The other team had a short conversation with a Russian woman who had been recently widowed. Without skills in either French or English, we did our best using hand gestures. She was quite happy and touched to have a bound set of Scriptures in Russian and Hebrew, since we had brought a set with us that time.
Thursday October 7
Two teams went to two different shopping areas. Each team gave out 25 pamphlets for a total of 50, plus one set of Scriptures. Two gospel tracts were also given to non-Jewish people by the second team.
The first team spread out their time between two shopping locations. This is their report:
The manager/ owner at the first store explained that we needed to get his permission each time we wanted to give anything out. We apologized and left for a different commercial area close by.
We had a very lengthy conversation with J., a young Jewish man. We spoke about righteousness, Messiah’s two appearances, and divinity, among other subjects. J. was very excited about the building of the future third Temple, but we spoke more of the Messianic Temple from Ezekiel 40-48. The man had read the Brit Chadashah, but said he disagreed with what was written about Moses in the Book of Hebrews, saying that Moses was the only great prophet. We put special emphasis on how he needed to limit his search for the truth to only the Tanakh, and he agreed.
We had a very lengthy conversation with J., a young Jewish man. We spoke about righteousness, Messiah’s two appearances, and divinity, among other subjects. J. was very excited about the building of the future third Temple, but we spoke more of the Messianic Temple from Ezekiel 40-48. The man had read the Brit Chadashah, but said he disagreed with what was written about Moses in the Book of Hebrews, saying that Moses was the only great prophet. We put special emphasis on how he needed to limit his search for the truth to only the Tanakh, and he agreed.
The other team had a short conversation with a Russian woman who had been recently widowed. Without skills in either French or English, we did our best using hand gestures. She was quite happy and touched to have a bound set of Scriptures in Russian and Hebrew, since we had brought a set with us that time.
An elderly Jewish man engaged us in conversation for a while. He said he had read the Brit Chadashah and didn’t want one. He was very interested in our family backgrounds, saying that Gentiles were getting smart and trying to brainwash the Jewish people. He even suggested one of us use the services of a Jewish matchmaker, but emphasized that when Mashiach would come, the woman would have the perfect husband! If only he knew! His hope in Messiah’s coming was quite strong, so we gave him a messianic prophecy bookmark, an Isaiah 53 leaflet with Talmudic commentary along with the Book of Life pamphlet.
Two rather religiously dressed Jewish women circled around us, trying to see what we were giving out. They didn’t have curious or receptive faces, so we chose not to offer them anything. Another woman we met complained that some religious Jewish people had engaged in unfair business practices with her late husband, so she didn’t want anything from us, even though we tried to explain how we were different.
Sunday October 10
Three teams went out for this year’s last distribution of the Book of Life pamphlets.
The first team went to a shopping area and distributed 20 pamphlets into which they had inserted the Isaiah 53 leaflet.
The second team started in a park, but quickly observed there were hardly any people there, so they joined the first team at the commercial area. They gave out 35 pamphlets, three full sets of Scriptures, and a Brit Chadashah.
Both a young woman and later a young man accepted a set along with the pamphlet and the prophecy bookmark.
Here is more of their report:
We gave a set to a Russian couple as well. They had already read most of the Brit Chadashah but were not sure if Yeshua was the Messiah. We explained about His two appearances, once to reconcile us to God, and once to reign from Jerusalem. We also told them about the Russian YouTube translations of the Saturday Beth Ariel messages.
We met an elderly woman who said she loved to read. She already had a Tanakh, so we gave her a Brit Chadashah, saying that she would see the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies from the bookmark we gave her. It was of great interest for her to find out when Messiah was coming. She also accepted the Isaiah 53 leaflet, but we encouraged her to go back to her Tanakh and read the whole chapter. We also showed her how to go onto the internet to find our web site.
Here is the third team’s report:
The immediate area was crowded, so our conversations were fairly short as people rushed to their cars. We gave out 42 Book of Life pamphlets, wishing the shoppers “Chag Sameach – a little late!” One team member met a Jewish colleague from work, but he seemed fairly secular and didn’t pursue the subject of Messiah’s coming. Still, he received the pamphlet.
We shared a bit with a Roman Catholic man who had a relative who was with Jehovah’s Witnesses, so we assured him we were not. He gladly took a gospel tract from us as we chatted.
A Jewish woman immediately asked if we believed in the Torah or Jesus. We said the Torah was God’s Word and that Yeshua was the Messiah. She declined anything from us, quickly walking away.
The store manager, who had seen one of us at a different time, came out to ask what we were distributing. We said it was a pamphlet on what Moses, David, and Daniel had to say about the Book of Life. He took one but did not come back out either to comment or to stop us, so we continued for over another hour.
We were all very grateful to have had good weather on both days we went out. Thank you so much for your partnership through prayer. We will soon be able to give out literature and little gift bags for Chanukah, which begins at the end of November this year. In the meantime, we will continue to distribute our Anti-Semitism pamphlets.
Shalom and thank you for praying with us.