Hello All,

I have been browsing this website for some time now, but I have only today decided to join. To my horror (maybe a tad exaggerated) when I tried to pick my time-zone, I discovered that Jerusalem is not mentioned!!! I live in a small town in the Negev Desert, Arad - which some of you may have heard of due to the Chasidic persecution of the local Messianic population. Please can you add Jerusalem to your time-zone drop down menu, we feel unwanted enough as it is ;-)

Many Thanks
JC

You and all the residents of Arad who are persecuted because of Messiah are in our thoughts and prayers. When I learned of this through you tube I was astounded by the level of hate that you had to and I am sure still have to deal with. If that is what it means to be pious....then I think I'd rather not be pious. Has there been any of the "pharisees" who have been moved by your witness and tried to establish contact with you or at least left you alone (in the spirit of Gamaliel)? As kp said please share your experiences and the goings on of Arad and Greater Israel. I am so glad you joined us. Welcome to our little fellowship.

Shalom in Messiah's Great Name

So glad to see you here, we look forwards to the time when Yahushua 'whistles' and we can all join you there!

well hello... you are definitely in my thoughts and prayers.

Hi Shalom82,

There were infact two semi-amusing incidents in Yel Aviv. The first was with a Christian Fellowship who got very upset with me because I refused to call myself I Christian. I am not a Christian, have not ever been a Christian and will not ever be a Christian. I am Jewish primarily because I have been graphted on to the tree through the gift of Salvation and sacrifice by my living saviour Yehoshua HaMashiakh - (just in case there was any doubt) - and secondarily by man's rules of descent through a Jewish mother.

The second run in was with a rather evangelistic young lady who within 5 minutes of meeting me and finding out that I am Jewish did her best to convert and 'complete' me. Personally I find the term 'Completed Jew' rather distateful and this poor ,well meaning young lady actually used this term - aaaaaahhhhh - when she hit me with the full force of her patronising churchianity and told me that if I believed in Jesus and became a Chritian and came to her Church all my sins would be forgiven. I feel a bit ashamed of myself because I was a bit cruel, but unfortunately many of the 'evangelists' out here are here in there own righteousness, and it shows. I found out that she had attended a Missionary school and had taken courses on how to Evangelise. I informed her that she was wasting her time and money and pointed out that Paul only ever went to school to learn why to stone the followers of the Messiah, evangelist are appointed by the Ruarch Khodesh and not by the self-righteous, dog-collared, puffed up tramps who masquerade around preaching good works and keeping a tally of the number of converts THEY PERSONALLY have 'saved'. OK, so I was actually a bit kinder than that, but I don't think it clicked that she was 'preaching to the choir' at any point during our little chat.

I have a big problem who those who Evangelise in their own righteousness, I came to a belief in YHWH and his son Yehoshua through what THEY revealed to me, not through what a man revealed to me. YHWH is willing to use a donkey to tell his bidding when we listen, but it has to be HIS bidding. There is no point going off half cocked using our own knowledge of good and evil, for that is described as filthy rags is it not? At the same time, it is obvious when you come across a true RK appointed evangelist, for them, the Word is more important than the conquest and they tend to affront you with the truth, not irritate you with leaven.

As for 'converting', I do not subscribe to any sect, branch, denomination or whatnot of Messianic worship. I fully intent to 'stand fast in the liberty with which the Mashiakh has set me free', to bind myself and shackle myself to another set of man made shibboleths (my previous set being humanist principles) would be spitting in the face of Yehoshua who went through horrific pain and suffering to take upon himself my sin. It would be grossly inaccurate to say that I am without man made shibboleths/religion, however I wish to be transformed and not conformed, so if it is not in the Tanakh/RT, I'm not interested, and attaching a label or a set of strictures upon myself would be just that. Anyway, if I try to change myself it will be like (please excuse the crudity, but I can't think of a better analogy) p*ssing into the wind, pointless and smelly - a bit like filthy rags. I need to hand myself over to YHWH to change me according to HIS righteousness, and then anything that I should be doing that I am not doing now will BE the result of a transformation not conformation.

As for the Chasidim, so far I believe that they are stuck firmly in their rut. I have not heard of any of them here in Arad breaking free from their self-imposed bondage. I trust in YHWH and that he has bought me here for a reason, but I do not want to forge ahead without him, he is afterall YHWH and anything I can do, he can do better. I am 100% sure that when the time is right for him and for Yehoshua, the scales will fall from their eyes and they will turn their faces back to him - he tells us they will, and it is not for me to hurry him along.

I have just looked at how much I have written, I didn't mean to! In closing, something that has become very clear to me in my travels is that if we do not do things accourding to Yehoshua's time, and righteousness, we screw up. I know I will do this many times, but at least I am now aware that this is something I need to submit (not in the Islamic sense) to YHWH and Yehoshua that they may change and replace my knowledge with their own. I also remember that it was his agape that has allowed me to be here, and that it is His agape that will bring his people back to him, no my filio.

Does any of that answe your question?

Shalom and agape, I am overjoyed to have found you all.

jojo... that's what i'm talking about!!!! i just absolutely love this place! i can't stop coming in to find out what YHWH's people are doing and saying. when did you move out there? what made you do that? was that pre or post accepting YHWH? i'm just so interested! i really want to spread the good news full time, but i have to work... maybe one day. please keep us posted. by the way, kp was right. jerusalem time is the only time that counts!

Shalom, Jojo! It is so refreshing and encouraging to find brethren in the chosen land who are so full of passion. Your post is most helpful and puts into perspective my own situation as I have a RCC family, Protestant in-laws and business partners, and stay in a predominantly Muslim country, Malaysia. I'd rather stones than rockets if I were in your shoes as well! If the going gets too hot for you there you are welcome to come to Malaysia. Oh, I forgot... they don't like people with Israel passports! In fact, Israel is the only country where Malaysians are not allowed to visit! Something to do with Muslim unity and the Palestinian cause. If only the non-Muslims here knew what the real story is...

