Children of Jacob

Shalom dear Friends,

As most of you know the Friеdmаns have gone through a great many challenges and changes over the last two years. My activities have been limited due to a total spinal fusion. This has been quite a challenge for a guy who has trouble sitting still for more than a few minutes at a time! I continue to be followed by my surgeon, but the healing process is very slow.

This summer the Friеdmаn family was able to spend a month in Europe, with the permission of the surgeon of course! We ministered in many churches and Messianic congregations in Poland, sharing the promises of G-d to Israel and for those who bless the children of Jacob. In Ukraine we were able to minister to the needs of many Jewish refugees of the fighting in the Eastern part of the country. One Jewish refugee family of five, with two small children, were living in one room. No furniture, no indoor plumbing and no refrigerator. Because of you, our faithful supporters, we were able to buy a refrigerator for this needy family. We were also able to provide food for hundreds of needy Jewish people. Elisa taught the young people messianic dance and Jed worked in the warehouse and distributed food.  We were invited to speak at the tenth anniversary of a Messianic congregation in the Bonn area of Germany. This was very special to me as I was able to play a big part in helping to found this community. What a blessing to see this community growing and reaching their Jewish community.

For 25 years the Friеdmаn family has been honored to bless the Jewish people spiritually and physically in your name and with your faithful support and prayers. Perhaps some of you have already heard that the Friеdmаn family has just retired from Assemblies of God World Missions. We are not, however, retiring from ministering to the Jewish people. We have launched a new 501(c) (3) international ministry to the worldwide Jewish community. This new ministry will be called Children of Jacob. We will continue to do what we have done for the last 25 years, which is to provide the Jewish people with spiritual and physical blessings. Our vision is to “bless any Jewish person, anywhere in the world, in any way possible”. This is our life. This is our calling. And we will continue to do this s long as the L-rd gives us strength.

I want to express my deepest gratitude for your faithful prayers and support over the years. We have helped thousands of Jewish people in need, from Ukraine to Germany and Ethiopia to Israel. Because of you, hundreds of Jewish people have come to a saving knowledge of their Messiah. It is very humbling to think of the trust you have placed in us. I hope and pray that our relationship will continue as we begin this new ministry to the children of Jacob and that we will see many more Jewish people come to faith.

As most of you know, I, Viхiе, was always manning the home front while Jеff was traveling and ministering. But just as Jеff mentioned, I was able to accompany him and minister with him. I had heard his wonderful stories when he came home from a trip but to be able to experience it myself was quite an eye opener, as well as a blessing. I was able to see with my own eyes what God has called us to and the spiritual, physical, and emotional needs that God’s people, the Jews, are experiencing.

I found myself wishing that you, our faithful supporters, could have stowed away in my suitcase so that you could experience it also. However, since that wasn’t possible I want to share with you some of my experiences and impressions.

In Ukraine I was quite struck by the poverty that I saw. The Ukrainian government itself isn’t able to support the infrastructure within the country as I saw (or felt) firsthand as we bounced along the main roads within the country. They were paved but . . . And as we visited the Jewish people I saw that so many things that we would have easily taken for granted here in America were painfully absent there. We visited an elderly Jewish man who lived on the fifth floor of his decaying apartment building and had been a prisoner in his own apartment for twenty years. Due to his heart condition he was bedridden and because there was no elevator in his building hadn’t been able to leave his apartment. And judging from the condition of the stairwell, I’m not sure that I would have felt safe in an elevator anyway. This precious man’s face lit up when we entered his room! Yes, he was grateful to receive the parcel of food that we brought but he was even more excited to hear that we were from America and that the food we brought had been provided by Christians in America who cared about him. This man had been a child in WW II and had lost both of his parents in the Holocaust. A Polish woman had rescued him and raised him but he knew nothing about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the love that God had for him. But he allowed us to pray for him and share God’s love with him.

We met Jewish refugees who had lost their home and everything in the war with Russia. We might not hear about this war in our nightly newscast but for these people, this is a reality that they endure daily. They receive a very small stipend from the government to assist them but it’s very small and comes infrequently. This family, representative of many, was living in a house in the Chernobyl district and I thought for a moment that we were on the set for the movie, “Fiddler on the Roof”. They were very grateful for the home that had been loaned to them but there was no work in the village and therefore very little food for their children.

Jеff spoke in a church in Ukraine that was very involved in reaching out to the needs of their Jewish neighbors through soup kitchens and food parcels. I was very humbled as I worshipped with these dear people. You see, all of the older congregants had been imprisoned for their faith at various times during the Soviet era, when Ukraine was a part of Russia.

There are so many stories that I would love to share with you but space just doesn’t permit. I do want to thank all of you for the support that you have given through the years to make it possible to help these precious people. And I also want to encourage you. As we traveled throughout Poland I met so many Christians who are praying for you and for America. You see, they understand that our country is at a crossroads and they pray for spiritual strength for you and for our country.

God bless you!

The Friеdmаns