Not Just Another Museum

There are already thirty-two museums in Jerusalem. Isn’t that enough already? How can another one add anything to what is already here?

The answer to that question may not come from where most people expect. While most museums are built to preserve antiquities of some form of art, culture or history, the raison d’être for the Mike Evans museum, officially named the Friends of Zion Heritage Center, is to tell a love story that has been misunderstood, and even missed entirely, by the tellers of history. It is the story of the enduring love and compassion that true Christians have, and have had, for the Jewish people and now for the nation of Israel.

Dr. Mike Evans has dedicated his entire life to telling the story and to encouraging the people of Israel. This museum is yet another way of communicating that beautiful love story that so many so-called Christians have tarnished, so much so that the Jewish people – God’s chosen – have been unable to comprehend that anyone really loves them with the passion that Dr. Evans and Bible-believers around the world really do.

It would be correct to say that the Mike Evans Museum is unique, simply based on its use of 21st century technologies. Even calling it interactive does not suffice. It is an experience that takes visitors well beyond the ordinary and the expected.

Within these walls, visitors will become acquainted with the true stories of some of the men and women who have gone to great lengths to aid and protect the Jews, promote the cause of Zionism and preserve the nation of Israel. But, more than an education, our hope is that each person will sense the love of our staff for Israel and realize that it represents the love of multitudes among the nations who also love the special and sacred land.

Our expectation is that, within these walls every visitor will become acquainted with the stories of men and women who have gone to great lengths to aid and protect the Jews, promote the cause of Zionism and preserve the nation of Israel. But, more than the education, our hope is that each person will sense the love of our staff and realize that it represents the love of multitudes among the nations who also love them.

Politicians and men of high position throughout the ages have misappropriated the Christian label without understanding its true meaning and have often used that label to promote their personal agendas to persecute the Jewish people. Much to our mutual misfortune, this has led to misconceptions that Christians hate the Jews and cannot be trusted. The Mike Evans Museum exists as a beacon of assurance that those misconceptions are false.

We love you, Israel. We pray for your peace, Jerusalem. We bless you, children of Abraham. We know the plans that YHWH has for you, plans for you to prosper. We are here to demonstrate and teach you how much we care, and to share with you the stories of others who have gone before who have done the same. Shalom.

What is Obama's Agenda for Israel?

by Mike Evans

Shalom from your Jerusalem World Center in the Holy City! I am here as your Ambassador this week during the Obama visit, so please pray for me.

Here's an inside view of why and what the President Obama is up to this week in Jerusalem:

1. President Obama's primary purpose in coming to Israel is to push PM Netanyahu for more time to allow diplomacy and economic penalties to run their course with Iran.

Netanyahu, in a speech to the United Nations in September, said Iran was about six months away from being able to build a bomb.

Obama told an Israeli television station this past week that the U.S. thinks it would take "over a year or so for Iran to actually develop a nuclear weapon." You can watch that Israeli TV interview here:

Obama will view an Iron Dome battery at the airport, part of the missile defense system the U.S. has helped pay for. This will be subtle signal to Israel that if you attack Iran you will lose America's support for the Iron Dome.

2. We are also expecting Obama to push the PM hard on the two-state solution to give up land for the Palestinian state, including the division of Jerusalem into two capitals. For more on this story, go here:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-and-his-partner-rivals/

3. The centerpiece of Obama's visit will be a speech in Jerusalem to an audience mainly of Israeli students. It's part of the President's effort to appeal to the Israeli public, particularly young people. Bypassing the Knesset, Obama will attempt to go directly to Israel's citizens. We'll see what the speech contains soon enough.

4. He will make several cultural stops, all steeped in symbolism, in the region. They include visits to the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem; Mount Herzl, where he'll lay wreaths at the graves of Theodor Herzl, and also the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

5. Traveling to the West Bank, Obama will meet with Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, in Ramallah.

6. Finally, President Obama will make a 24-hour stop in Jordan too.

Please be in SERIOUS PRAYER over the next few days, as the events that unfold here shortly, will lay the framework for the U.S. relationship with Israel for many years to come.

The Roar of the Lion of Judah

“As the lions roar, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem. Defending, He will deliver it. Passing over, He will preserve it” (Isaiah 31:4-5).

Each time I read this Scripture, my heart leaps with joy. That is precisely what I have been doing for almost forty years—defending Jerusalem. I have stood up to terrorists face-to-face, men such as Yasser Arafat whom I confronted at the 43rd General Assembly of the United Nations. I've stood up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, face-to-face in New York City at the United Nations.

For thirty-three years I have been writing books in defense of Israel. I have just completed my forty-first book. We have also produced eighteen television documentaries in defense of Israel. The Corrie ten Boom Holocaust Center in Haarlem, Holland has been part of our ministry since 1987 when we purchased it and restored it. I have served as chairman of the board since that time. Thanks to the Jerusalem Prayer Team, no one has ever had to pay a dime to visit the museum since it opened to the public in 1988.

Read the rest of this story from Jerusalem Prayer Team.

The Legacy of Ron Nachman

Ron Nachman passed away last week.  He was a friend of mine.  No, he was more than that.  He was a dear friend of mine.  If you did not know Ron, I’d like to introduce you to him.

Ron was a visionary.  Proverbs 29:18 says “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  By implication, where there is vision, the people thrive.  In 1978 Ron pitched two tents in the barren Judean hills.  That was the beginning of Ron’s vision of the city of Ariel.  Like Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, Ron suffered mockery and opposition to his dream.  He would stand on the hilltop and described the vision embedded not only in his mind, but in his heart.  And the people would tell him he was foolish, reckless, and crazy.

