Beloved friends, ministry partners and brothers and sisters in Christ,

 

Yes, we are back finally to life online and we are sending our first newsletter from our new laptop. Our old one was broken and for several months we were disconnected from the world.  Praise God for one of our ministry partners who sent us the money to buy a new one.

Our Last news letter was sent to you last Easter therefore this one will long because lots of things happened with us since. We are privileged to share some of it with you

 

It is Christmas time now! Jesus was born 100 Miles from our house and we are honored to serve Him in His home land. If we would summarize the year 2004 in one phrase, we would say: The Lord has done great things for us and we are glad. Psalm 126:3

 

Personal News:

 

  1. After almost 9 months, Samar’s Mom back home from the hospital. Praise the Lord. She was in a real critical situation and spent months in the intensive care unit but on October 3rd, she was discharged from the hospital. Still she has to do kidney dialysis but praise God that her health is improving.  GOD IS GOOD. Only prayers made this miracle. It was a sign and proof of faith of the living Jesus in front of Samar’s extended family.  We appreciate your prayers.

 

  1. Rajai’s residency visa is still a case so finally we went to the Supreme Court to claim it. According to the Israeli Law, Samar – as an Israeli citizen- has the right to have a “family unification “if she is married to a foreigner, but for political reasons the government is not doing so for Arab spouses. The news papers wrote about our case twice. We are waiting for the court decision. We are sure that he who brought us here to this land will find us a way. 

 

  1. At the end of next month we will move to a bigger house.  We need more space to let our visitors feel more comfortable since we always have people and discipleship groups at our house. Praise God that we found one in a strategic location and easy for people to get to. We will have extra room for guests so any one of you is most welcome to stay with us.

 

  1. Farah turned 2 last November. Yes, she is a little young lady now.  Still very active and started to talk and express her self very well.

 

  1. Finally Rajai’s Mom was able to come and visit us after waiting for 6 months to get entry visa to Israel.  It was a year since Rajai didn’t see his Mom and Farah was happy that Teta (Grandmother) was here.

 

 

 

Ministry News:

 

Here are some of the highlights of 2004.

 

In addition to what we shared last time here are some of the events that took place this year.

 

Easter evangelistic event:

April 19, was the Easter event at the city of Shafa amr. We had singing band and drama called Via Dolorosa with actors doing the crucifixion scene. It was great blessings.600 adults and 300 kids attended and tens of people couldn’t enter because the hall was packed with audience. God’s hand was at work.  Many accepted Christ as their Lord and saviour with tears. Few days later, we met several people on different occasions and they mentioned that they were at the event and accepted Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

 

Media:

At the end of April: Rajai gave training for some staff and disciples about radio production. We found some talented students in the Bethlehem area and the west bank who are willing to be a production team.  It is our dream to re-produce the college life club “CLC” radio show which Rajai produced in Jordan few years ago but in Palestinian accent. Now we have a team and we did several meetings and a plan. We did a survey among college students in the area there and found out that all of them listen to Radio Bethlehem2000 (www.radiobethlehem2000.com).  The station, which is a secular one, was founded 8 years ago and it is the first radio station in the Palestinian authority and very famous.  BBC is broadcasting its programs on their station and their broadcast covers the west bank area, Jerusalem, North of Israel, Gaza strip and parts of Jordan and Syria.  Rajai have contacted the station and offered them to broadcast CLC and they agreed and they will charge us $5200 over a year of broadcast on weekly basis with re –run. We took a step of faith and told the station we will be on air on January 2005 and not a single Dollar is there yet. The Lord was gracious and provided so far 70% of the needed amount with more promises from local churches here to donate.

 

The strategy of CLC will be like this. Every week students will listen to a certain topic through Drama and panel discussion. We will announce on radio about a monthly meeting at a local café’ in Bethlehem and ask the listeners to go there and meet us. We will serve refreshments and discuss the topics they heard on radio and new ones. will use the discussion on the café’ and put it on radio again. The station will be responsible for advertising about the monthly café’ meeting. This will open up face to face contact with the listeners.

 

 

   

   

 

 

                                

                                                                        The media training last April in Bait Jala, West bank

 

Sports:

Last July: Rajai and Samar from Life agape along with other ministry partners (Bible society, Local Baptist church and The Baptist school) organized a basket ball camp for 4 days. It included in addition to sports, 2 spiritual segments a day and other activities with lots of fun. The kids liked it so much. 50 boys and girls attended and more than 10 of them indicated that they followed Christ

 

 

 

 

 

At the end Of October Life agape hosted a team from Athletes in action Holland to conduct a sports ministry week. Rajai was directing the project. We were able to present the gospel to around 2000 kids. Sport is a great tool to reach youth here. We decided to go on and do lots of projects with our partners here. During that week, we organized a soccer tournament for the Evangelical churches in Israel. We had 8 teams competing in the evenings of the sport week. The goal of the tournament was to strengthen the churches relations, introduce them to the ministry of AIA and encourage them to use sports for reaching out to people. At least 4 churches indicated that they want to use sport as part of their ministry and some already started. Our church, who won the tournament, is hosting weekly soccer training as a result of that week every Saturday. More than 25 kids attend and before they practice soccer they study the word of God. Kids are excited about this weekly sport meeting and the number of attendance is growing. 

