Greetings friends,

I just wanted to send along a note to bring you up to date on a few things.

Our tour to Israel this summer was a great blessing. As some of you know, we also had the opportunity to visit Greece and Turkey. We were struck especially by the cities of Ephesus, Athens, and Corinth and it really brought home the reality of the sacrifice of the Apostle Paul and what he went through to get the Gospel out. It was quite convicting. Our relationships with Israelis are growing stronger each year, and I am hopeful that the Lord will raise up a worker for us in Israel some day. Next year we will be leading a group from Ambassador Baptist College on their 20th anniversary celebration in Israel . Please pray for the Lord’s guidance in all of the planning for this adventure.

I continue to work hard in my studies at JTS and hope to finish in May. I continue to have great opportunities with Rabbis, Cantors, and faculty. There is much discussion of the New Testament there, and it is amazing how the truth is right before them and they do not see it. It is quite sad. Of course I must not reveal names, but please continue to pray. I am overwhelmed with the information that I am learning about ancient Judaism and the early Rabbinic period, and I look forward to incorporating this information into our ministry.

We will soon be converting our newsletter to an email-only form of delivery. We will be sending out one more by snail mail in a few weeks so please announce to your congregations that if they receive the Shofar, to please get in touch with us and provide their email address. I would also greatly appreciate it if you would print out copies of the newsletter when they start arriving by email for those who may not have email access. I really need your help on this so that we do not lose any of the folks that want to keep up with us. Along with the change to email will be a change in format so we hope you find it useful and informative.

We will begin recruiting for our summer internship in just a few weeks. Please join us in praying for the Lord’s leading. Each year it gets harder and harder to find interns for our program.

Please pray for our son, Grant, as he has developed a number of interesting relationships with Jewish people in Greenville, including a Rabbi that he met at a special meeting of the Jewish community there. As a father, I am thrilled to see my son so interested in reaching our people and it has been gratifying to realize that he was paying attention as we were traveling when he was growing up! Pray that he will see much fruit from his labor and pray that his opportunities will increase.

As many of you know, this past summer was the first of our Summer Ministry Projects led by Dan and Diane Morrell. They were in Uruguay and Mexico and had a remarkable successful ministry. Below is a brief summary of what they did. We praise the Lord for all of this and look forward to what He will do in the future. Thank you especially to those who assisted with this ministry financially and with prayer support. Many prayers were answered.

When Dan and Diane Morrell arrived in Uruguay, they stayed up talking until midnight (despite exhaustion due to a flight delay) because the Pastor who was hosting them was so excited to learn everything he could about Israel . They even ended up showing photos on the dining room wall. The following evening, Sunday, the church members met for two hours. The Pastor expected 90, but 120 attended-some from an hour away and some two hours by bus. The Wednesday night meeting was packed full too. The prophecy series was completed on Saturday night. Sunday morning, Manuel Moyano, a congregant who spends a great deal of his time working with Jews, drove the Morrells to his church, pastored by an American missionary. Sunday night the Morrells returned to the first church for the Lord’s Supper and the Passover demonstration. Everywhere, people asked them all kinds of questions about Israel-unfortunately the people of Uruguay receive a lot of misinformation. The pastor and the people in the church said they are very grateful that the U.S. sees the need to send this type of teaching to their country.

Monday, Dan did a new presentation, called “Present-day Israel” to a group of churches. Tuesday and Wednesday, Dan presented the prophecy series at the camp, where many churches were assembled.  On the Fourth of July, the Morrells went to the United States Ambassador’s house. He had invited all Americans to meet there for food and a ceremony.

The following Sunday morning, Dan preached at a small congregation in the middle of a Jewish residential section of Montevideo.  One Jewish woman (believer) came, although she usually attends elsewhere.  On Sunday evening, the Morrells were back in another church again for a Passover demonstration. They had about 125 in attendance, with people standing in the back for two whole hours due to lack of seating.  The church was receptive to the teaching, and the pastor wants the Morrells to come back in the future. He said he never heard these things before-the history of the Palestinians, the prophecies, the details of the symbolism of Passover. In fact, his church used matzah for the first time ever in their communion service after learning about it from Dan and Diane.

On Monday, the Morrells went on a walk around a Jewish area to see Jewish schools and synagogues-all varieties even including Lubavitch, although they only saw secular Jews on the streets. On Monday night, Dan spoke to a group of churches on “Current-day Israel ” with photos, and part of the presentation explained how to witness to a Jewish person. Dan and Diane were able to speak with a believing Uruguayan Jewish woman for an extensive time after the service. The rest of the week the Morrells were at the camp, where Dan presented the prophecy series.

In Mexico, Dan spoke at a pastor/missionary conference in La Capilla with 470 in attendance. Diane did a workshop for the ladies on the “Religious Jewish Woman.”  Dan presented the prophecy series to the congregation.  Later that week, the Morrells walked around the area and handed out many tracts. Most of the Jews accepted them politely, not knowing that they were Christian tracts because the front of them was very Jewish.  Also, they took their taxi driver, Morgan, to lunch. He is studying one-on-one with a local missionary in order to be a pastor some day. Dan and Diane taught him a lot about Judaism and Israel. He kept some tracts to pass out to any Jews who might be in his taxi in the future.

The host pastor there was thankful for the Morrell’s ministry in Guadalajara, Mexico.  He is praying the Lord will provide a way for them to return to Mexico in the future.

We are so thankful for this extremely successful first foreign ministry project and ask you to pray with us as we prepare for future summer projects. Many Jewish people in each of these countries heard the Gospel and many believers were trained in how to reach their Jewish friends. We are so excited about what took place. Next summer the Morrells will be headed to Europe, and we will try to join with them for part of the trip. If you wish to participate financially in this endeavor please send your gift to Shalom Ministries Inc. and mark “Summer Project” on the memo line.

Thank you all for your continued love and support of us. You make our efforts possible, and we appreciate it very much.

Please remember to inform the folks about the emails for the newsletter.

In Messiah,

Craig Hartman

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