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Passover

Happy Holidays! The time of Passover and Resurrection celebration is so precious. We love to go through the Passover Seder and remember how God brought His people out of slavery and bondage and into a new land of promise. We reflect on how Jesus the Messiah is revealed through the Passover traditions and imagine what it was like at His last Pesach (Passover) when he broke the unleavened bread and told his disciples that it was His body-He was completely without sin just as the Matzah is without leaven or yeast. He also took the cup of wine and blessed it and said that it was His blood poured out for us. Just as the blood of the lamb was spread on the doorposts of the Hebrews’ doors and everyone inside was spared and passed over, He shed His blood for us on the cross and He said that He is the door and the way to the Father. When we receive the blood of Yeshua, we enter through the door and are saved for He is the Way, the Truth, and the Light. As a community, we celebrated the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We gathered together last Wednesday night for a great meal and a time of remembering how God not only delivered His people from slavery in Egypt and us from our sin, but also He is still delivering us daily and providing all of our needs by the riches of His love.

   

Teaching by Jon Dunn and Heribert Binder

Our first week back in Cyprus started off full throttle on Monday with a week of teaching and impartation from Jon Dunn. Jon taught on friendship with God, a topic of highest importance and meaning in our lives. God desires our relationship with him to be intimate and organic (close, growing, and producing). We need to come out of the slave mentality which is rooted in fear and enter and grow in our friendship with God.

The second year students and interns were honored to have the historian, Heribert Binder from Austria, as their speaker this past week.  He is a renowned expert on the inspiring historical communities of Europe, including the missional community of Hernnhut and Pinczow, a large underground Messianic Jewish community dating back to the 17th century.  He humbly shared with us his abundant historical knowledge in harmony with the Holy Spirit, being moved to tears on more than one occasion as he encouraged us to see God’s goodness to His people throughout the ages.

Extreme Scavenger Hunt

We had an exciting time in outdoor pursuits on Sunday as both classes participated in an extreme scavenger hunt. The students were divided into four teams and set out to find clues to lead them to their next location. Meanwhile, the staff and interns prepared a feast to welcome both the winners and the in-other-ways-victorious participants. 

   

   

 

 Student Led

 Our first student led service after Israel was so encouraging as first and second year students reunited to share the word of the Lord burning in their hearts.

Katharina, a first year student, started us off with the proclamation, “This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!”  She reminded us that every morning and in every situation we have the choice to say “Yes Lord!” and choose joy.

Sietske shared a message of hope from Hebrews 6, encouraging us to stop grasping for the unstable things of the world but to secure our anchor of hope in the Rock Yeshua.

Chelsea ended the time with a passionate challenge from Romans 13 to go on the offensive-casting off the works of darkness and putting on the armor of light!

Come Lord Jesus!

This week, our community was blessed to have Don Finto and Tod McDowell to teach and fellowship with us. Don Finto is a dear friend and father to our community. Before our Israel trip, the first year students were greatly impacted through reading his book Your People Shall be My People. Tod McDowell has been ministering all over the world with Papa Don since 2005 and it was a real blessing to have two mighty men of God in our midst.

Papa Don gave rich teaching on the establishing of our character, the role and place of Israel in the end times, and living a life of purity and holiness, all the while delving into Romans 11 until hearts were penetrated with the truth of this word. We were inspired by his passion for God’s Word and for reading Scripture to see what it says rather than to prove what one already believes.

Tod McDowell shared about the washing of God. God wants to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts so that we can ascend His mountain and stand with Him. He cleanses and purifies us when we walk in the light by confessing our sins. Tod also taught on preparing for the return of the King and unfolded some of the ways that Yeshua spoke about His Kingdom.

 

An Evening in Limassol

On Wednesday evening this week, we all went down into town for a gathering among believers on the island. This was our second GTS hosted evening of teaching, and the pastors and people who came were so blessed to receive from both Don and Tod. It was a beautiful continuation from the evening of teaching with Asher Intrader a few months ago. 
 
   

Last week, we began our celebration of Passover, and this week the theme of deliverance was carried over into the 2nd year class with Mrs. Rudolph. It was a time of practical teaching and equipping, impartation of compassion in ministry, and a time of great healing and breakthrough in the students’ lives.

We hope you have been blessed by reading this blog and that you will be encouraged by the hope that is found in Yeshua, our deliverer.

Photo Montage of GTS II’s Trip to Israel

Many Blessings,

The GTS Blog Team

Blog Writers: Hannah B. and Chelsea N.

Photo Editors: Marissa H. and Gwen P.

Blog Editors: Hannah B. Marissa H. and Gwen P.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.