He was a young man back in 1978 and at the midpoint of his life.  From the age of 35, Ariel was his dream, his burden, and his goal.  He chose to develop Ariel deep into the territory away from the Green Line.  And he was determined to build a city there that was unrivaled for a city of its size in Israel.  Though he formally staked his two tents in the middle of a barren region, he had plans that were far bigger than two tents.  Instead of hoping for new residents to dribble into his experiment, he approached large groups of people to join with him.  In effect, he drew entire communities of people – initially some 6,000 – so that Ariel would not be built as a disjointed collection of desert homes with a cobbled infrastructure, but rather, a place where the essentials of a city could be well planned for the moment and the future.

Today the population of Ariel is 20,000.  It is a regional center for surrounding communities.  Ron would never settle for average or anything else that was less than the best.  I am proud to have assisted Ron on many occasions to help his dream come true.  I am proud to sit on the board of Ariel University, the first accredited Israeli university in the West Bank and an institution that only Ron could see through the dust of the desert in 1978.  It was as real in his mind back then as it is for the students who walk its campus today.

A critical interviewer asked Ron, “How can you build in Occupied East Jerusalem?”  To which he replied, “I just came from my hotel room, where I searched for proof that this land belongs to the British.  I found a Bible there, but it made no mention of London.  It didn’t speak of Washington, DC, or Paris or Berlin.  But do you know how many times the word ‘Jerusalem’ appeared?  And you are asking me if we have rights to our capital city?”

In a later conversation Ron posed the question, “If this land was given to us by God, how can we be considered trespassers?”  His question is legitimate.  If God has given us something, who has the right to consider our gift invalid?  Ron’s vision, and that of all Zionists, was to possess the land was given to Israel by Jehovah God Himself.  The Jews are not interlopers; they are inheritors.  They are not claim-jumpers; they are the children of the Most High God.

As we mourn the passing of this great man, would you also join me in giving the Lord thanks for how he used Ron as an instrument to accomplish His will?  Of course, you know that I am going to ask you to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. (Psalm 122:6)  I always will.  But, if I may, I would like to ask you to pray for the next generation of young people in Israel, like those who are students at Ariel University.  Please pray that they will have a Ron Nachman kind of vision for building the nation of Israel and that they would not sell their birthright for a mess of pottage.

Your ambassador to Jerusalem,
Dr. Mike Evans

Source material for this article can be found at the Jerusalem Post, the Jewish Press, and CBN News.

Jewish Olympian Profiles – Lillian Copeland

This is the fifth in a series of stories that we will publish honoring Jewish Olympic athletes, past and present, during the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Lillian Copeland has been called "One of the greatest overall female athletes of the first half of the 20^th Century” and "One of the world’s first great female athletes.”

As a student at the University of Southern California, Lillian Copeland excelled at tennis and basketball, but she won every women’s track and field event she ever entered while at the school. She was the first woman from USC to compete in the Olympics.

Lillian, who was born to Polish-Jewish parents in New York City, competed in both the 1928 and 1932 Olympic Games in Amsterdam and Los Angeles. But she had already established her credibility, if not dominance, in field events before her first Olympic completion. In 1925 she garnered the first of her nine US National Championships when she won the 8-Pound shot put event. In 1926 she won her second consecutive shot put plus the discus and the javelin, setting new world records in the latter two events with throws of 112’ 5.5” and 101’ 1” respectively. In 1927 she broke the world record in the javelin with a throw of 125’ 8.5”. In total, between 1925 and 1932 Lillian set six world records in each in shot put, javelin, and discus.

It’s likely that she would have done extremely well in the 1920 and 1924 Olympic Games, but she couldn’t compete because there had never been a women’s Olympic track and field competition prior to 1928. While qualifying for the US team that was to go to Amsterdam, she setting another world record of 121’ 8” in the discus. Unfortunately, there was no shot put competition or she would have probably won a gold medal. She did, however, take home the silver in the discus.

In preparation for the 1932 Los Angeles games, she won the US National Championship in both the shot put and the javelin. She decided, however, to focus on the discus for the Olympics. She was less than stellar, placing third in the trials. Going into the finals she was in sixth place. The Los Angeles Record described her performance as "Confident, calm, and perfectly poised. She made a perfect throw.” In fact she set a new Olympic and world record at 133’ 1-5/8” and won the gold in front of her home crowd.

In 1935 she competed in the second Maccabiah Games. She won gold in each of her three favorite events.

Lillian decided against competing in the 1936 Berlin games, having no desire to compete in Nazi Germany. While she could have had a lengthier career, the adage of "quality rather than quantity” probably applies well here. She obtained a law degree at USC and served twenty-four years in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. While there, Lillian qualified as an expert marksman, scoring 274 points out of a possible 300 during a department competition.

Lillian is an inductee of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the Helms Athletic Hall of Fame, the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and the United States Track and Field Hall of Fame. She died in 1964 at the age of 59.

****
Dr. Michael D. Evans is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, having penned numerous titles including nonfiction book Jimmy Carter: the Liberal Left and World Chaos, in which he compares the Obama and Carter presidencies; and Atomic Iran; and the fiction book, The Samson Option, Game Changer; and his newest titles 7Days, The Candidate,The Final Generation, Cursed, The Light, and The Protocols. His latest release is The Revolution which is about democracy, dictators, deception and the birthing of a Caliphate. Evans' books are available at www.TimeWorthybooks.com. You can read his full biography on Wikipedia. Dr. Evans also runs the news site JerusalemWorldNews where you can receive current intel on Israel and the Middle East.