|
Dear praying friends,
Please lift before the Throne:
Ray Raymond, a close friend of Miles a dear partner of AEBM, Ray is in ICU having critical surgery.
Justin Simandle, a Marine preparing for deployment anywhere across the US to extinguish fires. Please pray he would be a strong witness to his team of 20 young men, and for protection.
Please pray for Mark who had emergency surgery last week. His digestive tract was not expelling anything so after an MRI, they did emergency surgery to restore flow. Please keep him in your prayers that he may be healed. Finally, please pray for Ravi Kumar Thakur who works at the office of Scott and Anita Geisinger, missionary friends in India. He is in his early 20's and in critical condition, currently surviving on life support since Friday due to septic shock. He was under treatment for TB the last 6 months but the disease became resistant and overwhelmed his immune system. His left lung, liver, and kidneys had stopped functioning, but after prayer have started to function again marginally. Yesterday his heart stopped but they managed to get it started again. Pray for a miracle and that the Lord will be glorified through his healing in his life & in his family.
"Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results." James 5:16 |
|
|
Dear Friends, Hannah is recovering and even though we are looking at necessity to be very protective towards her, we are blessed at HIS faithfulness in her recovery. NOTE: If you see Hannah or are with her PLEASE do not offer her ANY food, candy or drink without supervision this is FOREVER. Again, thank you all for your love, support and prayers we are humbled by such wonderful relationships. |
|
|
JESUS, the Passover Lamb Luke 22:1-30 Dear friends, Blessings to you this Passover/Easter season. The Bible is such a wonderful WORD as we consider that it was on the Passover celebration that our Messiah went to Jerusalem to become the FINAL Passover lamb. What a wonderful meditation as we consider from the beginning of Genesis (Gen. 3:15), this was always God's intent. We are thankful for our friends and your faith in what The Lord has called us to do. Since our last prayer letter much has happened and we want to communicate with you the fruit of your investment. SANTA BARBARA: Our new intern Phillip arrives this week. We look forward to pouring into yet another young man who will be used for the Kingdom. Estee is working out to be an outstanding assistant. I will be speaking at the CSM Pastors conference in Tennessee in April and then going to Germany to be the key speaker at a youth Purity Conference in Cologne. My men’s groups, Bible studies and preaching/teaching are a blessing as we see fruit from our labor daily. ISRAEL: Our director visited and we preached together at several congregations this winter. Last month I travelled to Israel with our 2013 Food for the Poor donations. We were able to help people throughout the land with food and other needs, in some cases for many months. I was able to teach the entire book of Galatians in Haifa to our discipleship team and visitors. I preached in Tel Aviv at our daily ministry in the facility for drug addicts, the homeless and prostitutes, and we also had our annual Israel board meeting. My heart is filled with delight as I experience what the Lord is doing after years of struggle. GERMANY: B.A.S.E. an acronym for JESUS (refreshing, renewal, empowering) is an amazing work of HIS SPIRIT. This is a ministry primarily to German, Jewish, Turkish and many other youth who are coming together to worship the Lord, hear HIS WORD, and then repent or give their lives to JESUS. Our team and German board are developing an amazing outreach and we are now praying about a second B.A.S.E. location in Dusseldorf. We are taking a small USA team for B.A.S.E., April 24-30. If you are interested in participating, please call Estee. Please pray for several Messianic congregations; they need many more young people to be encouraged to serve and evangelize. UKRAINE: We had a wonderful visit with our partner Oleg this winter. We preached together at several congregations. We were able to provide funds and hundreds of hats, toys and books for his continuing outreach to the elderly, orphans and the remnant of holocaust survivors. Ministry continues to become more and more challenging as poverty and oppression continue to increase. God willing, I will make a trip to Kiev and Odessa this year to preach and encourage. ENGLAND: Ministry with Conner, Hannah & their team is off to wonderful beginnings. We are supporting them in anyway possible. We look forward to visiting them later this year with one of our Israel leaders to determine our outreach possibilities to Jewish communities surrounding Bristol. WE are developing a new theme ‘Say YES to Israel’. This is going to be a major issue as more and more of the world turns it’s back on God’s chosen people and the land of Israel. The Lord continues to favor us with His blessing, we continue to take small steps forward; as God leads HE always certainly provides. We are sincerely thankful for your faith in us. We are also in need of some special specific items that are outside our budget: - The final $5000 (of $15,000) for a van for our Haifa Discipleship Ministries.
- A new Mac Book Pro for the Santa Barbara office.
- Two youth scholarships for our 2013 Israel Tour in October.
