By Joseph Shulam from Karmel Koti – the Center of Finland

The Lord’s law of sowing and reaping always works. It works for the good that we do and it works for the bad that we do. January 1981 was the first time that I came to Finland. I came to Finland by the invitation of a Lutheran Pastor who visited Jerusalem and had never seen a Passover Seder. He came to the door just as we began the Seder meal. He asked if he could just stand and look. We told him “no” you can come and sit down and eat with us. This was the first seed sown. Since than I have seen the good harvest and generations of harvest grow and flourish. Right now I am in a yearly seminar in the center of Finland. I see the second and third generation of children growing and maturing with a Biblical faith and hunger for more. Over the years I have sent members of Netivyah to Finland to teach in this seminar and in other places in Finland. This year for the first time I am traveling with Daniel Stern who works in the Netivyah office in Jerusalem. The younger generation of leaders in the Body of the Messiah has to learn the ropes and our brothers and sisters in Finland and in other countries need to get to know the next generation of leaders. Those who partner with us in prayer and in care for the Lord’s Work in Israel need to connect with the next generation of leaders.

I see the next generation of leaders in Israel growing and maturing and doing a wonderful job, and I see the new generation of leaders emerging in Finland as well. The many wonderful brothers and sisters who with great courage stepped into the path of Restoration and left the traditional churches have raised a very fine crop of children who are not getting married and having their own children. This is the natural cycle of life both in the flesh and in the spirit. I see the young families playing with their children. I see them teaching the children and bringing their children to the teaching and lectures sometimes together with the adults and other times have special classes that the teenagers teach the younger set. When I say “Teach” I don’t mean “entertain” or just work to keep the children quite and happy. I mean teach, impart knowledge, make them understand some values and principles for life.

Adults should know that children are capable to learn deep things and receive values and principles and laws for life from a rather young age. We think that we are protecting them children by sparing them from the hard lessons of life, but in fact we are denying them to gain tools that will enable them to cope. Of course I mean to say that for each generation there is the proper level of teaching and material. What I am trying to say is that the children are able to cope and receive and understand much more and much higher principles for life than we give them credit. I see our brothers and sisters in Finland, those who were babies when I first met their families now walking with their babies, bringing them to the same seminars, and teaching them the Word of God. The Kingdom of God is not impotent and in fact it is growing and spreading around the world, and in Israel.

Please pray for the younger generation and the children in our fellowship and in your fellowships and churches. Invest in the next generation. When I say “invest” – I mean to say work with expectation to see dividends and return and not just to pass the time and entertain with bible stories told as if to the retarded. Let us challenge those young minds and hearts and train them from an early age for “Tikkun Olam” – to fix the work that we are living in and make it a better place for tomorrow that it has been in the past.

Pray for Ahuva Ben-Maier, and Udi, they are both in need of special prayer for their health. Pray for Paulo in Brazil. Paulo has had a set back in his health. Paulo is young and God will touch him with the hands of healing and mercy and restore this young man to health. Continue to pray for Ruby, and Ilana, Leah, Sarit, Zvi and Sara, David S., Merav, Rose, and Marcia.

Keep praying for Lylian and Eddy in Toronto, Canada. Eddy needs a serious touch from God’s hand and Lylian needs strength and courage and wisdom to cope and help Eddy and the children.

In Japan we should keep praying for Shoko San, and Sadako San, and Daisuke San, and Tomoko San. These are all very precious brothers and sisters who are wonderful servants of God and deserve our prayers and intercession for strength and healing of these brothers and sisters.

Keep praying for the construction of our building in Jerusalem. The construction is going on and the old building is coming down as the preparation for the new one is progressing. Everything is almost on schedule and we are still praying and in need to raise the funds that we used to buy the shops. We are praying for half a million dollars and every dollar that you contribute for the building will be appreciated very much.

A dear brother from Dallas, Texas, has just made a commitment to support another 30 families of holocaust survivors in our food program. In the last two months we have increased the number of people who are getting the help with food coupons by more than fifty families and most of them are older people and holocaust survivors. Please keep alive and help support this very important project of just doing Mitzvoth for our mostly Jewish but also a few Arab families in Jerusalem.

I will keep this short, other that asking you special prayer for Danah and Noaam who will be traveling to Israel this week and for a family of dear brothers who will also be traveling to Israel this week from the Far East.

May God bless each and every one of you with good health and with His richest blessings that will encourage you and enable you to do good and not evil.

Joseph Shulam

P.S. – We all need to remember the good principle that the Lord gave us: “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye?”

