After the challenges of last year, it’s such a blessing and answer to prayer that we’ve already held three Outreaches in 2021! I’d love to tell you about our recent Outreach to the Beta Abraham community in Fiche, Ethiopia.
I was first introduced to the critical medical needs of the Beta Abraham community in Ethiopia during a dinner with the elders in 2004. We committed to help, but it took two years to get all of the government approvals and organize the medical workers, including doctors. Our first of what became annual Medical Outreaches to the Beta Abraham took place in 2006.
Because of those early Outreaches, members of the Beta Abraham heard the Good News and believed in Jesus the Messiah! That led to the formation of the first
Beta Abraham Messianic congregation.
Ministering alongside this congregation, this 2021 Outreach was a large Medical Clinic with a mobile LifeStraw distribution to Jewish villages. A LifeStraw is a life-saving water filter that enables people in remote villages to have safe, clean water.
We ministered alongside the Beta Abraham Messianic congregation as they prepared to plant a new Messianic congregation in this area.
Jewish Voice has been working alongside this congregation for 13 years — and I would never have imagined the fruitfulness this partnership would bring about, especially during this most recent Outreach in Fiche, Ethiopia!
Because God is working through you, our compassionate partners, 8,631 people received critical care at our Clinic, including medical care for 3,894, dental care for 967, eye surgery for 112 and reading glasses for 2,113.
While meeting physical needs is one of the greatest acts of compassion we can provide, there is something even greater...
They are so persecuted and feared that they’ve been pushed out of society to the outskirts of town — some even forced to live at the cliff’s edge on very barren ground.
Our team, alongside the Beta Abraham Messianic elders:
- Presented the Gospel to the leading Beta Abraham elders in Fiche, who after discussing what we shared, invited us back and personally escorted us into Jewish villages over the next several days. This is when we were able to proclaim the message of salvation in Jesus!
- Prayed and shared the Good News with over 320 Jewish people at our prayer tent just outside our Medical Clinic.
- Distributed Lifestraw units to 252 Jewish families and their communities.
- Shared God’s heart for Israel’s salvation with regional pastors who expressed their desire to partner with us to reach their Jewish communities with the Gospel. They gave their full support of the Beta Abraham Messianic community to come and plant a new Messianic congregation in Fiche!
While ministering at the Clinic and in the Jewish villages, we were able to hand out 120 Bibles. Thank you for giving to make it possible to bless people with their own copies of God’s Word!
And since the Outreach, the Beta Abraham Messianic elders in Fiche have traveled back to those villages to follow up with the Jewish elders and their communities and will continue to visit in the weeks and months ahead. We believe we will see an abundant harvest of seeds that have been planted, prayed for and watered in that region for years!
You can see why I was so excited to share this update with you — and why each Outreach is so vital. I can’t wait to share more details about the next two Outreaches that just wrapped up!
And we’re not done serving the “Lost Tribes” yet.
I hope you will pray for the three remaining 2021 Outreaches happening this summer and fall.
While you pray, will you also please consider a gift to help make more Outreaches like this one possible? Your gift today will help meet critical physical and spiritual needs during these Outreaches. We must prepare now, so the sooner I can hear from you, the better.
As you know, we don’t meet physical needs on Outreaches and leave it at that. We’re there to change hearts at the same time as we’re mending bodies.
Each Outreach opens that door as we meet physical needs -- from medical and dental care to clean water and food. Meeting these needs lets the men, women and children in the areas where we are working know how much we care.
And then we get the chance to pray for them, provide Bibles and share the Good News!
As I shared earlier, the global coronavirus pandemic limited our 2020 Outreaches. But this limiting also forced us to seek the Lord for new strategies to make Outreaches even more effective. Strategies like changing our model to include smaller, more nimble mobile Outreach teams that can work easily in even smaller communities who need our help.
It also led us to renew our focus on sharing the message of the Messiah, Jesus, with the Jewish people we reach through this ministry.
This comes at the perfect time since the pandemic brought about a spiritual openness among Jewish people unlike anything we have seen. The fear and uncertainty created by the coronavirus has led people to look for hope and search for answers.
Our greatest hope — and what we pray constantly for — is that each and every person we bless with physical help, like medical care and clean water, will ALSO receive the Good News and, along with it, eternal life.
When people come to faith in Jesus the Messiah, lifelong fellowship with others is critical to their well-being and fruitfulness as Believers. That’s why coming alongside Messianic congregations like we did with the Beta Abraham in our first Outreach of 2021 is so important.
Please partner with us again today to reach even more Jewish people in Africa with both physical and spiritual healing!
When you do, I have something especially fitting to express my thanks for your gift of $75 or more. It’s a bag of our exclusive Buna Bet Coffee — ground from Ethiopian beans. The country is the birthplace of coffee, and Buna Bet means “coffee house” in Amharic — the official language of Ethiopia.
You can start your day with a special cup of coffee knowing you’re helping transform the lives of God’s Chosen People around the world.
I hope to hear from you soon. We have three more Outreaches to prepare for this year, and your prayers and support make a life-changing difference in the lives of Jewish people in Africa. Thank you and God bless you!
To the Jew first and also to the Nations,
Jonathan Bernis
