By Robynne B. - STEP Leader

Hebrew STEP (Summer Training and Evangelism Program) was amazing! The talents, gifts and creativity of the outreach team were amazing... as was their passion for sharing the Gospel with Israelis! There are over 100,000 Israelis in New York City, and the team shared the message of Yeshua (Jesus) in Hebrew in cafes, in parks, and in a special outreach event featuring the testimony of a Moroccan Jewish believer in Jesus.

Here is a glimpse of some of the week's experiences:

"We sat in a bakery and chatted briefly with an Israeli woman, Ayala,* who politely refused an invitation to our outreach event, yet seemed to be interested to know how we could be Jewish and believe in Yeshua. The conversation was short, but the next day we spotted Ayala on the subway! We continued our conversation, and she asked many good questions that opened the door for us to share with her from the Scriptures - especially Isaiah 53. Ayala eventually told us that she has a nephew who is a believer, and that it is very hard for her to understand. We stayed on the train far beyond our stop, rejoicing that the Lord gave us the amazing opportunity to meet with her again."

"Tonight the group met and played Hebrew Israeli praise music in Washington Square Park. Almost immediately a young Israeli woman approached us, and Noa* shared with her for a while as we continued playing and singing. Several more people joined to play guitar and drum along with us; there was also a bit of spontaneous Israeli dancing and some one-on-one conversations about Yeshua."

"We met Jon,* a Jewish man from South Africa, one morning on the train. Jon noticed Linda's* accent and asked if she was from South Africa, which launched the conversation. Linda shared with Jon about the Lord - and right in front of where he sat, there was a poster with a verse from the New Testament, talking about Jesus (this was amazing, because we never saw a poster like that before or after our meeting with Jon). When we told him we were from Israel, he got very excited and told us he was making aliyah [immigrating to Israel]. We encouraged him and told him we would pray for him. He was so overwhelmed with this meeting, he told us, ‘I take this train every day to work, but I never had a train ride like this in my life!' Jon is very willing to keep in touch with us and even visit a Messianic congregation in Israel."

"At an Israeli-owned restaurant, we noticed one worker who was a religious Jew. We approached this man, Yonatan,* with sensitivity, and when he heard who we were, he smiled and said ‘'I knew it! I wanted to ask you if you were Messianic Jews.' He pulled out a copy of the Brit Hadashah [New Testament] and asked me to tell him what it was all about. We read some of the Messianic Scriptures with him, and he responded, 'I never thought about it that way.' We believe he was challenged, and is willing to stay in touch."

"At a coffee shop we met two Israelis, Gal* and Lior.* When we told them about the outreach event and who we were, they were interested, yet apprehensive. Slowly they opened up and began to talk, and we shared some Messianic Scriptures with them. Lior revealed that he was in New York City because he didn't want to deal with the trauma he had experienced in his service in the Israeli army. I told him that only God knows his heart and can bring healing to his life. These two men were very grateful and wanted to keep in touch; later that week, we visited again. Both Gal and Lior have tender hearts, and we felt the Lord really wanting to work in their lives."

*To protect the identities of our team members and their contacts, all names have been changed.