By Joseph Shulam

We are all concerned with what people think about us and what they say about us. In fact, in my opinion, and in my guilt, the sin that is most common is what comes out of my mouth about people. I suppose that you could call it in the vulgar word, "Gossip." Trying to deal with this issue is just like doing a diet, you have good will and desire and you start the diet, and after a short time you find yourself needing to start again. They most important thing is to be aware of it and never to give up. However, I did not start this prayer list as in a Catholic confessional and for the purpose of self-incrimination. I started this topic because even God and Yeshua are concerned with what people think of them.

Yeshua asked His disciples: "When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Matt 16:13-19)

Yeshua was interested to know what people think about Him. It was important for Yeshua to know and it is interesting to understand the answer of the Disciples. First, the Disciples don't express their personal private view. Second, the give the opinion of what some people say, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and other say Jeremiah or one of the prophets. What do you have here in these opinions of the people? You have prophets and not just prophets, but prophets that prophesied judgment on the people. Second, you have prophets who were condemned and rejected by the people, but who had special relationship with God. This alone ought to light up our understanding of Yeshua and His role in the eyes of the people. Yeshua's reaction to the answer of His disciples is not angry at all. He is not satisfied with the opinion of "some" and He wants to know what His own Disciples think of Him. Simon Peter jumps ahead and proclaims the famous declaration, "You are the Messiah, Son of the Living God." Yeshua is pleased with Peter's answer, but like a typical Israeli the compliment that He gives Peter is a typical Israeli compliment. Yeshua in essence says to Peter; your answer is right but you are not bright enough to have discovered this by yourself. This is a revelation from My Father in Heaven. Naturally, you Peter, could never discover this by yourself. We see that Yeshua knows what people say about Him also in the story of Matthew 11:19 - there He know that people accuse Him of being "a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'"

Moses actually uses this argument to convince God not to finish with Israel in the wilderness. "All nations would say, "Why has the LORD done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?' Then people would say: "Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt;" (Deut. 29:24-25)

Should we care for what people might say about us? The answer is double, "Yes" and "No." We have a commandment not to be afraid of men, but to fear God only (Jeremiah 17:5-9). On the other hand we must like Yeshua know and care of what people says about us. If we give people the wrong impression of who we are and what we stand for, we are not good and faithful witnesses of God living in us. It is a fine balance between doing the Will of God at all cost and not fearing men, but fearing God only, and being a witness of God's Goodness and faithfulness in a way that will be acceptable and receivable by our fellowman.

In the Ethics of the Fathers, Pirkei Avoth, we find the following statement: "Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Judah HaNassi would say: Beautiful is the study of Torah with the Derech Erez, (gentle and kind and considerate civil way), for the toil of them both causes sin to be forgotten. Ultimately, all Torah study that is not accompanied with work is destined to cease and to cause sin." (Pirkei Avoth 2:2) In the same tractate of the Mishna it is written: "Rabbi Eliezer the son of Azariah would say: If there is no Torah, there is no common decency; if there is no common decency, there is no Torah." (Pirkei Avoth 3:17)

If we have faith and hold on to all the right doctrines but don't have a good reputation with both God and Man our witness is actually not worth much. We need to live in a way that the people will see our Good Works and Praise the Lord God. This is a command of our Messiah. Please pray for yourselves and pray for us here in the city of Jerusalem and the whole Body of the Messiah to have a good name and good reputation and name in the place where we live, and the only way to develop a good reputation is to have Derech Erez, common decency.

Today we were in the building to look how they are building this massive steel structure to hold the two front walls. The project is progressing well according to plan, but we are also beginning to receive disturbances from the opposition. They have called our contractor on the phone and threatened and coursed and used profanities. It is very clearly not a part of Derech Erez, common decency, to do this and it only makes regular Israelis turn more against the Orthodox Jews. We need your prayers for protection and guardianship from Heaven on everything that we are doing. Please also pray for the workers and contractor of our building. It is not nice for them to be pressured and pushed and coursed because they are building a Synagogue for Jewish Disciples of Yeshua. Can you imagine what would happen if businesses in the world would be threatened for working with Orthodox Jews?

The number of people who are receiving the food coupons is steadily increasing and it seems like the people are happier with the coupons than with the actual food items. Please keep praying for the Lord's supply for the poor saints of Jerusalem.

Next week I am flying to Finland with Daniel Stern. This is the first ministry trip that I am taking with Daniel. We are going to have the annual Netivyah and Israelin Apu conference in Finland. Israelin Apu is an NGO that is dedicated to help and bless Israel and specifically Netivyah and the members of this NGO have been faithful brothers and sisters for near 33 years. Daniel will be exposed to our brothers and sisters in Finland for the first time. I want Daniel and Oleg and Yuda and Hannah and Nancy, all our co-workers to be connected and informed and participating in all the different ministries that Netivyah is connected with around the world. These young people are the future and they need to carry on and continue this work until the Messiah returns. Please pray for our trip to Finland and for the Good Lord to anoint everything that we do and say to encourage and edify our brothers and sisters in Finland.

