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The Jerusalem Prayer List – February 18th, 2010
by Joseph Shulam – today from Belo-Horizonte, Brazil.
Shalom in the post carnival Brazil,
Belo-Horizonte is a city of several million inhabitants, and thirty years ago the evangelical community in this city decided to fight the carnival and they stopped it from polluting their city. The real carnival is not what you see on Television with the beautiful floats and wonderful music, and the bare women dancing the samba. I understand from the Brazilian brothers and sisters that the real carnival goes on in the nightclubs and dark drinking joints of Rio de Janeiro and Salvador and Recife, and the other major cities that have this Catolo – Pagan feast of the flesh. So, here you have it if the Disciples of Yeshua come together they can stop THE WORLD from doing pupu on their doorsteps. The streets of Belo-Horizonte were empty almost like a Jewish Holiday in Jerusalem. The shops were closed the shopping centers were closed and the Har Zion congregation was full. We had near 700 people in the conference and people came from every state in Brazil and from several Latin countries and even two people came all the way from England. The teaching was all good and the topic was hot. The majority of the speakers spoke on the meaning and implication of the Restoration Movement for both Israel and the church and of course Brazilian Christians and Jews. The most rewarding thing for Marcia and I was to see the young people who were my students 12 – 13 years ago now doing the teaching and getting married and having children of their own. There is unimaginable joy to see these wonderful fruits of God's Spirit and to see these children starting to have their own children both in the faith and in the flesh. This is true for both the Netivyah Congregation in Vitoria and for the Har Zion congregation in Belo-Horizonte and I am sure that during the week-end when we are in Curitiba de Parana the same thing will also be true there.
Both Marcia and I have been sick with a strong strep throat infection and allergies and we are both on Anti-Biotics for already more than a week. I continue to teach every day and in the last few days I have been teaching three hours per day in addition to working on the Portugal project with our dear brothers Marcelo and Matheus. Of course we are fed to the max three times per day and our brothers open up their homes and cook up a storm for us each day. In fact we have eaten more beef here in two weeks than we eat in Israel in six months, but the difference is that the beef here tastes so much better than in Israel. I would like to ask you all to pray for the following:
1. Pray for the cooperation and partnership between all the congregations committed to the Restoration of First Century Faith and Practices of the Disciples of Yeshua.
2. Pray for Congregation Netivyah in Vitoria of Espirito Santo to have all that they need to continue doing the wonderful work that they are doing, and especially pray for the leadership of the congregation that they will have the tools in the material things that they need and more so in the spiritual needs to lead and grow and continue to influence their city.
3. Pray for the Har-Zion congregation in Belo-Horizonte and for the “Teaching from Zion” ministry in this city and all around Brazil that they will have the energy and strength and finances to keep growing and spreading the Good News all around Brazil and in Portugal. There is such a buzz in the air for Restoration and for authenticity and for truth here in Brazil and in these congregations that makes me feel the hand of God moving in my own life and the Spirit of God agitating the waters for a deep healing of both the Church and the Jewish Community.
4. Pray for the Leadership of all the congregations of Jewish and non-Jewish Disciples of Yeshua in Brazil and also pray for healing of relationships and physical and mental illnesses that always and everywhere beset the Body of the Messiah.
5. Pray for young families in all of congregation in Brazil. These young families have challenges of finances and challenges to have children and raise the children and stay faithful to the congregation and serve the Lord even when their work schedule is so demanding and time is always short.
Please pray for Netivyah and Roeh Israel in Jerusalem. The stress level and challenges in Jerusalem are always high in that City of Peace and our brothers and sisters there face these challenges with courage, but a little bit of help from Above is aways wonderful. We have families who struggle to pay their immediate bills and feed their children. We have families without work that need God to open doors for them. We have brothers and sisters who suffer from horrible prejudice on the basis of their faith in Yeshua and their walk of faith. All of these things that are hard and difficult and challenge us are probably good for us in the long run, but while our brothers and sisters are actually going through these trails and tribulations they need your prayers and your help in order to be able to keep the commandments from the letter of James 1:2 and rejoice when these things happen to us.
Please pray for the conference in Portugal this next month of December. There is a lot of steam building up and the Portuguese officials that are in partnership with us are willing to invest time and money together with us to make it happen. We have the support of major personalities in Portugal and we hope also from Israel to make the injustice that was done by the Church against the Jewish people made right after so many hundreds of years. We don't want and don't plan to make this conference in Portugal a Missionary Holiday and an evangelical disneyland. We have only one objective and that is to raise the world's awareness to the suffering and the unrighteousness tht was done and continues to be done to these last living victims of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition. The inquisition is one of the ugliest chapters of Christian history and neither the church nor the synagogue want to know anything about it and especially neither wants to make things right. All we want is to expose the suffering of these Marrano / Anusim Jews who have kept and are keeping their Jewishness in secret even until this very day and open a door of hope for them and their decedents to restore their identity without being again coerced to go through another forced conversion in order to come back home. It is time now to start paying for hotel reservations and land arrangements and printing and other logistics to make this conference a reality. We have people from Japan, Brazil, Israel, United States, Korea, Hong Kong, China, Germany, Finland, Russia, and other places who are committed to come and participate and fight this fight for God's Righteousness to be revealed and seen by the world. Please pray for us and help us.
Please pray for Netivyah's publications and for me personally. I have to get a second edition ready of the commentary on the Jewish Roots of Romans, and also get finances for reprinting of the commentary of the Book of Acts. I have to finish a new book, “God Israel and the Church,” and a second book which is a commentary on the first three chapters of the book of Revelation – the Seven Candles of Asia Minor. I need your prayers for health and protection of myself and my family, and the Netivyah staff that is so important and dedicated to the Lord's work.
Please pray for all the men of our congregation in Jerusalem and specially for the leadership and the Elders. They are all so wonderful and they all have such busy lives and so much to do and they also do the Lord's work and teach and lead and take care of the needs of the congregation.
We all continue to pray for the sick in Jerusalem and in Brazil and in the United States. Here are the names of the people that I pray for regularly and I would say almost daily:
Dr. Tim Tucker, Tellervo, Miriam, Leah, Ilana, Ahuva, Elhanan, Ludmila, Tatiana, David and David, Mike, Antone, Juju, Ereni, Rueida, Paulo, Ruby, Marcia, Sara, Zvi, Sarit, Danah, Noaam, now Joey and Beth, Sharon, June, the health of D. Muraoka, Watanabe, the Mother-in-law of Abe San, Michael, Salme, and others that don't want their names mentioned. Please pray for these and also add to this list all the people that you know personally that need God's healing hand to touch them. It is a great Mitzvah to pray for the sick and even more so when you don't know them personally. When God brings to your knowledge a sick or a needy person He actually is doing this to see if you care even a little to intercede for these who suffer and are ill so that He, the Almighty, can bless you and increase His own care for you as you care for the stranger who is your brother.
Well, please pray for our travel next week we have a long travel from Brazil back to Israel and there in Israel we have Feast of Purim that comes up immediately and the challenges there are no small challenges and only with God's help can we meet them and win!
Love to all of you who pray for the peace of Jerusalem and pray for Netivyah's prosperity and success,
Joseph Shulam
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