Setting Prisoners Free in Zimbabwe

Some of our Team

In Masvingo, Zimbabwe at a medical clinic with Jewish Voice Ministries International (JVMI) the extraordinary happened, again. This was my fourth medical clinic with JVMI, and honestly it moved slower at the start than the previous clinics I had been on. By Wednesday night I had resigned myself to not having a single amazing moment. For context, on my first trip sang the Aaronic Benediction over 700 Ethiopian pastors in the old African Union in Ethiopia and then again over 1500 people in the new African Union. Amazing. On my second trip, I preached the Gospel to an entire Beta-Israel village near Tach Gayint, Ethiopia and saw the whole village come to faith in Yeshua. What?! Ridiculous. On my third trip, this time to Zimbabwe, a young woman came with manifestations from a demon that would confuse her so much that she would go into a type of walking sleep and wake up lost; once, she woke up to find herself standing in a fire, her foot and leg burnt as a result. She came to the clinic clearly manifesting without control, and in the power of the name of Yeshua we were able to set her free. I had the chance to lead not only her, but her extended family to Yeshua, her father saying the words at the end, “We will follow the God that set her free from this demon.” I know, it sounds like a Bible story! Why does the Lord let me experience such amazing things? I am not sure, but I am grateful for the opportunities He gives me. 

Messianic Congregation in Masvingo, Zimbabwe 

On these trips, we open the clinic on Sunday afternoon (half day) and close them at noon on Friday (ends with a half day). Altogether the clinic is open 5 full days, so by the time we get to Wednesday night there is only a day-and-a-half left and we begin to finish the clinic. So, on my fourth trip, again in Zimbabwe, we came to Wednesday night. Based on history, I expect at least one major thing to happen. Don't get me wrong - I am not saying that this is the way it has to be, and I try to bring no expectation of what will happen on these trips. But at the same time, I live by the promise that God will do more than I can hope or imagine, and if you know me at all you know I can imagine pretty big.

On Thursday morning, I preached a sermon at the morning meeting for our international volunteers and local workers out of Exodus 14 and 15. The story follows the exodus of Israel from Egypt after 400 years of slavery and the parting of the Sea of Reeds where Israel walks through on dry land, and then the waters crash on the pursuing Egyptians and their chariots, drowning the enemies of Israel. The end of Exodus 14 reads, “So Adonai saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. When Israel saw the great work that Adonai did over the Egyptians, the people feared Adonai, and they believed in Adonai and in His servant Moses.” Then in Exodus 15 Moses sings a song to the Lord, 

I will sing to Adonai, for He is highly exalted!

The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea.

Adonai is my strength and song,

and He has become my salvation.

This is my God, and I will glorify Him,

my father’s God, and I will exalt Him.

Adonai is a warrior—Adonai is His Name!

Pharaoh’s chariots and his army

He has hurled into the sea,

and his chosen captains have sunk

into the Sea of Reeds. (Exodus 15:1-4)

The enemy said, “I will pursue,

I will overtake, I will divide the spoil.

My lust shall gorge on them!

I will draw my sword—my hand will destroy them.”

You blew with Your wind, the sea covered them.

They sank like lead in the mighty waters.

Who is like You, Adonai, among the gods?

Who is like You,

glorious in holiness,

awesome in praises,

doing wonders? (Exodus 15:9-11)

People waiting for prayer

I shared these verses at our morning meeting to encourage everyone to finish well. I wanted them to know that though the people we were ministering to were facing despair and darkness, the God of Israel wanted them to experience hope and light. That we came not just to help them physically but to show them Yeshua, and much like Israel crossing the Sea of Reeds we had already seen God do amazing things and that we can believe that in our last day-and-a-half in Zimbabwe our God was willing to do more than we can hope or imagine. I preached hard. I preached well. I needed to hear it myself for what was about to happen that afternoon. 

On Wednesday evening we got a call that a local prison wanted to send some prisoners to receive care at the clinic. On Thursday afternoon, twenty three of them came in a giant military-style bus with no windows. Handcuffed to the guy next to them and surrounded by armed officers, we needed to make sure they didn't interact with the general population of our clinic. Our team did a great job of getting these guys around the clinic to receive care. We cleared out one of the tents so we could gather all of these guys together and share the Gospel with them. They all sat quietly waiting, still handcuffed to the guy next to them; and with a translator this is what I told them… 

“We are so glad that you are here and that we have had the opportunity to serve you guys. You need to know that Yeshua our Messiah was crucified with two criminals. One chose to mock Yeshua and the other asked to be remembered. I know you feel forgotten but you need to know that we have not forgotten you, and more importantly the God who formed you in your mother’s womb has not forgotten you either. Although you live in a cell, God wants to set your hearts and souls free, today. He can set you free if you ask Him to forgive you of your sins and accept Yeshua as God and Savior.”

