By Charles Gardner —
What particularly spurred me on to volunteer for Jewish mission following my retirement in 2013 was a video of a Jerusalem conference where Jew and Arab met as brothers reconciled through the cross of Christ.
So when I found out more about the Mount Moriah Trust through a book I have just read – Go to the Land of Moriah by Kathy Stewart (Freedom Publishing) – I was thrilled to discover their commitment to the ‘one new man’ of believers in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).
Founded in 2002 by Kathy and Tony Stewart, from Berkshire in England, it has now become an international ministry dedicated to helping the poor and needy in Israeli congregations of both Messianic Jews (who believe in Jesus) and Christian Arabs.
In a country marked by a wide division between rich and poor with a significant percentage living on or below the poverty line, they offer practical support for struggling families. And with the book published at the start of the pandemic in 2020, this was the case long before the present difficulties posed by the war in Gaza.
Throughout their involvement so far, the economy has been stretched by the effects of earlier Intifadas (uprisings) severely hampering tourism on which Israel depends so much, leaving too many unemployed and destitute. And, of course, the onset of Covid exacerbated the problem. In fact, the state of the economy amid the ongoing violence is the reason so many young Israelis are now living abroad.
Their specific call to aid needy believers is based on Romans 15:27 where the Apostle Paul makes the point that “if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings”.
Kathy and Tony travel to Israel on a regular basis at their own expense to personally supervise the process of helping those identified by various pastors as in special need, with all money raised going to the cause.
The charity logo depicts Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes, signifying that God will provide as we give out what we have in our hands. Moriah relates to the place where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac, looking forward to the great sacrifice of Christ in the same city.
Bearing in mind that this book was completed long before the present war with Hamas, it is instructive to be reminded of a 2003 statement from the terrorist group that “the Holy Land was entering the Gates of Hell” and they had only one goal – “the destruction of Israel and every Jew is a target marked for death”.¹
That said, one of the congregations regularly helped by the Trust is Gaza Baptist Church, still battling on amidst all the carnage. Even back in 2007, when Hamas first came to power there, the terror group were committing atrocities including the torture and murder of a Christian bookshop manager and refusing to distribute fuel for the people.
By 2012 rockets and mortars were being fired into southern Israel from Gaza on an almost daily basis. And by 2017 Kathy reported that Gazan residents were living in desperate conditions which were deteriorating all the time.
As the ministry reaches out to both Jew and Arab, there is a natural interaction between the sons of Abraham, causing Kathy to remark how they saw the ‘one new man in Christ’ taking place before their eyes.
Meanwhile, the Arab pastor of the obviously thriving Cana Baptist Church expressed the wish that tourists coming to view the ancient site where Jesus turned water into wine would be more inclined to visit today’s ‘living stones’ – a point worth noting for tour leaders.
Kathy believes the Trust was in a sense founded by her grandfather who sadly died of malaria while serving in the Holy Land during World War I, leaving her grandmother and four children struggling to survive on a small pension. And if it hadn’t been for the help of a relative in America, she would have been unable to cope. Now Kathy and Tony, through God’s grace, had become a source of blessing to others in need.
Among the many helped over the years was a Jewish immigrant from Siberia who had been homeless and addicted to heroin before receiving the Lord and being fully restored at the House of Victory, a ministry of the Mt Carmel congregation near Haifa. He duly became a very productive staff member, with the Trust contributing towards his salary to enable him to support his wife and family with whom he had become reconciled.
There it is again: reconciliation – between husband and wife, Jew and Arab, God and man. This is the gospel!
For more details of the Trust, see www.mountmoriah.org.uk
1 Quoting the Daily Telegraph, September 8, 2003
Another awesome report from Charles Gardner
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