Issue 1/2019 INTERCEDING EBENEZER OPERATION EXODUS FOR THE ALIYAH “I WILL MAKE EACH OF MY MOUNTAINS A ROAD, AND MY HIGHWAYS SHALL BE ELEVATED. SURELY THESE SHALL COME FROM AFAR; LOOK! THOSE FROM THE NORTH AND THE WEST, AND THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM.” ISAIAH 49: 11–12 A Christian organisation helping the Jewish people return to Israel INTERCEDING FOR THE ALIYAH hy are Christians in many nations So now was time for the long exile to helping Jewish people coming end! Seventy years were over. The God of INTERNATIONAL ‘W from distant parts back to Israel’s desire and purpose was “to bring Israel? How does this aliyah connect you back to this place”. “This place” modern times with history, biblical is Jerusalem. It was time to go home! prophecy and the end of days? Daniel went into action: “… I gave my “Then it will happen on that day attention to the LORD God to seek Him that the LORD Will again recover by prayer and supplications, with fasting, the second time with His hand The sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:2-3). remnant of His people, who will remain … He will lift up a standard for the To see aliyah highways open up, the PETE STUCKEN nations And assemble the banished first priority is to seek the Lord in prayer. CHAIRMAN ones of Israel, And will gather the Daniel prayed and interceded for the aliyah EBENEZER dispersed of Judah From the four (Daniel 9:4-19). His prayer was heard. EMERGENCY FUND corners of the earth.” Isaiah 11:11-12 INTERNATIONAL In 538 BC the Medes and Persians We live in these extraordinary “second overthrew the Babylonians and Cyrus time” days. Not long after Isaiah wrote became ruler of the empire. In a most these words upheaval and tragedy extraordinary turn of events, this gentile overtook the Jews: the destruction of king made a proclamation directing Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Jews to leave Babylon and return the exile of the Jews into Babylonian to Israel to rebuild the temple. 2 captivity. Weeping over all that was lost Chronicles 36:23 explains: the Lord characterised those early years of Jewish “stirred up the spirit” of Cyrus. exile: “By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down and wept, When we The aliyah started. Zerubbabel led the remembered Zion …” (Psalm 137:1). first 50,000 Jews, streaming back to the Land. Not everybody wanted to At first they remembered Zion with go. Some had become settled, life in heartache and longing. Then, as years Babylon was comfortable. The journey passed, they set themselves to work to Israel was arduous and dangerous. to make a success of life in exile. The heartache faded. Life went on. Young people got married, babies were born, skills were put to good use. The Jews prospered within the fabric of the Babylonian empire. Daniel was a young man when taken into Babylonian captivity. He was gifted and soon found himself propelled into positions of responsibility. Later, In his mature years, he received a life-changing revelation and prayer burden for his community in exile. Studying the prophet Jeremiah, he read: “For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed Welcoming for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill home Ethiopian My good word to you, to bring you olim to Israel. back to this place” (Jeremiah 29:10). 2 | Ebenezer Operation Exodus Sixty years later a majority of Jews had still Steadily the Jews kept coming. not responded to the call. It was the time The city walls were rebuilt. The Key Words of Queen Esther, anti-Semitism was on the temple rebuilding progressed. rise and Hamaan hatched his evil plot to Aliyah continued over three or four Aliyah is the word for the immigration murder all Jews right across the empire. generations, for a century or more. of Jewish people Together with her community, Esther from the Diaspora to turned to prayer and fasting and by God’s The aliyah from Babylon was a the Land of Israel. mercy disaster for the Jews was averted. preparation, a rehearsal: Israel being The word in Hebrew restored as a picture of a greater end- means ascent and Fifteen years on, Ezra, priest and Torah time restoration that was yet to come. is defined as ‘going scribe, led another group making aliyah. up’ – progressing Ezra was passionate about restoring the Today we live in the days of the “second towards Jerusalem. people’s understanding of the Hebrew time”’. Once again the Jewish people are scriptures. He marked the biblically- returning to the Land in fulfilment of the Olim means Jewish appointed times and festivals and words given to the prophets, this time immigrants to Israel – those making set portions of Scripture to be read. coming home in staggering numbers. aliyah. In the singular, A restoration of worship began. The second time dwarfs the first. They’re a male immigrant is coming not just from Babylon but “from called an oleh and Tens of thousands had now made aliyah, the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah a female immigrant yet surprisingly many Jews remained in 11:12). From the 1890s they began to an olah. Potential Babylon. In 445 BC, almost a century after come from the land of the north. Then olim are those our Cyrus’ proclamation, Nehemiah gathered with the UN (gentile) proclamation in teams contact a further group and set off. The task now 1947 the aliyah gates were unlocked as and encourage was to rebuild the city walls. Yet aliyah 3.5 million Jewish exiles streamed home to make aliyah. remained a daunting prospect. Once the to Israel – a banner to the nations. long journey was over, the rebuilding was massive and the surrounding peoples Yet that’s only the beginning. Our were opposed to the Jews returning commitment, like Daniel, is to seek the to what was theirs. Nehemiah had to Lord in prayer for the complete fulfilment combine construction work with guard of His promises. We must never cease duty, weapons kept within reach. Attempts until we have seen Him fully “assemble to stop the reconstruction work came the banished ones of Israel and through ambush, plot, harassment – gather the dispersed of Judah from everything short of full-scale warfare. the four corners of the earth…” Young people making aliyah from Novosibirsk through the Naale educational programme which Ebenezer supports. 2 | Ebenezer Operation Exodus Helping His People Home | 3 A DIVINE MEETING lga had had an awful childhood They were both alcoholics and unable to and was now suffering from a think about what you said in earnest.” UKRAINE ‘O terrible disease. But she was strengthened by the hope of leaving After her parents died Olga had been taken Ukraine with her family to start in by relatives and badly treated, used as afresh in the Promised Land. a slave to look after their own children and locked in a cupboard. One day she The family were very poor because Olga escaped. In a police station officers listened was battling with cancer and her husband to her plight and sent her to an orphanage. was paid irregularly for the job he did. There she met her future husband. We arrived at their home in the Kherson region with a Hanukkah food parcel and Olga paused for a moment, thinking YANYA sweets for their four-year-old son and about her “grave disease, although I am UKRAINE TEAM themselves. They were overcome with recovering now”. She was concerned joy because they had not had any bread about not leaving her son without a for two days. We told them of God’s plan mother and then said that not only had for the Jewish people and of Christians she cherished a dream of meeting me who pray for Israel and give practical and again but “of going to Israel one day”. financial support to make aliyah possible. She wanted to survive and bring up her son there. She asked us to help the Olga and her husband listened intently. three of them make aliyah. We were so Suddenly joy Olga’s face lit up: “ I thrilled to tell her that we would do so. recognise your voice,Yanya. I have always had a desire to find you and here you “When we married I shared with my are in my home! I am 23 years old now husband about Christians that help but 13 years ago you and foreigners Jews go to the Promised Land, and [Ebenezer volunteers] visited me and here you are with us today!” cried my parents and shared about Israel. Olga. It was a divine meeting! 4 | Ebenezer Operation Exodus PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF ugenia had been discouraged from She went to Donetsk, despite the fighting, going to Israel but now she was more and searched for her grandfather’s papers E determined than ever to live there. to prove his Jewish roots: “I managed UKRAINE to obtain a number of documents and Eugenia, her two daughters, Carolina submitted them for a consular check-up.” (11) and Yana (3) and her parents lived Wonderfully, the family were granted Israeli in the Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine. visas. She told her parents and was thrilled Her grandfather was Jewish: “He dreamt that they had now become keen about about going to Israel all his life but his making aliyah, especially since discovering dream never came true,” she told us. that students at the music school her During World War II he hid from the Nazis father had taught at had moved to Israel.