Joel of Jerusalem Feb/Mar 1975
Dear Brother Marvin, shalom,*
After two weeks, I will finish and go home, but not for long because I received orders to come again on December 22 for six days; and I’m not sure if it will be quiet until that time—if there will not be war.
I’m not sorry that I came to the army. Why? It is the biggest occasion to give a witness for the Lord. Of course, my job here is very dangerous, but the Lord protects me and I do not fear.
My home is open for everyone. Here you see Arabs and Jews from Russia and many other countries. With every one of them I can have common language. Today two new men came to me who know only the Russian language. They were very happy to have someone with whom to speak. In the beginning they said everything was much better in Russia than in Israel. So I asked them, “Did you have freedom?” To this they said, “No.” I said to them, “It is good to be hungry and be free, rather than be satisfied and not be free.”
They asked me, “What do you have here in Israel?”
I said, “First of all, it is my country; the land that God promised the nation of Israel, We must be a light for all nations of the world, because we are chosen from all nations.”
One of them said, “That sounds nice, but we do not believe on God because we are Communists.”
I asked them, “Why did you come to Israel? Isn’t Israel a Capitalist country? Isn’t it better to be in Israel where you can say what is on your heart.” Again I asked them, “Why did you come here?”
So they answered me, “We do not know why.”
I said to them, “It was God’s will, because He says in the Bible that He will bring His people back on eagle’s wings. Therefore, you are here without knowing why. Here you can also read the Bible without fear, and you will see what the difference is between the Bible and Communist Manifesto books.” I gave them a Bible in Hebrew, but they couldn’t read it, so I bought them two Bibles in the Russian language.
After a week, they came to me and said, “Now we can speak with you about this Book which was closed to us for such a long time. Now we can tell you that it is better to be hungry and free, rather than to be satisfied and not free. From this time we only want to speak about the Bible and about God, not the Communist party.”
I have to go step by step with them. I start with Adam and take them through until the Lord Jesus Christ. It was very interesting for them that I, as a Jew, know so much about the Lord. I said to them, “It is not enough to know about the Lord, but we must also believe on Him and what He did for us.”
They said that the Bible is more interesting than all the books they have read until now. In Russia it was closed for them. “Now we see the difference between Russia and Israel. Thank God that we are free — free for the first time. Thank God!” They asked me if they could come more often.
“Yes, welcome,” I said.
When they come to me, I give them homework from the Bible, and the next time we have a big discussion about it.
Please pray for these two who were Communists, that the Lord will show them the light. May God bless you.
