2021 Recap

2021
Recap

In 2021, your donations to bless Israel & the Jewish people were distributed to 47 different Gateway partners in 11 countries around the world. It is so important for you to know the specific impact your donations made, so here are some of the stories of how you helped convey the love of Jesus in Israel and beyond:

Discipleship & Equipping

Discipleship & Equipping

Having a Jesus-focused ministry in the State of Israel is not easy.

Jewish believers in Jesus, as well as non-Jewish believers (Arab Christian, Ethiopian Christians, etc.) face difficult persecution almost on a daily basis from the ultra-religious parts of Israeli society.

One of our incredible partners specializes in providing legal support for the Messianic and Christian minority communities in Israel. In 2021, this partner stepped in to legally help 20 minority congregations (churches) in Tel Aviv who were threatened to be evicted from the properties they were renting to host services.

Your gifts to this partner helped stop the evictions, securing freedom of worship for 2,500 believers in Jesus. The eviction battle continues, but your giving continues to fund protective legal services for these persecuted believers in Jesus.

Congregation Planting

Congregation Planting

As you can see from reading above, planting and maintaining a congregation in Israel is not easy.

One of our partners in Tel Aviv, run by Jewish believers reaching Jewish and non-Jewish residents of the city, stumbled into an incredible opportunity in 2021. During the May conflict with Hamas, over 4,000 rockets were fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip. Israelis have just seconds to flee to bomb shelters when the rocket siren alerts go off.

By God’s providence, our congregation partner in Tel Aviv hosts their services in a large bomb shelter every weekend. Your gifts were able to help them host residents of the neighborhood, as well as provide improvements to their building. During stressful moments like rocket attacks, many of those sheltering at the congregation were ministered to with the peace and love of Yeshua (Jesus).

Evangelistic Outreach

Evangelistic Outreach

In the past few years, something miraculous has happened in the Middle East.

Through the Abraham Accords, numerous Arab countries are normalizing ties with Israel for the first time ever. Because of this, there is an increase in online and in-person interaction between Jewish Israelis and Muslim Arabs.

One of our well-known Messianic worship partners has been leaning into this open door by recording new songs in Arabic that share the Good News of Yeshua through music and video. Your gifts are helping this project record incredible videos with Jewish and Arab believing artists, as well as promoting these videos in Egypt, Gaza, Jordan and North Africa through YouTube. The prophet Isaiah made clear that Israel would be a “light to the Nations,” and we are seeing this take place through this fantastic new project.

I know many of you are ardent fans of the new series The Chosen. We know of no other film series that more accurately depicts Jesus in His true, Jewish and human context. You will be excited to know that your gifts made it possible for one of our partners to begin translating episodes of The Chosen into Hebrew, so that Israelis can watch this series online and possibly on cable TV in the near future.

How amazing! After centuries of Jesus’ identity being stripped of his Jewishness, Israelis can finally experience Jesus as Yeshua – the Messiah of Israel!

Compassion Outreach

Compassion Outreach

By most estimates, we only have a handful of years left before the last survivors of the Holocaust pass away. The State of Israel estimates there are just 165,000 still alive in the country, and tens of thousands of them do not receive any direct benefits from the government.

One of our long-time partners has spent many years stepping in to provide compassionate care in the name of Yeshua for those without support. In 2021, they opened a brand new outreach center in the north of Israel, reaching 250 more survivors. This is on top of the other 500 survivors they regularly care for in three other areas in Israel. Over the past two years, more than 14 of these precious survivors have professed faith in Yeshua as their Messiah. What a miracle!

Another of our long-time partners was able to meet a great need that was exposed during the May conflict with Hamas in the city of Ashkelon, which is just six miles from the Gaza Strip. Your financial gifts help provide bomb shelters for the poor Ethiopian Jewish residents of the city, as well as new tablets for the Ethiopian kids. To demonstrate just how much your giving blessed the city, you can watch a special thank you from the mayor of Ashkelon here.


Recalling these testimonies, I am amazed at how faithful God was during this past year. And I am amazed at how our bold Jewish partners around the world continue to shine the light of Yeshua into difficult, dark places.

Though we have tens of other testimonies from your giving, I hope that you can get a small picture of how important your financial support of ministry to Israel and the Jewish people has been this past year. Just as it says in Psalm 122: “May all who love Jerusalem prosper!” – and that includes YOU!

We pray that you would find joy in the fruit of your faithfully sown seeds “to the Jew first,” and that God would continue to show His faithfulness to you in the days ahead!

Nic Lesmeister

Nic Lesmeister
Director of Gateway Center for Israel
Pastor for Church & Jewish Relations

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