Ahuva our dear sister has been twice in the hospital this last week. She is very weak and suffering from ill health. I ask you to pray especially for her and for us to find a nursing home for her soon. We have Eila a dear Finish nurse who has volunteered to take care of Ahuva for two months. On July 1st Eila is leaving and we are praying for another volunteer from Finland to come and help our dear sister Ahuva.

Udi is doing the normal old-style Chemo-Therapy. The more advanced treatment lost its effectiveness and the radiation treatments have also done what they can do. I ask you to pray for Udi intensely and beg God for mercy and healing for Udi.

I also ask you to pray for my children, Barry needs prayer for health, and Danah and Noaam need prayer for their health. I specially ask you to pray for Barry these days.

Pray for Ruby in Oklahoma City. She is suffering chronic pain and other issues right now. Ruby is a very special sister who was used by God in Israel in the 1980's and very important for the purchase of our building on Narkis Street. She has been suffering from illness and pain for so many years. She lives in Oklahoma City and I have not heard from her about the Tornado storms that hit Oklahoma City last week. The same is true for other brothers and friends that we have in Oklahoma City, Bill Day and his family and Earl Seal and his family. Please pray for these brothers.

In Jerusalem keep on praying for, Ahuva, and Leah, Ilana, Sarit, David S., Marcia, Miriam, Tania, Merav, Rose, and Sara and Zvi. In Finland please pray for Tim Tucker, and for a group of near 90 year old nurses that came here to Israel in the 1960's and 1970's as volunteers in the hospitals and now they all need special prayer for healing and strength. The love that God has planted in these mature Ladies for Israel and for the Jewish people is just amazing. They are praying for years for the Jewish people and for the State of Israel. They do not only pray but they do all that they can to be a blessing for the Jewish people even in their old age. In Japan please keep on praying for Sadako San, who is also well past 90 years old, and for Shoko San, and for Daisuke San who is also well up in the years, and for Tomoko San a very dear older lady who has also been praying for Israel's salvation for near 70 years. In Toronto, Canada, we have Eddy a very dear brother who is also suffering from a very serious cancer. He is a young man with a very fine family who are faithful Disciples of Yeshua. Pray also for Lylian His very fine wife and his children. They are very special to us here in Israel.

Please pray for the Roeh Israel Congregation, our congregation in Jerusalem. We are meeting every week and the place is too small for us and every week it is overflowing. This is a hard period during the construction of the building and we need your prayers in order to keep things under God's blessings and build up the Disciples both in faith and faithfulness.

Pray for the many young people and older brothers and sisters who are in need of work and for financial breakthrough. Netivyah has such wonderful satisfaction for the dozens of young people whom we have helped and at least 10 young people who are students in the University with a monthly scholarship during their years of study. These are all doing well, and many have graduated and become lawyers and doctors and engineers and photographers, and plumbers, carpenters and electricians. Some of the older brothers and sisters who have emigrated from other countries have a much harder time finding jobs. For those I ask you to pray.

God bless you all and bless everything that you do,

Joseph Shulam

Yesterday was the day of Pentecost. The Jewish tradition in the day of Pentecost is to eat cheeses and good food and bring some-kind of first fruit. In the Israeli Kibbutzim the celebration is big with music and dancing and baskets of fruit and vegetables are brought and dedicated. One of the customs in Pentecost is an all-night study of Torah and the Word of God in general. We had a nice celebration every year since the 1970’s. This year it was a bit shorter than most years because of the little children. We have several families with toddlers and some with very young babies so we kept the celebration to three hours. We also have every year a cheese cake competition and this year there were five competitors. The prize was a very nice toaster and the sister who won the prize made a cheese cake with apricots from her own garden. There were two lessons presented about Pentecost one by a young leader and the other by me. We also read the whole book of Ruth and it was again a joy to read in one sitting all four chapters of Ruth in public. Things look totally different when you read the whole book in one sitting and in public. You suddenly notice things that you have heard and read many times but never paid sufficient attention to the text. We had almost a house full on the eve of Pentecost and prayer was led in several languages and the reading was also done in Hebrew, English, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and some other languages too. This was a kind of play acting of the Acts 2 scenario but without the miracles of speaking in one language and every foreigner hearing in his own language.