Bless you for your continued encouragement, prayers and financial support. Continue to pray for the lost sheep of Israel and for the peace of Jerusalem. Pastor Jim Stretchberry P.S. Visit us at www.aebm.info or on our Facebook page “American European Bethel Mission”. |
|
Dear praying friends,
This month we are encouraged to see the strength that comes from partnership!
This past week, it was a great joy for our partner Oleg in the Ukraine to distribute 500 colorful & artistically woven hats and many toys to orphans. These hats were lovingly knit for months by a dear friend of the ministry in Santa Barbara. What a privilege to be a part in providing these children with some colorful warmth during this cold time of year!
Pastor Stretchberry has also just returned from a very fruitful ministry trip to Israel. He was able to teach through the whole book of Galatians to a group that grew from 15-80 people during the course of 5 days, & was also able to provide the AEBM staff there with $23,000 toward the purchase of food vouchers for the needs of the poor & elderly in Israel. To all who gave toward this grand effort, we thank you! It is a great joy to give what we can to strengthen & comfort those living in this volatile land.
April 15-19, Pastor Stretchberry has been invited to share at a pastor’s conference in Gattlinburg, TN. And just following this time of teaching, at the end of April, a small team will be heading to Cologne, Germany for the bi-monthly B.A.S.E. conference. This purpose of this event is to see the young people of Germany reached with the Fathers love & the message of “Purity.” We are expecting to see 2,000 in attendance! We long to see the people of Germany restored to their God given destiny. This is a wonderful opportunity and we thank you for continuing to fight alongside of us with faith-filled prayers. Would you like to be a part? Call AEBM at (805) 729-3219 for partnership or to go as part of the team at the end of April!
In the next few weeks, we will welcome Phillip Enns from Germany to Santa Barbara as a new intern. This is a wonderful opportunity & value that we hold to invest in the next generation.
Please keep us in prayer this weekend as a small team will travel to Ensenada, Mexico to visit & encourage Jonathan Domingos congregation. Pastor Stretchberry will be teaching to both the English & Spanish congregations. They are a young, passionate couple that has experienced great growth. In their recent newsletter, Jonathan shared, “I passionately desire for Jesus to use my life however He sees fit to glorify His Name… It is truly spectacular what the Lord is doing here!! The best is yet to come!”
We praise God for His faithfulness in the midst of our frailty. The challenges are many & more than ever we need your prayers and support as we launch deeper into His purposes. We invite you to be a partner in this work through your giving and to join in the fruit of your sowing.
"Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:28-31 |
|
|
Ministry Update – November 2012 |
|
|
|
Dear praying friends, shalom!
Thank you all very much for praying for our family and ministry. Here are the most recent developments in our work.
Aviv Center
In September we gradually began using our new location of the Aviv Center, even while final repairs were still being done. Although I am still personally unable to fully return to the ministry, our teams are out on the streets, talking to the addicts, offering them water, dressing their wounds and inviting then to the Center. The Bible studies have already resumed and our co-workers are gradually returning to their activities in the Center.
Ministry for women - victims of domestic abuse
In one of our previous letters, we wrote about our thoughts to start a ministry for women who were victims of domestic violence. Since then, we have met several women (mature believers) who once lived with abusive husbands. Together, realizing how common and how serious this problem is, we decided to start doing something in this area. Our first step is to launch weekly Bible studies (a kind of a “support group”) for women who were abused by their husbands. Our first Bible study is taking place next Sunday in Beer-Sheva. Please pray for this new ministry and its development.
Specific request - Shakhnoza
We ask you to pray for a woman we have known for four years, Shakhnoza, a victim of human trafficking. We wrote about her in our newsletters before, without mentioning her name. She grew up in the Asian part of the Soviet Union in a Muslim family. When she was in her late teens, she saw an advertisement about “job opportunities” in Israel. While these job offers appeared to be quite decent, in reality they were a cruel deception…
When we met Shakhnoza, she lived in a shelter for trafficking victims. She attended our Bible studies, became a believer and then got baptized a year ago. Sadly, in the near future she will find herself in difficult financial circumstances. She has a job, but since she is not an Israeli citizen, she does not receive any social welfare allowances as a single mother. In three months the shelter will stop supporting her and she will have to rent an apartment (for herself and her 8-year-old twins); the cost (including utility bills) will consume most of her wages. She applied for citizenship, so there is a chance she will become an Israeli citizen and will start receiving allowance as a single mother. But until then as we see it, she will not be able to provide for her family without outside assistance. We will keep helping her as we can, just as we have been doing before. But her needs are going to be greater than we can handle. Please pray for Shakhnoza and her children. Any financial support (if God puts it on your heart) will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much for everything & may God bless you,
Dov and Olga |
|
|
Prayer Room 
