chest, and a bandage wrapped around his head. I don’t know what he was doing out there. Driving to and through Nablus, I saw roads into and out of all the surrounding villages completely blocked by mounds of dirt and rocks. People have no way to get in or out by vehicle. The government buildings in Nablus are bombed and still in ruins. They look like a huge earthquake crumbled them. In Nablus we visited a small Bible Society book shop that has only been open for a week, and they have only been granted a permit to be open for a month. The owner is Arab and has hopes of holding some English teaching there using the Bible as the textbook. The demand amongst Arabs for learning English is so great, they won’t really care if it’s a Bible or not. We also brought some boxes of Jesus films for the shop. There might have been more trouble than we cared to have if the Israeli soldiers found them in our vans. But thankfully they didn’t bother to look.

———————-

My Arabic is coming along well, I get good practice at the card shop, as we call it; we take our dictionaries with us, and they even help us with our pronunciation.

Next week starts the month of Ramadan for the Muslims. Our base will be praying everyday against it. All month long the Muslims fast and pray during the day, and then feast at night, and there is a lot of increased wickedness that goes on during this time, so remember also to be in prayer. We are hoping to make some more trips to other tows like Hebron and Gaza, where we also plan to do outreach after classes are over. We are also planning on going to Turkey at the end of December. We were supposed to go a week ago, but it’s good they didn’t because I had no money for it. There is still a need for support for that, it will cost $200 plus $60 customs fee just for Americans.

Please continue to pray for us and the Muslims around here. God bless.