Anyway, I plan to move out of this country before the, er, significant events happen but I do not know where to go to. At least I know now where not to go to! :-)

But seriously, I think it time that true Yahudim start to fellowship, whether online or in person. I'd like to start a Skype chat so if you or anyone else is keen to chat with a loner in the Far East, please contact me at bitskype88. Please do remember the time zones, though! ;-)

Hi bitnet,

my apologies, I have not been ignoring you, I have been hectically busy over the last couple of weeks with studying in the morning and working in the afternoons/evenings/nights. I'm knackered!

Malaysia, wow! I know there are some huge problems out there, I worked for a while with a Chinese christian lady from Singapore and she was telling me about some of the horrors the non-muslims face.

I have also lived in a number of Muslim countries, and at the time I was there, I actually believed all the hype and propaganda. Strangely enough even in my rather hippy agnostic/humanist days I still wanted to come to Israel, but I would have called it Palestine and I would have been here supporting our poor dwntrodden Palestinian brothers. Funny how knowing YHWH can change one.

Anyhow, welcome to the forum :-) Iwill add you to my skype (won't put my skype name up here, but I'll introduce myself when I ask you to be a contact)

:-)

OK... a bit of geography and history...

Malaysia as a country is a federation of the states of peninsular Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak and is situated south of Thailand and just north of tiny Singapore. Singapore was expelled from the Malaysian federation in the 60s following a hue and cry raised by the non-Malays led by Lee Kuan Yew regarding the promotion and advancement of one race over the others. The contention was that political and economic policies should be for the betterment for all Malaysians based on merit and requirement, not simply because the demographics shows that one particular race has a large majority of poor and impoverished people and will need special attention indefinitely.

Anyway, fast forward 50 years after independence from the British in 1957 to now, and we have a country whose demographics has changed dramatically, especially under the past leadership of Mahathir Mohamed. Poverty is practically eradicated but major issues has surfaced in this mainly peaceful country run by a coalition of Malays, Chinese, Indians and a few other races. Muslims who formed just over 50 per cent at independence now number almost 70 per cent. However, policies favouring Malays are still promoted, and Islam has been favoured with the Sharia slowly gaining momentum as Wahabbi influence permeates every level of the Malay populace. This is because the ruling party is dominated by the Malays, who despite having only about 55% of popular vote hold almost 80% of the parliament because of the electoral process. As such, over the past decades many policies favouring Malays/Muslims have been promoted at the expense of the others.

The non-Muslims are beginning to contest this turn of events as many spouses of converts have lost property and children. Even though freedom of religion is supposed to be practiced, a Malay must be Muslim, and a Malay who converts to another religion loses the rights and privileges of his race. In fact, he practically loses his race and and family. This issue gained some publicity recently and raised the awareness of the public regarding Islam and the Sharia, and people are beginning to defend the Constitution more vehemently. However, still no person is allowed to preach any religion to a Muslim, and Muslims are also controlled to ensure that they do not stray the line or become extremists or adopt Shiite practices in this largely Sunni Muslim population.

Unfortunately, the Muslims run the government, control the army, police and public utilities. So the other races have been rather subdued. It has been a matter of give and take just to keep the peace. Until recently that is. Several Indians, mostly Hindu, not backed by the Indian party in the government, made a public protest recently and caused some disturbance because of their economic and social troubles. Their plight is real and they managed to make a statement that made people take notice of their situation. Unfortunately, their antics backfired as they had exaggerated several points and claimed "ethnic cleansing" when all was needed was "economic disadvantages" and "social negligence". Furthermore, some of them resorted to violence during the street protest causing some injury to the police and other persons. They lost the high ground altogether.

But, again to put things into perspective, Malaysia is still a really nice place to live in. These disturbances are very few and rare compared to many other countries. We do not have the number of extremists as in Indonesia and there are many foreign investors. Malaysia has many electronic factories and if they stop producing, the world's economy will be impacted as much IT production is based here. Education is quite good although the policies favour the Malays. There is much to like here and those in the know would like to stay here. However, if things are not governed properly and if people cede their rights, it will eventually change to become more like Indonesia. Many non-Malays emigrate each year because they feel they have better opportunities elsewhere and because they are concerned about their children's future.

So Malaysia is still quite unlike Indonesia where religious strife is often marked with violence. The people in Bali (mostly animistic Hinduism), east Timor and Flores (mostly Catholic), and some parts of Sulawesi (some Protestant denominations) have paid dearly in the past and are paying economically today, but in Malaysia the non-Muslims have been tolerated. In fact, the Malaysian Prime Minister has introduced Islam Hadhari (Daily Islam) as a counter to the growing fundamentalism in the region. The country cannot survive without the non-Malays and they know that it is unwise to harm their non-Muslim population hence the current version of Islam which espouses peace towards all people, with the exception of Israel which they refuse to recognise.

However, many people do not know the real history of the Middle-East region and are continually fed with biased news regarding Palestine so they have developed antipathy towards Israel. That said, some Muslims here are beginning to realise that not all is well with their faith and some wish to convert. However, it is practically illegal for them to do so. But they are taught to refer to the Divided City as Yahrulshalayim and they refer to Jews as Yahudim, the cause of a lot of the world's problems. Even some non-Muslims tell me that the Jews control the world's economy, media and popular culture and have brought the world to its current situation geopolitically and economically! So, this City that did not appear in the time zone drop-down menu is very much in the eyes of the people staying here in this corner of the world. Yes, with some 150 million Muslims here in this region, Yahrulshalayim will not be forgotten, albeit for the wrong reasons.