In a sentence, the Isaiah 2 Initiative (I2I) is a God-inspired vision to train Israeli young adults for ministry, by taking them to revival centers in the third world in order to preach the gospel with signs and wonders. Please keep reading for a fuller explanation and how you can change a life in Israel and Nigeria!
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1. There are two primary goals of I2I. The first is to disciple Israeli young adults into leadership by allowing them to minister in an atmosphere of revival, miracles, preaching, salvations and more. The idea is that those who may be reluctant to share their faith here in Israel or pray for the sick, will be emboldened in Africa where the people are so open. We actively train and disciple them before and during the trip so they will be prepared. When they return to Israel, they will be changed—bolder, more confident, walking in a deeper level of faith.
2. The second goal is to reap a harvest of souls in Nigeria. We are asking the Lord for 100,000 souls on this upcoming trip to Hong, Nigeria, fulfilling the command of Yeshua to his Jewish disciples to Go into all the world and preach the gospel.
3. Our inspiration is Is. 2:3 which states that the law will go forth from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. We believe that I2I is one of many prophetic fulfillments of these words (which will be fully fulfilled when Yeshua returns.) This is the first time in 1,900 years that evangelistic teams of Jewish believers are being sent from Israel. (Not just I2I teams, but other ministries as well.) Our first trip to Nigeria in December 2009 was possibly the largest outreach from Israel in history.
4. Furthermore, the Lord’s call on the first Jewish believers was to be filled with the Holy Spirit and take the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). We believe that all believers are called fulfill the great commission, but there is special grace on those who take the good news from Israel to other nations. The Acts 1:8 word was given in Israel and amazingly it wasn’t until persecution broke out many years later that the apostles began to preach in other nations.
5. The dates for our next Campaign for Yeshua are May 8th through the 16th. We fly Ethiopian Airlines and will stay in a ‘brand new’ hotel in Hong, Nigeria (brand new in Hong is not the same as brand new in Israel! But it will be ok).
6. We will have five nights of open air preaching to crowds between 10,000 and 100,000. At the end of each message, we will invite the people to receive Yeshua and renounce the enemy. It is has been our experience that over 90% respond to this call (Which begs the question: If it is that easy, why not go every month? Sadly it is an issue finances. It cost between $30,000 and $50,000 to host a campaign.)
7. Next, we teach about 10 minutes on healing, focusing on Yeshua’s willingness to heal each and every sick person that came to him (Matt. 8:2-3 for example). The purpose of this is to build faith. We then ask the Lord to release the gift of healing (1 Cor. 12), which we have found He is very excited to do, especially in the midst of unbelievers and brand new believers as a sign. After several minutes of prayer, where we call out dozens of diseases, we invite people to come and share their testimony of healing.
During I2I’s first outreach we saw three nearly blind people receive sight and a Muslim man who could not walk, JUMPED out of his chair and began to run around. He came on stage and renounced Islam and professed faith in Yeshua. This was in addition to dozens of other testimonies. This is how the Lord worked with His disciples according to Mark 16:20,
“Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.” In addition to healing being an act of the Lord’s compassion for those suffering, it is sign to the unbeliever as in Acts when Peter and John bring healing to the beggar in the midst of a great crowd.
8. The Team: During the days, the I2I team will be split up into two teams and sent into different villages (Matt 10), preaching, worshiping and praying for the sick—and inviting them to the nightly campaign meetings. On Sunday, the team will be divided into even smaller teams so that we can have someone preaching in almost every church in the city.
During the main meetings, Ron preaches a gospel message on most evenings, unless there are team members who are gifted in mass evangelism preaching (On our first trip, Eli Birnbaum from Tel Aviv took the pulpit and did a great job proclaiming the gospel.) However, before the message, different Israelis are able to testify to the crowd for 5-7 minutes. Most of them have never stood before 100 people much less 30,000 people!
9. Follow Up: Every effort is made to get contact information on those who make professions of faith. We work with dozens of local churches to make sure these people are followed-up upon. Months before a campaign, one of our team members, Nigerian Pastor Mike Moses goes into the city and creates a central leadership team made up of city pastors and leaders. He works with them intimately for months before the campaign.
The leaders see us as partnering with them for the gospel, as opposed to a ministry simply coming and leaving. They take ownership in the campaign. In most cases no one has ever brought a campaign this size from the West to their area and they take it very seriously, seeing it as an opportunity for the “Church of their region” to grow.
10. This next Campaign for Yeshua in Hong, Nigeria will cost approximately $52,000. That includes 12 half scholarships for our Israeli participants. The cost for each person is about $2,000. MMI, our ministry, pays half of that, $1,000, and they are challenged with raising the other half. Many of the congregations here in Israel, specifically, Ahavat Yeshua (Jerusalem), Tiferet Yeshua (Tel Aviv) and Kings of Kings Community (Jerusalem) have greatly helped us by helping Israelis raise the other half.
11. Endorsements in Israel: Our ministry is grateful to the senior pastors of the aforementioned congregations, Asher Intrater, Ari Sorko-Ram and Wayne Hilsden, amongst others for endorsing I2I and sending their young people on I2I trips.
12. Sound System: We are also asking the Lord for an additional $20,000 to purchase our own sound system. The equipment that we used last time was so bad that we risked losing the harvest. A sound system capable of reaching over 50,000 people is what we need.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. As you know we can only do our part in going. We need others to send us. Here is opportunity to use the finances the Lord has given you to not only bless the next generation of Israeli leaders, but reap an enormous harvest in Nigeria. To get involved, just go to: http://israel2africa.org.
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