I find it so strange that Christians are so interested in the giving of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost but they don’t celebrate the Feast of Pentecost in any Biblical form. Halleluiah Holy Spirit, but we celebrate Santa and the reindeers rather than give first fruit of our lives to the Lord. “We” put up a tree and decorate it just like Jeremiah chapter 10:1-5. If we believe in the restoration of the New Testament, First Century Church, what ought we to celebrate? Ought we celebrate the same holidays and feasts that the New Testament Disciples of Yeshua celebrated in the New Testament or those holidays that the church in Rome and Constantinople adopted in order to replace Israel and to replace the Biblical Feasts that the early Disciples of Yeshua celebrated according to the Word of God? Please pray and think about this and remember I don’t want to or intend to Judaize anyone, but our faith should be consistent with our declarations. If we want a restored church let us work to restore it. If we are happy with the man-made traditions created in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries let us all become Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox and be happy with it. There are only two roads, one that leads to Rome and one that leads back to the New Testament Church and the center is Jerusalem. You need to pray about this and see where your commitments are stationed, in Rome or in Jerusalem. When you find your answer you should make your commitment and be connected to one of these historical centers Rome or Jerusalem. Ask yourself to which were the Apostles connected and what was their life style reflecting and then make your choice.

We had a meeting with our builders and architect and project manager, and there is major progress, if you can call it that when you are taking the building apart. There is no longer a roof on the building and several of the walls are taken apart. The big and the bad news is that the Orthodox Jews are mounting a campaign against the building. They have gone through the neighborhood and tried to have people sign a petition for an attempt to get a court order to stop the building. They even called and threatened the contractor and warned him not to work with us. It is just a nasty action that is based only on religious prejudice and hate and I don’t believe that the court in Israel will fall into this kind of trap. I have full confidence in the Israeli court system and justice to be based on civil rights and justice based on democracy and equality of all minority groups both racially and religiously. However, you need to pray that God’s people will not act like those who persecuted them in Europe for so many hundreds of years. You need to pray that the legal system in Israel will not sink so low as to allow a small minority to dictate on the basis of discrimination and hate and prevent us from our normal democratic basic human rights. You need to pray that we get the necessary funds to pay for the construction of this building so that we can have a Synagogue for the Disciples of Yeshua in our eternal Capital City of Jerusalem. You need to pray and bless our builders and architects and the shop owners in the neighborhood who refused to sign such a petition against us. We don’t know who signed the petition against us, but we do know that most of our immediate neighbors did not sign such a petition. We all pray with full confidence in the Goodness of God to His children and in the future of Israel and “Tikkun Olam,” the redemption of the whole World. We stand on these truths and we did not compromise on these self-evident values of human rights and we ask you to stand with us until the end.

The issues that we are dealing with and what we represent are not at all religious issues; they are existential for us and for all of Israel. Our live in the Land of Israel are dependent only on God‘s mercy and faithfulness. According to His Words in the Torah if we as a nation don’t learn to be fair and righteous and take care to love each other and even the stranger among us, this land will vomit us out as it has already happened more than one time. We pray that God will have mercy on us and give our leaders, both secular and religious, a clear revelation of the full Torah and how we as a nation and as a state ought to treat each other and love each other encouraging all to do God’s Will, have faith and keep His commandments. This is our prayer for Israel and for all.

We continue to pray for our sick brothers and sisters. Today I am just going to list them by name and ask you to mention these names as you pray for healing, strength, and wellness: Ruby, Liz, Tim Tucker, Shoko, Tomoko, Paulo, Sadako, Udi, Ahuva, Leah, Ilana, Marcia, Miriam, Anna, Anna-Majia, Sato-Marja, David S., Zvi, Zvi and Sara, Lilian and Eddy, Sarit, Rose, Merav, and for Danah and Noaam.

We ask you to continue to pray for the situation in Syria. The suffering of innocent people there is just totally outrageous, and the dragging of feet by Europe and the West is just beyond understanding. God can act in the ways that He only knows how to act in order to stop this carnage in Syria. Pray!

We have increased the number of people who are receiving the cards for purchasing food by 26 more families. Several of these new families are survivors of the Nazi – Holocaust and others are immigrants from the former Soviet Union. We appreciate your prayers and your support for this very important humanitarian project that blesses the poor of Jerusalem.

The Radio programs are continuing and new programs are being recorded every week. I am still doing the book of Jeremiah on the Radio in Hebrew and those of you who know Hebrew can find these teachings on Netivyah’s web page: www.netivyah.org

I will cut this letter short and wish all of you who pray for us and support the Lord’s work in Israel.

Keep Jerusalem and us in your daily prayer, Please!

Joseph Shulam