A powerful demonstration of His love in action

Dear Friend,

I wanted to get out of my father’s home alive more than I wanted anything in the world. I didn’t think I was going to live to see 20 because of his abuse. 

When I was eight, he stripped me naked and beat me with an extension cord until I was a bloody mess and then locked me in a dirt cellar. 

I was 11 the first time he strangled me and left me for dead…the night I tried to defend my Jewish mother from his hatred and harm.

When I was 16, I went to the Army recruiter. I thought that would be my ticket to get away. 

But I was 5 feet 11 inches tall, and didn’t meet the minimum weight requirement. I weighed 111 pounds, and the minimum was 132. I could not go in for several months until I turned 17.

So many nights we went to bed hungry because my father was spending his money on drinking instead of food. 

So many days, I went to the dump and dug through the garbage looking for something to eat. 

I didn’t think there was any hope, but God had other plans.

While I was in Jerusalem recently, a line several blocks long of Jewish Israelis had formed in front of your Friends of Zion Center. 

I had to hold back the tears because I realized they came because you are giving them hope. 

A rabbi who came to our event urgently asked me if I would meet with him in the morning. 

Over breakfast, he told me he has 5,000 orphans that he is feeding, clothing, and providing everything for and did not have the funds. 

He asked if I could help, and I said, “I will ask my beloved partners, and if they say yes, I will say yes.”

It may be hard for you to understand how a Jewish child in America could suffer abuse like I did, but that is why it is so painful for me to see these orphans suffer. 

But I also know if they have HOPE, everything can change, as it did in my life.

Because of the war, so many in Israel are suffering, and there simply isn’t enough money to go around. That’s why your help is so urgently needed today. 

I placed my hand on this promise in Jerusalem and asked God to speak to your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit so we can meet these needs.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

      —James 1:27

A religion that doesn’t care for orphans holds no value in God’s eyes. 

The work that we are doing is a powerful demonstration of His love in action that these precious children will never forget.

There are so many Jewish people who think Christians hate them. That is all many of them have ever seen. 

My own mother was one of them. 

Her husband, my father, went to church and carried a big Bible, but then every Friday night, he got drunk at the Twilight Cafe and came home and beat her up between 1-2 am Saturday mornings. 

He was convinced that she had an affair with a Jewish man and that I was not really his son. He hated Jews even though he married one.

I was four the first time my mother told me, “Christians hate Jews. Christians kill Jews.” 

I had been watching cartoons, and when they ended, a Billy Graham special came on television. She rushed into the room and turned it off. She said, “I named you after my grandfather Rabbi Mikel Katz-Nelson who was burned to death in his wooden synagogue with 2,000 Jews.”

She wanted nothing to do with Christianity.

But together we are sending a very different message.

Together we are reaching out to “the least of these.” Together we are showing true Christian love in action in an unmistakable way. 

Mother Teresa prayed with me in Rome years ago, and she said, “You can’t love Jesus without loving the Jewish people, and love is not something you say, it’s something you do”.

Your Friends of Zion Center in the Holy City has become a lighthouse of love to the entire nation of Israel.

Thousands of Jewish people are hearing…and seeing…that they have Christian friends who are standing with them in the darkest hour of Israel’s modern history.

And today I’m asking for your help so that we can do even more to help the precious orphans of Israel…and poor Holocaust survivors…and the families of those still being held hostage…and IDF soldiers injured in defending their country…and refugees whose homes have been damaged or destroyed. 

The list goes on and on, but it is only possible if you make it possible.

Your Holy Jerusalem Bless the Orphans offering today will be approved and accepted in the eyes of God. 

It will be a light of Christian love to the whole House of Israel. 

It will be food and clothing and medicine and teaching and even housing for people in desperate need.

I can’t forget the faces of the orphans I met in Israel. And I’m asking you to join hands with me in changing their lives for the better. 

I look forward to hearing from you very soon.

P.S. The people of Israel are rejoicing because of your love and help. They are blessing your name. So many people told me “Thank you,” but they are really thanking you not me. You make all of it possible. Please be as generous as you can with your gift so that we can do more to help so many people in need. God bless you. Your gift today will support all we are doing from your Friends of Zion Center to bless the House of Israel. “I will bless those who bless thee and curse those who curse thee” (Genesis 12:3).