Tag: Israel

Tiferet Yeshua children's trip to Capernaum, January 2025
Deborah Luquer | | Leave a Comment on Raising a Generation that Knows Messiah Yeshua

When I received the role of the children’s ministry leader in the congregation, I realized that I would be taking on a great responsibility: right here in our congregation, the Lord in His mercy has placed a small portion of the young generation growing up in the land of Israel in families that follow Yeshua as the Messiah. This reality has not happened since the days of the first Jewish believers in the book of Acts! It is exciting, and I consider it a great privilege.

The vision of the children’s ministry at Tiferet Yeshua is that every child will know the Lord and grow in a personal relationship with Him. Last year we developed a curriculum that will put Yeshua at the center of teaching throughout the entire year. This curriculum we then modify for each age group 3 years old and up so that all the children are learning the same subject in a way they are able to understand it.

In addition to teaching them the essentials of their faith –learning the fruits of the Spirit, memorizing Bible verses, the Lord’s prayer, and just praising Him together—we teach them about our identity as Jews who believe in Yeshua through prophecies about the Messiah given to our prophets.

WALKING WHERE YESHUA WALKED

Life in Israel may not be easy, especially in this last year, but we have the amazing privilege of living where so many of our Bible stories took place. In the children’s ministry, we make a point of regularly taking the children and their families to trips around Israel so they can experience firsthand the places where Yeshua walked and taught.

We visited the Nazareth village where the children were able to experience how Yeshua would have grown up with all the traditions of Jewish life of that time. This trip helped the children understand many of the parables Yeshua used to teach about the Kingdom of God.

Last year, we visited the “Good Samaritan” museum to understand the setting of that period of time and emphasize the two most important commandments God has given the Jewish people – to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbor.

After learning about the miracles Yeshua performed in our Friday children’s ministry classes, last month we visited Kfar Nahum (Capernaum) in the Galilee and also boarded a boat on the Sea of Galilee that resembles boats used 2,000 years ago in order to being to life the scriptures that testify about His works among the people of Israel.

Seeing the amazement and excitement in the eyes of our children (and their parents) when they walk in these places gave me a deeper understanding of our calling: to fan the fire of the Holy Spirit in the young generation of the Body of Messiah here in the Land. How? By creating an environment where they can read and learn from the Scriptures, pray and praise so that they can know the Lord and be close to Him in their everyday lives.

I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize that we would not have been able to achieve this vision for our children’s ministry without a dedicated, loyal team of volunteers from the congregation who serve with love, consistency and hard work!

Tamar Afriat | | 5 Comments on Trump’s Bold, Unprecedented Steps in the Middle East

Since the beginning of 2020, the news cycle has been dominated by constant attention-grabbing headlines which put last week’s news far from the mind. However, during the first couple months of 2020, there were two unprecedented and  highly significant events for Israel and the region—events which, for better or worse, have had surprisingly little coverage in the media or had coverage that greatly misinterpreted their impact and significance. This article will take a look at the first significant event which happened in 2020.

THE US ASSASSINATES IRANIAN MILITARY CHIEF AND CHECKMATES IRAN

On January 3, 2020, US President Donald Trump authorized the targeted assassination of Major General Qassem Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force and mastermind of Iran’s military operations outside Iran. With Suleimani at the helm, Iran’s military tentacles have been sewing terror and chaos across the Middle East, all the way from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza to Yemen. The US State Department said that it killed the Iranian general because he was actively planning attacks against US troops in Iraq and the region, but the significance of his removal goes far beyond American interests. It is hard to overstate the importance of Suleimani in Iran (the only more powerful man in Iran was the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah himself), and the huge blow to Iran’s ability to carry out its proxy militia strategy across the Middle East—supporting the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and propping up the Assad regime in Syria, all which bear the hallmarks of Iranian involvement: chaos, violence, radicalization and active aggression against Israel.

 

Internationally Trump’s action called a “reckless act of war”

As soon as the news of Suleimani’s assassination broke, the international media exploded in one accord, calling Trump’s move tantamount to an act of war and a dangerous escalation of tensions between the US and Iran. As the world watched the funeral procession of Suleimani in Baghdad where mourners draped his grave in the red flag—a call for revenge of the “martyr’s” death—and listened to top Iranian leaders vow harsh retaliation, pundits and politicians around the world began warning that the Iranians would hit back hard, leading to more violence and destabilization.

Suleimani’s Funeral Procession

The Israeli pundits were saying something else

Across the board, from left to right, experts and government officials in Israel called Trump’s move a brave decision—a deterrent to war, not an act of war—a move which showed leadership and sent a powerful message to all terrorist leaders in the region: your heads are on the line. Suleimani’s assassination put Iran into a quandary; they understand that President Trump will not hesitate to put action behind his words, and, if they react by attacking American interests or allies, the US has promised to destroy fifty-two strategic sites in Iran, the destruction of which would put Iran back twenty years. So, how did Iran ultimately respond to Suleimani’s assassination? It attacked a US military base in Iraq which inflicted minor causalities on US military servicemen, a symbolic act which showed that they are not interested in further escalation of hostilities with the US.

 

Iran’s Situation Today: Iran is finding itself limited and crippled. Firstly, the Trump administration’s sanctions are having the desired effect—everyday Iranians are unhappy with their government’s spending their resources on outside military escapades while the economic situation at home continues to worsen. Iran’s profile in the Middle East is beginning to tarnish on the Arab street as well; for all its brash military actions, the everyday people are left with the violence, death, refugees, chaos and economic collapse Iran’s policies leave in their wake.

 

Iran’s Spiritual Awakening? More than anything else, the most important change of all is what seems to be happening inside Iran. According to some sources, Iran has the fastest-growing church in the world as disenfranchised Iranians leaving Islam are coming to faith in the Messiah of Israel, Yeshua, and worshiping the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What’s more, these believers who are coming to faith are doing so outside of the established, denominational church (which in the Middle East tends to be anti-Semitic\anti-Israel), and Iranian believers are expressing love for Israel and Jews whom they see as the brothers of their Savior. This is the most meaningful development for Iran, Israel and the Middle East by far.