Northern Ethiopia 2019
Summary
Join us for a medical outreach! See thousands of lives transformed and hope restored.
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The New Year is upon us, and we want to take a moment to let you know how much you’ve meant to us this past year. Your partnership with Jewish Voice Ministries International in 2018 had a powerful impact on the physical and spiritual lives of people all around the world.
Along with sharing the love and Good News of Yeshua (Jesus), your gifts restored eyesight, brought healing and gave clean drinking water to hurting Jewish people and their neighbors in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Through your support of Jewish Voice, you gave them hope. You transformed and saved lives. And we are so grateful for you.
In Chitsungo, Zimbabwe, people are forced to share their only water source with hippos. But your gifts helped us distribute 5,370 personal LifeStraw® filters to provide a year of clean, safe drinking water. Through your generosity, a baby boy was saved when doctors removed a growth from his mouth that was preventing him from receiving the nourishment he needed to live.
In Debre Birhan, Ethiopia, your gifts enabled us to treat the most patients we’ve ever seen in a five-day Clinic ‒ 15,919! We distributed more than 12,000 personal LifeStraws® to individuals and 540 family-sized units to schools, families and a convalescent center.
In Enfranz, Ethiopia, you helped us introduce the Zehra Kids Program where children enjoyed a fun-filled time of learning about their Jewish heritage and how much God loves them. Your prayers sustained us through opposition as our spiritual care ministry was shut down mid-week by local leaders. Even so, God continued to use the prayer team to minister throughout the Clinic and city. The medical team provided quality care to 3,000 patients in a single day and then repeated that astounding feat the very next day. In all, you helped provide 13,225 people with medical, dental or eye care in Enfranz.
In Mudanda, Zimbabwe, your support made it possible to serve every last patient who came to us without having to turn anyone away when the Clinic ended. God used both medicine and miracles to provide healing to the people of Mudanda. In the prayer tent, a woman named Violet entered blind and left seeing – and rejoicing. Both she and her daughter accepted Yeshua as the Messiah.
In Alamata, Ethiopia, your partnership made it possible for us to be in this new location when a 16-year-old came with many questions. He said he believed in science rather than God but was clearly searching for more. Prayer Partners provided biblical answers, and after a time, he volunteered, “I am ready to receive Yeshua.” The next day, he returned with someone he had led to the Lord since leaving us 24 hours earlier.
In Jijiga, Ethiopia, your gifts provided an introductory two-day Clinic to serve a predominantly Muslim area in which a small Jewish community lives. One Muslim man beckoned a Jewish Voice staff member toward him. Grasping his arm, the man said, “I love the Jewish people. I just want you to know that.” Through your support of Jewish Voice, you are bringing the light and hope of Yeshua to this region.
Because of your generosity, 63,953 people received much-needed medical care in 2018 during Jewish Voice’s six Medical Outreaches. And1,178 people came to faith in Yeshua. As a result, 12 new congregations formed where the ripples of your gifts will continue ministering in Yeshua’s name.
Throughout the year, your support also helped us share God’s heart for Israel and the Jewish people, combat anti-Semitism and encourage the faith of millions through the Jewish Voice with Jonathan Bernis television program.
Terrorism is on the rise again in Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently uncovered three attack tunnels leading from Lebanon into Israel. Hezbollah boasts that its rockets can reach all of Israel. In November, Hamas engaged Israel with hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza in just two days.
In the past few weeks, terrorists stabbed an IDF soldier and shot and killed two soldiers in the West Bank. Terrorists also sprayed bullets into a crowd of civilians waiting at a bus stop. The drive-by attack seriously injured a pregnant woman along with six others. While the young mother fought for her life, doctors delivered her baby boy nine weeks premature. He hung on for only a few days before he died.
These are challenging questions to be sure, and they seem only to lead to more: How did this conflict start, and when did the struggle begin? Who are Israel’s leading enemies, and why do they despise the tiny Jewish state so much?
The Middle East conflict is complicated, but it’s critical to be able to sort the facts from misinformation and propaganda. Many people are subjected to false conceptions about the strife in the Middle East, embracing – often passionately – uninformed views of Israel and the Palestinians.
Unfounded and misguided animosity toward Israel contributes to anti-Semitism throughout the world, and recent years have shown a dramatic increase. It’s vital to know the truth.
Jonathan Bernis’ new book, A Lasting Peace, provides an easy-to-understand overview of the Middle East conflict. It outlines Israel’s biblical and modern history to give you the full picture of how the seemingly insurmountable impasse in the Middle East today came to be.
In A Lasting Peace, you’ll discover answers to these and many more of your questions:
A Lasting Peace pulls back the curtain of confusion and misinformation to reveal the facts about the Middle East conflict. Understanding this cauldron of contention is more important now than ever. As anti-Israel ideologies sprout and grow on college campuses and anti-Semitic motives put Jewish people at risk around the world, we must do all we can to combat the misunderstandings that give rise to them. We start by gaining a clear understanding of the truth.
