We’d like you to get to know a very special person. Halel is one of the most amazing people we know, and we are incredibly blessed to have her leading  Tiferet Yeshua’s youth group. She is on fire for the Lord, has boundless energy, a huge heart, and is devoted to helping those in need.  

At the beginning of the corona crisis here in Israel, Halel got a call from a young man, saying that there were many families of African migrants in south Tel Aviv who had lost their jobs due to the crisis – they had no food, no diapers for their children. Halel asked how on earth he got her number: it turns out this young man got to know believers at a conference here in Israel, and when he contacted them about getting immediate help for his community, they gave them Halel’s number. 

“Hello, my name is Halel Goldman and I am twenty-two. At age sixteen when I started becoming more serious about relationship with God, I would go with two of my sisters to the only youth group we knew about in Tel Aviv (my family had started going to congregation Tiferet Yeshua in Tel Aviv).

To get to these youth meetings we had a long way to go from where we lived at the time in Caesarea (a town in north-central Israel): we had to take a train, buses and then walk for about a mile from the central bus station in south Tel Aviv which is one of the worst areas not just in Tel Aviv, but in all Israel. Walking to youth group each week I ended up seeing many lost, suffering people. The poverty and suffering I saw deeply affected me, and I started to pray about what I could do to help. Sometimes I would bring food with me to give people I saw along the way. I would sit and talk with people and pray for them. God gave me a burden for the people I saw there, and over time it would continue to grow.

Over the years, I began finding different ways to reach out to the people of south Tel Aviv. When I was serving in the army, I decided to start a project that would allow youth from different congregations along with youth who weren’t believers to volunteer with me to go out and serve the homeless in south Tel Aviv. Youth groups from various congregations joined us to learn how to become involved in outreach in a way that would forever change the way they view the needs of those around them.

Last year my dad left his job in the tourism industry to take over leadership of a ministry here in Israel called “Hands of Mercy”. As a humanitarian outreach organization, we realized that it made sense for me to join him in their ministry by adding my project to reach people in desperate situations on the street. We also run a ministry house in Jerusalem that provides a place for disenfranchised youth who have left the ultra-orthodox background who need a warm meal and home atmosphere (this ministry home was continually attacked and vandalized by extreme ultra-orthodox groups at the beginning of this year).

I continue to go out on the streets two to three times a week. I still see very difficult things, and over time I have gotten to know and develop a relationship with most of the people on the streets in south Tel Aviv: those same alleyways filled with drugs that shocked me when I was sixteen now almost feel like home. My heart goes out to each and every person there. Today when the see us coming with our cart of food, hot drinks (in the winter months), and clothes, they all run up to us, sometimes just for food, sometimes to receive prayer.

Our vision is to help people get off the streets, and we have succeeded in getting scores of people into rehabilitation programs here in Israel. There is still a great need out there on the streets: one need in particular that has become apparent to me is that there is no Hebrew-speaking rehabilitation center for women run by believers here in Israel. It has been my hope and prayer that we will one day be able to open a rehabilitation center for Hebrew-speaking women from the street.  Amazingly, through the crisis of the corona virus, God has opened the door for us to useour ministry house as a place for women in crisis, which is an amazing answer to prayer!

With God’s grace, we have been able to continue to provide food and support to many people in several cities in Israel while  time training volunteers, believers and non-believers, to serve in love and patience. We also want our volunteers who go out on the street have first aid certification: so many people on the street needlessly suffer injuries from simple cuts and scrapes that become infected, so it is a great help when volunteers are professionally trained to know how to safely disinfect and dress simple wounds.

We would be so grateful for your prayers right now as we are still experiencing persecution and financial difficulties. We would be happy to have you join us sometime on one of our trips out to streets to see what God does when you follow Him to serve the poor and needy. Blessings from Israel!”

Because of your support, we are able to respond quickly to needs on the ground here in Israel, like supporting Halel’s project to help the Nigerian families in need in south Tel Aviv. Thank you for standing with us!