Prisoners, officers, translators and prayer team

We offered them prayer, two by two, and the opportunity to accept Yeshua and to ask him to forgive them of their sins. All twenty three prisoners chose to believe in Yeshua. Several of them asked for a Bible and we told them we would send them and that the Bible is not just a book but, if they read it, the Holy Spirit would bring the words to life and set their hearts, minds, and souls free. Even the officers accepted prayer from us as a group, and asked that if we were sending the prisoners Bibles that we send them for the officers as well!

Prayer Team

More than I can hope or imagine?! You better believe it. I don't plan these amazing moments on these trips but my God does. He just asks that I show up and trust Him. It is not even just about the one big moment, it’s about the amazing doctors, dentists, nurses, international volunteers, and local workers that make it possible to help over 9,600 people, to pray for 2,399 people, to see 322 people come to know Yeshua, and to see at least 18 verifiable healings in the name of Yeshua. We saw with our own eyes the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear and in this case at least 23 prisoners set free! The one big moment is my God’s way of putting a giant dollop of whip cream on top of the sundae. 

Back in Seattle, I made a joke in a group of pastors that for some reason my ministry is more effective in Africa than in Seattle, and then I went into a few-day funk because, momentarily, I believed it. It took me several days to come around because I believed that lie. Ministry that I do is effective, not because of me, but because of the God I serve. Here is what I know for sure: my God does more than I can hope or imagine - in Africa, in Israel, in America, in Seattle, in my congregation, for my family, my marriage, my children, their school, our friends. My God wants to pull people out of darkness and despair and show them light and hope in the name of Yeshua. He wants to use me and YOU to do it. And if given the opportunity, He might just change your life, increase your faith, and allow you to do amazing things for His glory! Without doubt (okay, maybe enough doubt to give God room to do amazing things), I can say, “The best is yet to come.” For me, my family, Restoration, Seattle, Messianic Judaism, the larger body of Messiah (Church), and anyone from any nation, Jew or Gentile, who calls on the name of Yeshua! 

Want to know more about Jewish Voice Ministries and medical outreaches?! Head over to https://www.jewishvoice.org/go/medical-outreaches

That Time We Led A Jewish Village To Yeshua

“Remember that time we led an entire village of Jewish people in a prayer to accept Yeshua as their Messiah?!” That is a quote I never imagined saying but that is exactly what happened in Tach Gayint, Ethiopia on a trip with Jewish Voice Ministries International (JVMI). JVMI has been doing medical clinics in places like Ethiopia and Zimbabwe for many years and an important part of every medical clinic is the prayer tent. After people receive medical treatment they have the option of stopping in the prayer tent for counseling and prayer. On every trip, in every clinic, people are prayed for and many are healed. As usual, we set up a prayer tent and for the first day and half saw some amazing miracles. One young girl, who walked six hours to come to the clinic, asked for prayer because her entire right arm was paralyzed. Two years earlier she had surgery to remove a goiter and during the surgery her entire right arm became paralyzed. A group of people prayed for her and I watched as life came to her arm and she began to lift her shoulder, bend her elbow, and grip her fingers for the first time in two years. Excitement and tears of joy filled her eyes as we all worshipped God for what He had done for her. It was an amazing miracle to witness. 

I have found in my walk with God that He loves to make changes when we are comfortable in the way we do things. Our first instinct is to blame the Devil and call it oppression or persecution. But, often what feels like persecution is just God changing direction for us. So, in the middle of the first full day came the news that the leaders of the town of Tach Gayint wanted the prayer tent shut down. Shutting down the prayer tent had never happened at a JVMI clinic and our team was faced with an interesting situation. As we all prayed, God had already set the stage as several clinic veterans sensed that this trip would be different. Words like “new paradigm”, “new model”, “change” and “organic” came to many even before we left the United States. With the shut down of the prayer tent looking like a reality, the question was, “what do we do now?” and part of the answer the Lord gave us became one of the great events of my life. 

Tach Gaynit, Ethiopia has a population of 6,000 Jewish people in villages scattered all over the area. These villages of Jewish people are the reason that JVMI decided to host a clinic in Tach Gayint. With the prayer tent shut down, we decided to send teams to these villages to share directly with these Jewish people about Yeshua. I was a part of a team of 24 who went to a village of about 70 Jewish people. To get to this remote village, it was an hour drive from the clinic site and a 4 mile walk, which felt like it was up hill both ways. Sammy, one of our translators and a Messianic Leader from Gondor, Ethiopia gathered the people together. They brought out goat skins for all of us to sit on so we could talk together. Ezra, one of the leaders from JVMI, asked the villagers to tell their story. One of the older villagers stood and told us that he had a vision the night before. In his vision he saw a great light like the sun coming down the path of their village. He told us, “I am getting old and will die soon, but I want to live as long as the moon.”