 

For more details about this project. Please click on this link   http://www.comeandsee.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=582

 

 

                                                                                                            

 

                                                                                                                          

                                                                                  

                                                  

                                                                         

                                  

                             A day with a public school.800 kid’s attended.90% of them is Muslims

 

    

                                                

                                                The last day of the sports week was a sport festival which included a Basket Ball game with a local team.

                                                All the players received a copy of the J film afterwards.

 

 

 

                                                

                                                                             

                                                                                     Another day at a school in Haifa city

Drama:

Samar is planning to have a drama team to reach young people. She already started writing skits and the kids did a performance last Christmas event at our church.

 

Christmas Outreach:

 

Jesus is the reason for the season, that’s the name of the distribution campaign that was held from 17-24 December. The goal was to distribute 10,000 packages in Nazareth and villages around. Each package would contain a new testament, The Jesus film, a book, calendar, and children’s book and follow up cards. When we launched the campaign, we found out that we don’t have enough materials but the Lord provided through one of our partners large quantities of books and bibles. We were able to go out on streets, bus stations, schools, etc…

 

All the churches in Nazareth along with Christian organizations were part of this project. What a joy for us to see body of Christ united together and working day and night packing the gifts and then going out on the streets to distribute. On the last day of campaign and during the traditional Christmas parade down town Nazareth, we were able to give out 4000 gift. Even though the rain was heavy when the parade started and we were worried that people won’t show up, More than 10000 people where there on the street watching the parade. It is so amazing that when it ended you would see people walking around carrying red and green bags that were given to them by us. The final statistics of the campaign is not ready yet but according to my files, we gave out between 11,000-12,000 packages which included 55,000-60,000 pieces. In addition to that, we gave out to the schools in Nazareth, Haifa and Cana around 7000 CD’s of the Jesus film for Children. I will include a short video of the distribution during the parade and final statistics on our web site very soon.

 

                                                  

                                                                     

                           

 

 

                            

 

 

                                 

 

 

 

                                         

 

 

 

 

 

Discipleship group

 

When we talk about the highlights of our ministry, we are sure that this one is the most important and lasting highlight, our disciples.  Ever since we moved to Israel our prayers focused that the Lord will send us a group of men and women to invest our lives in theirs. This group started last spring. Ever since, we are meeting on a weekly basis and did lots of training for them. They all went through the New life Discipleship course “NLD” and after that went through the Trainers training. We had great time last summer applying the NLD and doing lots of evangelism and outreaches together even online. They are part of us and we feel we are one family when we get together. This group is very skilled in media, music, art work, computer programming, web design and graphic design.  This is a good sign to see where and how God want to use this group. Very soon they will conduct an NLD training cycle for their friends. These days we are learning more about heresies like Jehovah witness and how to respond to it

 

Here are some pictures of our ministry together:

                                                                                                                

                                            

 

After 2 days of ministry in Ramallah, west bank standing beside                                                         We did 2 days of NLD at the Baptist Village near Tel Aviv

The separating wall that Israel is building

 

                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                  

                                               

They invited their friends and did an evangelistic tour at the                                                                    weekly meeting at our house 

Nazareth Village. Later on they shared the 4 Laws with them.   

 

 

                                                                                                                            

                                                                          

 

 

 

 Teaching opportunities

 

Rajai taught 2 times at the Bethlehem Bible College. One course talked about reaching the majority people and the other one about media and radio production for the mass media student. Also Rajai Taught at the Alliance leadership training college in Jerusalem about reaching the Majority people.

 

Please pray for the followings

 

  • A powerful and fresh start for 2005
  • Deeper walk in the spirit
  • Quality time to spend as a family
  • The radio project and use of media in general. Also for provision of the funds needed for it
  • Ministry at Haifa University
  • For the lost in the West bank and Gaza area
  • Peace and stability in the Holy land
  • Protection when going to violent areas
  • More multiplying disciples
  • Sport outreaches in the summer
  • New partnerships
  • Our financial needs, especially for the needs of our new house.
  • Our car is dying so join us to pray for a better one

 

 

 

We consider it our privilege to share our news with you and we are more privileged to have you as our ministry and prayer partners. As we come to the end of 2004, we pray for you and your lives and families. You are a very important part of the work that God is doing through us. Please continue to pray for us as a family. We need your prayers so much. We would like to convey our love and blessings to you at the New Year. May the Lord give you a blessed and fruitful year. We love you all.

 

 

 

In serving him

 

Rajai, Samar and Farah

 

P O Box 1

Nazareth, 16100

Israel

 

www.rajaiandsamar.com    

      

rajai@zahav.net.il          Rajai’s mobile +972 52 5322040

 

samaram@zahav.net.il  Samar’s Mobile +972 52 5322070

 

Staff account # 2399676

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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