He was 16 years old, and you couldn’t help being drawn to him. He was articulate and extremely personable ‒ intelligent beyond his years and markedly confident, but without arrogance. But he had questions.

He came to speak with someone at the Jewish Voice Ministries International (JVMI) prayer room, held in conjunction with the Alamata, Ethiopia, Medical Outreach. He sat down with Paula and an interpreter.

Paula is the Prayer Coordinator at JVMI headquarters. For more than eight years, she has worked in the trenches of prayer for Jewish Voice. She leads the staff and a team of Prayer Partners in bringing before God the needs of the ministry, Israel, the Jewish people and JVMI Outreaches. But the Alamata/Jijiga trip was the first time she had participated in the field.

In Ethiopia, the prayer rooms for JVMI Outreaches must now be off-site from the Medical Clinics. It’s a relatively recent local requirement that can result in fewer visits than we’ve seen in years past. Knowing this, Paula made a special request of the Lord before the Alamata/Jijiga Outreach began.

“Lord,” she prayed, “we in the prayer room may not see many who come to know You, but may those who do be ones who will bring many others to You.”

In Alamata, the bright young man who sat before her spoke excellent English, and he immediately asserted that he believed in science and philosophy rather than God. Yet there he was, in a Messianic Jewish prayer and counseling center.

“Do you believe God has a destiny for each of us?” asked the fellow who’d said he didn’t believe in God. His father, on his deathbed, had told him that he believed his son had a strong destiny. “But,” he asked Paula and the interpreter, “if none of our experience is real – as some philosophers teach – then where is the purpose in life?”

“That’s a good question,” Paula answered. “If you take the Creator out of the equation of creation, there is no purpose or destiny.”

One after another, the animated teen asked questions, hungry for answers to the deep and unsettled matters filling his mind.

Then, all of a sudden, he declared, “OK, I am ready.”

“Help me to understand,” Paula replied. “What are you ready for?”

“I am ready to receive Yeshua (Jesus).”

There, in a little circle of plastic chairs, Paula and the interpreter led the young man in prayer to place his faith in Yeshua.

The next day, Paula was working with Outreach Partners at the Clinic site rather than in the prayer room. When she returned that afternoon, a prayer room co-worker told her, “He came back! And he brought a friend with him, someone he had just led to the Lord. He wanted his friend to understand more.”

In the 24 hours since coming to faith himself, this dynamic 16-year-old had already led someone else to the Lord and knew where to come to learn how to begin his discipleship! It was an answer to Paula’s prayer.

“It was a divine appointment,” Paula said of the circumstances surrounding her conversation with the teenager. “He was ready. He had studied and learned. He’d searched and had meaningful questions. And we were there at the right time.”

And God knew. He prepared both Paula and this young man for the day they met. He primed the hungry mind and heart of an exceptional teenager and led him to the JVMI prayer room. God orchestrated the day so that Paula would be there, and the timing so that she and her interpreter were available when he arrived. And long before, He had placed a prayer on Paula’s heart for Him to raise up new Believers in Alamata who would lead many others to Yeshua.

“I am ready,” the young man said. He’d meant he was ready to receive Yeshua. But God has readied him to be an answered prayer as well, to shine His light and bring others in Alamata to Yeshua.

The U.S. and Israel are on a roll that could take them right off planet Earth, according to a high-level Iranian official.

After #JCPOA, #NAFTA, #TPP, Climate Convention & ..., the Trump regime—along with the Israeli regime—today officially withdrew from #UNESCO. Is anything left for the Trump Administration and its client regime to withdraw from? Perhaps from planet Earth altogether?

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 1, 2019

Zari was additionally referring to U.S. withdrawals from the Iran nuclear deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord.

UNESCO: Anti-Israel and Burdensome

As the U.S. quit each of these agreements, Trump administration officials repeatedly cited either anti-Israel bias and/or an unfair burden on the U.S. The former was the case when the U.S. announced last October its decision to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Israel quickly followed the lead of the U.S., with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling the U.S. withdrawal “brave” and “moral.” He also said, “UNESCO has become a theater of the absurd because, instead of preserving history, it distorts it.” On another occasion, Netanyahu tweeted, “Since 2009, UNESCO has passed 71 resolutions condemning Israel and only two resolutions condemning all other nations combined. This is simply outrageous.”

