March Update in May
In March, Rosemary Schindler, great niece of Oskar Schindler, along Dror Vichansky, a tour guide from Israel spoke at RIHOP. Dror shared about current political issues regarding Israel and gave us his testimony of how He came to faith in Yeshua. We celebrated Shabbat (Sabbath) with Rosemary and Dror the next evening. It was just like a family get together with REALLY great food and then we entered into a spontaneous time of prayer and prophecy for the city of Richmond.
Now on to April and May!
The months of April and May have been part of one of the busiest seasons in RIHOP. For months we were planning our I3 Internship which turned into us hosting a few mini-conferences for the general public, members of other houses of prayer, city pastors and leaders, as well as all of RIHOP staff becoming stu- dents in I3 as well!
Jewish History Seminar with Rabbi Jamie Cowen
We began our mini-conferences with 25 hours of intense teaching on the history of the Jewish people. Just like with every culture, in order to minister to them you have to know about them. Rabbi Jamie Cowen, a Messianic Jewish believer and Rabbi of Tikvat Israel (a Messianic Congregation in Richmond), reviewed the entire history of the Jewish people beginning with Noah up to the present time. Jamie (Harner) and I were struck with how much the Jewish people have gone through and how God has faithfully been calling for them to come back to Himself. We were also impacted that the church is called to stand with Israel.
Doug Hershey
CityWide Passover Seder and Drama
Immediately after Jamie Cowen’s history course, we hosted a citywide Passover Seder at the Robinson Theatre in Church Hill. Rabbi Jamie Cowen facilitated the Seder and RIHOP, along with students from the YWAM-Va base’s April Discipleship Training School and volunteers from our community and church (Legacy Fellowship International) performed a short drama displaying God’s faithfulness to Israel and ultimate redemption of the Jewish people. The main purpose behind the citywide Seder was to declare God’s heart for Israel to the pastors and leaders of the city. We had 135 pastors and city leaders in atten- dance, many of whom left dramatically touched by God for the Jewish people, making a declaration that Richmond stands with God’s cove- nant and chosen people.
After the Seder, we had a little rest. With so much information to process, we had to sit and ask ourselves, “what does this mean for us as Spirit-filled Chris- tians called to serve the Jewish people?” The Lord helped answer that question for us by bringing us a man named Doug Hershey. Doug and his wife Rebecca, are the directors of The Ebed Network based in southern Maine. The vision of The Ebed Network is to demonstrate love in practical ways to Israel and her neighbors. Doug has authored a book called The Christian's Biblical Guide to Understanding Israel, published by Creation House and is an amazing Bible teacher with a heart to serve God’s chosen people. He taught at RIHOP on Jesus and the Torah (Law) and the New Covenant. He showed us that Jesus did not put an end to the Law but rather fulfilled every single aspect of it, giving us power as Jews and Gentiles alike to fulfill His Word. We felt that this was an appropri- ate and exciting end to the Spring Root Awakening Series.
Dover Baptist Association
We are also involved in a church plant along with RIHOP called Legacy Fellowship International. At our church we want to raise up disciples who will in turn also raise up disciples. A local Baptist association called Dover caught wind of what we are doing in downtown Richmond and
began approaching us about supporting our ministry. On May 1st, we attended to the 228th semi-annual Dover Baptist Associa- tion meeting where they officially welcomed us in as a church plant and pledged to begin financially supporting our church. We are very excited; however, what most excites us are the relation- ships that the Lord is building across denominations to reach our
city for the gospel.
Personal Updates!
Plans are going really well for our wedding. In May we are beginning marriage counseling with our pastors Matthew and Sherrie Moore. Hav- ing been immensely blessed by seeing their marriage, we are really ex- cited to learn from them; they are incredible examples to us as a married couple in ministry. As we see their ministry gifts working together, we are learning how to let each other flow in our areas of giftedness. We will be meeting with them twice a month until October.
We are also still in “high gear” for raising support. However, we are seeing our support base grow monthly. We are so thankful! Please con- tinue to pray for us for the full provision God has promised.
We have a combined monthly income of about $685. We believe the Lord is going to give us the 3rd floor apartment above RIHOP to be our first home together; we also believe that we will be fully supported be- fore we are married in October. Our goal is a monthly income of $4000. Would you consider supporting us monthly?
Monthly partners! We love and appreciate you so much.
You can also donate to us online via Paypal by visiting www.paypal.com or thru Jamie’s blog at soundignified.blogspot.com and using this Paypal ID (for both websites): jamie.harner@yahoo.com.
