Dear friends,
Shalom and thanks so much for your faithful prayers and generous support throughout 2016. Zhava and I could not remain in Brooklyn without your partnership.
We also appreciate your prayers for our family. Our girls are well and Zhava is teaching Hebrew and Jewish History at our Charles Feinberg seminary program in Brooklyn. I had the great blessing of traveling to many countries during 2016 and look forward to visiting our staff next year in Israel, Argentina, New Zealand and England…for starters!
The Lord is doing great things! Let me share with you some ministry highpoints from 2016.
We are opening our Tel Aviv Messianic Center on January 1st. This is a record 1600 square foot facility located a few blocks from the Tel Aviv border in the heavily populated urban suburb of Ramat Gan. If you add this urban suburban to the two other urban suburbs nearby, you have a total Jewish population of a 1/2 million people. The Center will provide Bible studies, a café for young adults, a new congregational ministry, work among Holocaust survivors, elderly Jewish people, and a special outreach to young mothers and their children as this area is a very family and community oriented suburb.
We are continuing the Isaiah 53 campaign as well as utilizing our I Found Shalom website which contains 60-plus testimonies of Messianic Jews. Last year we had over 1 million people watch the testimonies and received the names and addresses of almost 15,000 Jewish people who were either seeking the Lord or claim to know the Lord.
Our branches, Messianic congregations and outreach centers continue to grow throughout the United States, especially in cities with high concentrations of Jewish people including; New York City, Boston, Chicago, South Florida, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Washington DC/Maryland, and Philadelphia. We are in the process of expanding to the San Francisco Bay Area – the home of almost 400,000 Jewish people.
The Charles Feinberg Center in Brooklyn, which is a 14,000 square foot facility, located in the middle of one of the most Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in the world, maintains an array of ministries in this one borough of New York City where almost 1 million Jewish people live. The Center houses two Messianic congregations – one Russian and one English-speaking, as well the Seminary training program which is affiliated with Biola University/Talbot School of Theology and offers an accredited three-year degree in Messianic Jewish Studies. We’ve already had 14 graduates and currently have 15 future Jewish ministry leaders attending the program.
Thanks for caring and for your prayers and support. As you know, all gifts either post marked or given online or by phone before the end of December 31st may be counted on your 2016 tax return.
Have a blessed New Year and I look forward to partnering with you in 2017!
Your brother in Jesus,
Mitch