There are hundreds of Messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures that foretell specific information about God’s promised Messiah. Mathematician Peter Stoner looked at the statistical probability of one man fulfilling even a handful of them.
In his book, Science Speaks, Stoner revealed that the chance any one man might fulfill just eight of those Messianic prophecies in the Old Covenant is one in one hundred quadrillion – one in 10 to the 17th power, or one in 100,000,000,000,000,000.
Stoner did the same calculations for the fulfillment of 48 prophetic passages about the Messiah. The odds of one man fulfilling all 48 are 1 in 10 to the157th power. That’s the numeral one followed by 157 zeroes!
The Scriptures speak of two distinct appearances of the Messiah: One in which He comes as a humble servant destined to suffer and die for His people, and one in which He returns as the conquering king and judge. What are the chances that one man has fulfilled the hundreds of prophecies about the Messiah’s first appearing as a suffering servant? It’s beyond comprehension how narrow they are.
Yet one man has. His name is Yeshua (Jesus).
Perhaps a better question is: What is the probability that Yeshua of Nazareth is not the Messiah?
Below is a sampling of Messianic prophecies pertaining to the Messiah’s lineage and birth. They include New Covenant Scripture references showing how Yeshua fulfilled them. We’ll examine additional Messianic prophecies in future blog posts, including evidence from Messiah’s life, the rejection He was foretold to experience, His suffering, and death.
Take a look, and consider the odds.
Messiah’s Lineage
Seed of Isaac
Prophecy: Genesis 17:19, Genesis 21:12
Fulfillment: Matthew 1:2–16, Luke 3:23–38
Seed of Judah
Prophecy: Genesis 49:10
Fulfillment: Luke 3:33
A rod/son out of Jesse
Prophecy: Isaiah 11:1
Fulfillment: Luke 3:23–32
Descendant of David
Prophecy: Ezekiel 34:23–24
Fulfillment: Matthew 1:1
The Messiah’s Birth
Messiah would be preceded by a forerunner who would turn many to righteousness
Prophecy: Malachi 4:5-6, Isaiah 40:3–4, Malachi 4:6
Fulfillment: Matthew 3:1–2, John 1:19–23, Luke 3:7-22
Messiah would be born of a young maiden who is a virgin
Prophecy: Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15
Fulfillment: Luke 1:35, Matthew 1:18–20
Messiah would be known as “God with us”
Prophecy: Isaiah 7:14
Fulfillment: John 1:1–4, 14
Messiah would be born in Bethlehem
Prophecy: Micah 5:2
Fulfillment: Luke 2:1–7
With warmth and transparency, Jewish Voice’s own Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Bernis shares a compelling case for Jesus as Messiah and presents overwhelming evidence that can be traced to the Torah itself.
I want to begin by apologizing to all my friends, co-workers and esteemed leaders for not being there in person for such an important gathering….but due to health reasons, I was not able to make the long journey. I’ve asked our dear brother Ezra to officially represent me as well as our Jewish Voice U.S. leadership and staff.
Gerald was my dear friend and I, like all of you, feel a great sense of loss.
From the day we first met here in Addis Ababa over 14 years ago, I knew our destinies were intertwined. Gerald loved Ethiopia; he loved this land, he loved the people, he loved your unique history and culture. It was a part of him. And that love, and divine call to serve your nation and in particular, the Scattered Tribes of Israel here in this land was something I inherited from him. And I will be forever grateful to him for this legacy.
When his beloved wife Elly passed away suddenly and tragically just 3 months ago, he wrote to me to share the sad news. His email to me was a reflection of who he was:
He began by quoting Nahum 1:6: "The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him"
He went on to write: “In May we have been married for 55 years. The most wonderful years in my life because we shared our faith in the Lord and she was such inspiration with tremendous support for the ministry, especially in Ethiopia and with Jewish Voice. Now I know for certain she is "safe in the arms of Jesus" with no sorrow, sadness or sickness" where God wipes away every tear from our eyes”
He then closed the email: “Greetings in His wonderful Name! "His grace is sufficient in every situation", Gerald.
If Gerald were here today, he would tell us not to mourn him….for he is “safe in the arms of Yeshua”, rejoicing before the One he faithfully served throughout his life. No more sorrow, sadness, sickness or tears. For half a century he lived here, he ministered here …he belonged here…..and it is from here, in Ethiopia, where he wanted to finish his race when his time on this earth was complete.
There will never be another Gerald Gotzen. He has left a void in our lives with his departure we will always feel. He was our mentor, our co-worker, our spiritual father, our teacher, wise counselor, encourager, mediator…..and we will miss him greatly.
Yet in the midst of our sadness over his loss, Gerald would remind us….”His grace IS sufficient…in every situation.
