“He Changed My Life”
John Theodor
Dear friends in Jesus Christ, Shalom from Jerusalem. This past year has been an encouraging year for outreach here in the land of Israel. In 2009, Barack Obama took office in the USA, and the world was ringing with the tune of change. In Israel there was also a change in government, and people were left with mixed feelings and disillusioned expectations with some of the changes taking place. We know that the ultimate and eternal change that takes place within our heart comes from hearing the word of God and accepting Jesus as the rightful Lord and Savior of our soul. With that in mind, we began to develop a national outreach throughout Israel with the slogan, “He Changed My Life”. Recently, we placed large posters with this phrase onto 300 buses in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa. Two major national news internet sites with advertisement banners also carried this slogan; central regional radio played one week of radio ads proclaiming “He Changed My Life”. In Haifa we had one giant billboard for one month on the roof of a one story building that was visible to pedestrians walking and shopping in the Haifa/Mount Carmel area.
“He Changed My Life” refers to how Jesus the Messiah has changed the lives of Jewish people in Israel. Ten local Israeli’s believers share their life-changing stories about how they came to faith in the Messiah Yeshua in a book called, “The Power to Change”. That book, along with other materials, was offered free to anyone who called and was willing to place an order after seeing the ads.
This campaign, “He Changed My Life,” was meant to run for three weeks on the buses across the three major cities of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. During the first day of the campaign, phones in Tel Aviv rang hot; and Jerusalem along with Haifa also received a good amount of calls. However, 50% of people who called refused to receive the book after they heard that it was about lives changed because of Jesus the Messiah. Nevertheless, it provided great opportunities to those who were manning the phones as they were able to share the gospel with many callers.
A few days into the campaign, the “religious” (ultra-orthodox) had called the bus companies and pressured them to stop the ads on their buses. While we had a contract with the bus company that they could not break, they nevertheless assured the “religious” who were opposing the ads that they would be more careful in the future about who they would allow to be advertising on their buses. In other words, they would not allow believers in Jesus to place missionary ads on their buses again (so much for freedom of speech).
Seeing now that the bus company would not remove the ads, the “religious” started to tear them down from the buses themselves. By the end of the first week there were no ads left on the 70 Jerusalem buses and by the first few days of the second week there were none left on the 170 buses in Tel-Aviv. All had been torn down.
We knew in advance that problems and pressure to remove our ads would occur and we were ready for difficulties. Our experience with past campaigns was used to maximize the advertising time and impact, but the difference this time was in how quick and efficient the opposing groups were in removing our ads.
However, on the whole, the campaign was a blessing despite the challenges from those opposing the message of salvation in Jesus Christ. The campaign ended with around 1200 people responding to the ads from the buses, radio, internet and billboard. Nearly 600 people ordered the book, “Power to Change”.
The best response we received was from the internet banners – yet even the internet site received complaints from the opposition wanting the ads stopped. The internet companies also had to honor their contract. In this case, the opposition could not physically tear our internet banners down.
Despite all of these challenges, we know that the Lord is sovereign, and we trust in His grace to speak to the hearts of the people who read the literature that was sent out. Please pray for us, and for those in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa who are ongoingly involved with us in the sharing of the Gospel.
The Lord bless you all.
In His service,
John Theodor
John Theodor
Dear friends in Jesus Christ, Shalom from Jerusalem. This past year has been an encouraging year for outreach here in the land of Israel. In 2009, Barack Obama took office in the USA, and the world was ringing with the tune of change. In Israel there was also a change in government, and people were left with mixed feelings and disillusioned expectations with some of the changes taking place. We know that the ultimate and eternal change that takes place within our heart comes from hearing the word of God and accepting Jesus as the rightful Lord and Savior of our soul. With that in mind, we began to develop a national outreach throughout Israel with the slogan, “He Changed My Life”. Recently, we placed large posters with this phrase onto 300 buses in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa. Two major national news internet sites with advertisement banners also carried this slogan; central regional radio played one week of radio ads proclaiming “He Changed My Life”. In Haifa we had one giant billboard for one month on the roof of a one story building that was visible to pedestrians walking and shopping in the Haifa/Mount Carmel area.