I told them that we were not the light from the vision but we represented the light, Yeshua our Messiah. The villagers told us of all of their suffering as Jews. Houses burnt down, hard time finding work, children not able to go to school, works of art made to be sold that no one would buy because they were made by Jewish people. In Ethiopia many people believe a unique version of the old anti-Semitism of blood libel. It is believed that Jews turn into Hyena’s at night to take babies and drink peoples blood. It is also believed that Jewish people can curse you by giving you the evil eye. If bad things happen to you or family, it is probably because a Jewish person gave you the evil eye. Even in 2015, Jewish people were killed as “retaliation” for perceived curses. 

We told the village that Jewish people have been suffering all over the world for thousands of years and that they were not alone in their suffering. Joshua Aaron and Liron Siegel, from Israel, both shared about their families that suffered persecution. Then I shared with them about our Messiah who suffered 2,000 years ago. That He suffered for Jewish people and was beaten, bruised, whipped, had a crown of thorns placed on His head and then crucified. As He hang on the cross He said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” He prayed for those who persecuted Him. He died then rose from the dead three days later and told His disciples to tell everyone about His story. We told this Jewish village, in the middle of remote Ethiopia, that they are why we had came. That we wanted to share the story of Yeshua who was not just a man but also the God of Israel. That He was with them every time they suffered, He was with them in their persecution, and that He knew persecution Himself. That He came for Jewish people and that all they had to do was ask Him to forgive them of their sins and accept Him as their Lord and Savior. I also told them that, if they believed in Yeshua, not only could they live as long as the moon but after they died they could actually live forever with Yeshua. I turned to Ezra and asked, “should we have people pray with them individually?” And Ezra replied “Just go for the whole village!” So I asked, “does anyone want to accept Yeshua as their Messiah?” and to my amazement the whole village lifted their hands. Through translation we asked them to repeat a simple prayer in the name of Yeshua and welcomed an entire village of Jewish Ethiopians into the family of God. 

I chanted the Shechanyanu in Hebrew over them. The prayer says, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of Universe, who has brought us to this happy season.” Then Joshua Aaron taught the village Hine MaTov, from Psalm 133, “How good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together” and chanted the Aaronic Benediction over them.  We then had the opportunity to pray for individuals and saw several people healed. One man came to myself and Alice Rivas for healing in his right ear. He could not hear so we prayed in Yeshua’s name and nothing happened. He still couldn't hear. Our translator, Yamlak Amare, noticed some necklaces that the man was wearing and said they were from witchcraft. We encouraged him to cut them off asked him to renounce witchcraft and let Yeshua heal his hear. He agreed, we cut off the necklaces. Alice prayed that he would receive hearing in his ear and immediately he gained his hearing back. Alice covered his good ear and whispered in his “bad” ear and he repeated every word!

I felt like I was in a movie. I have heard stories, read books and articles of people leading tribes to Yeshua. But me, not likely. Sitting at my desk in the Restoration office, reflecting on this amazing time, I just can’t believe that God allowed me to be apart of this. For me, this will go down as one of the great moments in my life. JMVI will continue to follow up with this village throughout the year, bringing medical supples and discipling the villagers and we plan to go back to Tach Gaynit next January. The best part is back in April of 2015, I was supposed to go to Zimbabwe with JVMI and I ended up in the hospital instead. The Lord taught me so much (read about it here) as I had to stay home and recover. The only reason I was on this trip to Tach Gayint, Ethiopia was to make up for the trip I missed in 2015. I had no idea what God was up too but man was I glad to be on board for the ride. 

If you have never been on a trip like this, may I suggest that now is the time. You never know what God might use you to do and it may just become one of the greatest experiences of your life. Here’s the website for medical outreaches: JVMI Medical Outreaches.

Texas, Ambitions and God's Will

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of Joseph, one of Jacob’s twelve sons, in Genesis. God gave Joseph some dreams and those dreams included all eleven brothers and his parents bowing down to him. With great confidence, anticipation, and with great immaturity, Joseph told his father and brothers all about the dreams. Like Joseph, I probably told too many people all about my dreams and ambitions from an early age.

Joseph's Dream by Martha Stern

At the same time, I was getting kicked out of conferences, camps, doing a lot of detention in school and my dad was getting a lot of phone calls which started with, “Hello, Rabbi Rosenberg, you need to come and pick up your son, Matthew.” Never malicious, always loving God— but ever stumbling over myself and my hyperactive body which moved faster than my brain could warn me of the consequences of my actions. I have always felt that God has called me to speak into the lives of thousands of people and for the first time in my life God is actually making it happen.