When the two nations’ withdrawals became official at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 2018, former U.S. Ambassador the United Nations Nikki Haley tweeted, “UNESCO is among the most corrupt and politically biased UN agencies. Today the U.S. withdrawal from this cesspool became official.”

In response to Zarif’s tweet, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon tweeted, “Remember how @JZarif said in an interview with @LePoint on Dec. 19 that no one in Iran wants to annihilate Israel? Well, calling for #Israel (and the #UnitedStates) to withdraw ‘from planet Earth altogether’ sure sounds like calling for the demise of our countries.”

No Longer Fostering Peace

The U.S. helped form UNESCO in 1945 after World War II to foster peace; Israel became a member state in 1949. President Ronald Reagan was first to withdraw in 1984 over structural issues and bias toward the former Soviet Union.

Satisfied with UNESCO reforms, President George W. Bush returned in 2003. But the relationship again became rocky in recent years because of increased anti-Israel bias.

“The last straw was when UNESCO this summer designated the old city of Hebron in the West Bank – with its Tomb of the Patriarchs – a Palestinian World Heritage site,” The Washington Post quoted Haley as saying. When the two nations announced their withdrawals this time, she called UNESCO’s politicization a “chronic embarrassment.”

Similarly, The Times of Israel wrote, “Many saw the vote to include Palestine as evidence of long-running, ingrained anti-Israel bias within the United Nations, where Israel and its allies are far outnumbered by Arab countries and their supporters.”

The U.S. State Department said it will engage with UNESCO as a non-member “observer state” on “non-politicized” issues to protect World Heritage sites and press freedoms and to promote scientific collaboration and education.

But what does it mean to Israel?

On a pragmatic level, the millions of dollars Israel and the U.S. owe in dues are now canceled. This lifts a financial burden of both countries, but UNESCO already felt the budget cut in 2011.

On a symbolic level, the withdrawal “sends a strong message that we need to see fundamental reform in the organization, and it raises everyone’s awareness about continued anti-Israel bias,” according to an unnamed U.S. State Department official quoted in The Post this week.

Please pray with us that the world will heed the message that anti-Israel bias in the U.N. is growing and unacceptable. Also pray for:

• Protection of Jewish people worldwide as anti-Semitism has grown to its highest level since UNESCO was formed after WWII
• Protection of Israeli citizens and young people in the military who face the consequences of the unbalanced Arab influence in the U.N. and the growing tide of terrorism on Israel’s borders.

Your gift to Jewish Voice today will help fight these issues including the devastating impact of growing anti-Semitism worldwide. Your gift also directly supports Arab-Israeli peace efforts through JVMI partner ministries at work inside Israel.

And, as always, your partnership with JVMI reaches Jewish people worldwide with the Good News that Yeshua (Jesus) is their long-awaited Jewish Messiah.

The plans I’m about to share with you are certainly ambitious.

But if you believe, as I do, that God wants to bless and transform the lives of Jewish people, then you’ll want to be a part of this.

Today I want to invite you to do that through your generous gift of support as the new year begins.

Yes, you can participate in a growing Messianic movement that is bringing healing and hope to Jewish people all over the world, but especially in Israel. God IS truly at work there! And He wants to use YOU – through Jewish Voice – as His ambassador of compassion, peace and redemption.

Because so many Jewish people in Israel still need the physical care and spiritual blessings you can provide in the name of Yeshua (Jesus).

That’s why we must reach as many as we can before He returns in power and glory to fulfill His plans for the Jewish State AND all Jewish people worldwide.

Much To Celebrate – Much To Accomplish

While the past year has been one of historic change in Israel, it has also been a season of threat and even danger for Israel and her people. But there’s encouraging news…

• Those who love Israel and her people celebrated the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding as an independent Jewish State

• We witnessed the United States’ renewed support for Israel. Most important, the U.S. Embassy was moved to Jerusalem in recognition of that key city as the rightful capital of Israel

But this is troubling…

• Israel again faced the nonstop anti-Semitic bias of the United Nations, an influential international organization that is supposed to work for fairness, understanding and peace among all countries
   
• Israel’s enemies – including Syria, Iran and the terrorist organizations ISIS, Hezbollah and Hamas – continued their deadly attacks on the Jewish State, keeping the world focused on the age-old question, Is peace possible in the Middle East?
   
• During one November barrage, Hamas terrorists launched more than 460 rockets into southern Israel over a 24-hour period, killing one, wounding 30, and sending hundreds into shelters