Possibilities Despite Coronavirus

In many countries around the world, governments have imposed restrictions to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus. In some countries, the measures are extremely strict. This also has consequences for the activities of Christians for Israel in many countries.
Conferences, lectures, and other activities were cancelled in almost all countries. Also, planning new activities later this year is hardly possible because there are still many uncertainties. Fortunately, the digital era offers a solution. With a great deal of ingenuity, our teams in various countries are organising online meetings and lectures.

Italy: Our team in Italy, for instance, arranged a digital meeting about the work of C4I in Ukraine. Koen Carlier, our Aliyah fieldworker Ukraine, and wife Ira participated in this meeting, as well as Aliyah fieldworker Nataliya. They spoke about the distribution of food parcels and Meals on Wheels to Holocaust survivors and members of the Jewish community living in poverty. The participants in the meeting experienced this as wonderful and inspiring. “I am so happy meeting you all in this session and meeting Koen and Ira, thank you, thank you…”, Edda Foggarolo, team leader in Italy, told the participants. In a fairly simple way, many people can be reached.

Malaysia: Our speakers worldwide can also be easily deployed ‘live’. Our team in Malaysia organised an online Bible study meeting on Israel at the beginning of June. As many as 157 people logged in and attended the meeting. These people all came from different churches from all over Malaysia and several participants will host a ‘Why Israel’ Bible study group in the time to come. At the end of the session, there was an opportunity for questions. One of the pastors wrote an email after the zoom session saying: “Thank you very much, and we want to invite you to visit us in Malaysia and teach us about Israel.”

Vietnam: In Vietnam, they have been familiar with online Bible studies about Israel, even long before Coronavirus broke out. Just as many countries are familiar with the Alpha course, our team in Vietnam is running courses about Israel, where they study the Bible with each other over ten evenings via Skype and other online means of communication.

Netherlands: In the Netherlands, the team organises daily live streams via YouTube and the Dutch website of Christians for Israel. A variety of C4I speakers and other well-known pastors teach about Israel every evening, except on Sunday. About 400 people watch the live stream and over 2000 or more people watch it afterwards. “Every evening I watch your live streams and I am so encouraged and inspired by it. I am learning every day”, a woman told us when she visited the C4I centre in Nijkerk in June.
Some of these live streams are now also recorded in English, German or French and made available to our teams abroad, who can distribute them via their own (social media) network. In times of Coronavirus, we are incredibly grateful that we have these modern means of communication at our disposal so that the work can continue, albeit in a different way.