p> We are back home from the long trip in the United States and Brazil, but since we are back we have actually been sick. Both Marcia and I have some kind of upper respiratory infection and we are both on anti-biotics and beginning to feel better day after day.

Our congregation in Jerusalem has been battling in prayer for several who are very sick and in need of miracles from God for their survival and life. Baby N is already past the open heart surgery and is now well on the way of recovery, but prayer is still very much in order for this sweet baby. She is still in the hospital and the surgery was successful but full recovery is going to take time. Please continue to pray for baby N and her full recovery and normal growth to a responsible and faithful servant of God.

We are also praying for our dear sister Sara who has recently fallen again and broken a shoulder-bone and is now in pain and even more limited in her movement. Lift Sara and Zvi before God's throne of grace. We also have to continue praying for Ahuva, Ilana, Leah, David and the other David, and Elhanan who has fallen from his bicycle and had at least a dozen stitches on his face. Of course we ought to continue and pray for Paulo in Brazil and Ruby in Oklahoma and Liz in Georgia and June in Tennessee. YOU should pray for the healing of those who are sick in your own congregation – it is a mitzvah that carries with it a great blessing when you pray for the sick to be healed. There is a very dear friend of one of our dear sisters in Northern Israel who's name starts with the letter “S” and who is very sick with cancer in numerous places in her body. The doctors have given her a very short time to live and she needs a clear miracle from God to be able to turn around and find life and a new life without cancer. Just say: “Our God in Heaven look down from heaven on “S” and send your angles of healing to heal and strengthen and surprise the doctors with a good witness of the power of Yeshua's name.

Last week we had the Purim festival in Jerusalem and our congregation had a wonderful celebration. The place was full of people and children were running around dressed as everything from Peter-Pan to a lady-bug. The theme that our congregation chose this year was “Jungle” and we had every possibility explored in the Jungle, we had Dr. Livingstone, and a few great white hunters, monkeys and gorillas and the food was wonderful too and included tomato soup and cauliflower that looked like blood with brains floating in the pot. The most important part of the celebration was the reading of the whole book of Ester in Hebrew and the study of the book of Ester with special emphasis of how this book impacts us today.

As soon as Purim is over we actually start to get ready for Passover. This year Passover falls in the last days of the month of March. We are actually beginning to prepare for Passover with cleaning and getting our spiritual household ready. This year we will have guests from Hong Kong and from the United States and from Switzerland and of course many guest from Israel. Passover is always a whole lot of work but it is also the most natural place and time to speak about what Yeshua has done for us as the Lamb of God. I pray that more and more Christians will see the importance of Passover for their understanding of what Yeshua did for them and how salvation actually works in our lives. I pray that everyone who loves God around the whole world will at least one time in his life experience the Lord's Passover and realize what salvation really means.

Next week we will have the Forum in the Galilee with 12 brothers from Israel and 4 brothers from Japan who will gather to study and think and develop a plan for the future move of our communities in the context of Israel. Please pray for this Forum to be peaceful and successful and we all come out from this Forum with actual practical plan of action.

Radio Kol HaYeshua is broadcasting every day one hour of Good News in Hebrew to all of the Middle East and our programs are very high quality but we need your prayers so that more people will tune and hear our broadcasting. We don't know how many thousands of people hear our teaching every night, but we do know that our responses are few. We need your prayer for the spread of the Good News in the media through Kol HaYeshua Radio broadcasting.

We have to again reorganize our food distribution program. Every day we have people, old and poor and needy and sick people, knock on our office door with the most dramatic stories and sincere needs and we have decided to reorganize so that we can double the number of people who will be helped. The way that we are going to do it is simple we are going to divide the people into four groups and each group will receive food once every week and not twice – that is people will come either on monday or on wednesday and not come twice per week. So each person will receive food once every two weeks, but the amount of food will be for a week. In other words we are cutting the amount of food that we are giving to each person or family roughly half of what we are giving now. It will still be a lot of help for the people but it will not fully feed everyone that is receiving food now in order to feed more people. We need your help to be able to feed the poor of Jerusalem and not allow a lot of old Russian and non-Russian immigrants to be hungry.

The battle for the building is still going on. We have been blessed with a very generous contribution from our Japanese brothers and from Korea, and will still need to raise a very significant amount of money so that as soon as we get the High Court verdict we must start building. Our plan was to have one thousand brothers and sisters give 1000 dollars each for the building fund. Now I do know that some are able to give much more than 1000 dollars for building the first synagogue of Jewish Disciples of Yeshua in Jerusalem in near 2000 years, but if even if 2000 brothers give 500 dollars each the building fund will be raised and we will be able to build as soon as we get the license.

Please continue to pray for Danah and Noaam, our daughter and granddaughter in California. Pray for their health and for their prosperity both physically and spiritually and pray for their joy of life. Also please pray for Barry, Beth, and Joey and their health and prosperity.

I bless our those brothers and sisters who contributed last month to Netivyah for the Soup-Kitchen and the building fund and the general fund. I know that God's promises are still very much alive and He is a just rewarder of all those who diligently seek Him. You must seek Him and He will be found.

Joseph Shulam