Ethiopia w/JVMI

In 2014 I went to Ethiopia with a group of eight young leaders, Jewish Voice Ministries International and Rabbi Jonathan Bernis. It was a forever life-changing experience. While in Ethiopia I had dinner with Pastor Wayne Wilkes. Wayne is probably one of the most encouraging people in the world, and at the time of our dinner in Ethiopia, he was not a pastor. He was just a guy who has been around the block a few times who wanted to encourage a young preacher. As a result of our meeting in Ethiopia, Wayne, who has since become the Pastor of Jewish Ministry at Gateway Church in Dallas, Texas, asked me to speak at Gateway’s Messianic service about Hanukkah.

The service happens once a month and the two previous speakers were Dr. Michael Brown and Rabbi Jonathan Bernis. My thought progression was, “What?! Ok, Lord. Whoa, that’s crazy! That’s heavy company. Crazy! Ok, let’s do this! Whoa! Crazy!”

The Messianic service at Gateway brought over a thousand people and I spoke about Hanukkah and how God wants to use us to Light Up The Darkness (watch the message here, December 2014).

Preaching At Gateway Church

After meeting and talking with many people after the service, I went back into the green room to get my things. I stood there by myself and said to the Lord, “That was awesome, thank you for this opportunity.” The Lord said back to me, very clearly, “You did good, son!”

Selfie During My Message at Gateway

For maybe the first time in my life, I did not question whether it was Lord. I didn't have the internal struggle over whether I was just trying to make myself feel better about myself or if the Lord really spoke to me. I heard Him. He was proud me. And that is the real reason I do what I do: For Yeshua. For His kingdom. To help people who are far from God come closer to Him.

Look, I’m a Rabbi. I’ve been preaching, teaching and encouraging people for the last ten years (and more before it was my job). Sometimes in the midst of all that we are doing for God, we forget why we do it. What an awesome reminder I received from the Lord that day in Texas at Gateway Church.

I want to make Him famous. I get mixed up sometimes with dreams of my own fame, with the greatness of my own name. But, I am reminded that all I have is from the Lord. His desire is for me to use everything He has given me to make Him famous. Among my Jewish people. Among the nations. Everywhere. Everyone.

In all the things that I am seeing God do with me, the moment I heard God’s say, “You did good, son!” was worth everything to me. I am in awe of all God has done in 2014. In my family, my marriage, my children, at Restoration (my synagogue) and all that He is doing.
I want to stay in awe of God. It seems to me that is the only place worth staying. I
have nothing without Him. To know that God is proud of me is worth more to me than likes on Facebook and Instagram. It’s worth more that the opinions of my colleagues, contemporaries, family, friends and congregation. In all honesty, its hard to believe
that and most of the time the opinions of other people are what I am striving for. I want everyone to be proud of me and think highly of me. But I want what God thinks of me to be the most important to me.

So, I’m asking God to make His approval enough. I don’t ever want to get wrapped up in positive or negative opinions of me. I want to be wrapped up in what God thinks of me. God approves of me. Not because of what I do, but because of who I am in Him and His son, Yeshua.

And guess what? If you turn your heart towards Yeshua, He approves of you, too!

I am confident that 2015 is going to be the best year ever! For me, my family, Restoration in Seattle, Messianic Judaism, and the greater body of Messiah. God is willing and able to do more than anything we can hope for and imagine. It doesn't mean 2015 will be without pain, hurt, and obstacles. But, it does mean that through whatever we go through God will never leave us or forsake us. He wants to walk with us through everything this new year brings.

At Restoration we opened 2015 with a preaching series through Pastor Steven Furtick’s book, Crash The Chatterbox. This series is the perfect way to start the year because it will help us hear God’s voice clearly and focus on the individual and corporate assignments that He has called our community to. We have been encouraging Restoration to buy the book for deeper reflection. (listen to the series here).

Even though we are all going through different things or have different dreams and goals, God has a hope for you and wants to make your dreams come true in 2015. Everything you have been through, all of the good and the bad, play a part in who are and who are becoming. Our mission at Restoration is “to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Yeshua.” We never really arrive, we are constantly becoming more fully devoted to Yeshua. As our devotion increases, we see God reorganize our dreams and ambitions to fit His dreams and ambitions for us.

Neverland - Andy Mineo

Rapper Andy Mineo has a song called Rewind. It is currently one of the theme songs of my life. It goes like this:

People think we’re different

We’re all the same

I got a little drama in my life, you got a little drama in yours What you do with it, it’s your choice

Cause I’m looking at my past through the rear view mirror

Thanking God I made it through

I am in awe of all that God is doing in me and I know that He wants to do the same for you! He wants to make your dreams come true. This is your time. You can make God famous and have the best year of your life. You can hear God’s voice clearly and move forward in all that God has called you to do with your life.

Just pray this simple prayer: “God I want to make you famous. I want my life to be about you and not about me. I want you to use me however you see fit to bring you glory in 2015!”

He won’t ignore you. He will answer. I know because He keeps answering me.