With all the bad news in ISRAEL AND THE MIDDLE EAST, we simply MUST look for What GOD IS DOING IN THE MIDST OF IT and WHAT He is using and WHO He is using and HOW He is using them. Read this report about Arab and Jewish Christians joining hands and hearts to pray for peace in the HOLY LAND.

It's not ALL bad news!!

---Steve Shultz
==============
Forwarded by RIVERMAIL: Email: sdayton@northwest.com
JOEL-NEWS-INTERNATIONAL-336 * 16 OCTOBER 2000
You can email JOELl-NEWS at: joel-news@xs4all.nl

IN THIS EDITION:

JN336-2. Arab and Jewish Christians in Israel pray together JN336-3. Peter Wagner announces 'Gideon's Army II' for the 40/70 Window
-----------------------------------------------
JN336-2. Arab and Jewish Christians in Israel pray together

Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000

Arab and Jewish Christians in Israel are praying together as violence in the Holy Land threatens to destroy peace efforts. A Palestinian Christian and an American-born Messianic Jew, both living in Jerusalem, spoke to Religion Today about the situation.

Christians from Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria met with Messianic Jews and other Christians from Israel and around the world in Jerusalem Oct. 1-10. About 1,200 Christians from 150 nations came to pray and tell what God is doing in their countries. Violence broke out three days before the convocation began. "As fighting escalated, convocation leaders set aside their prepared program to worship God and pray," messianic leader Barry Segal said. "Because of the heavy spiritual tension and the violence, we took one night to just praise God and dispel the darkness." Arab and Christian leaders discussed their differences. "There was a time for Arabs to share and for Jews to share," Segal said. At the end he and a Palestinian pastor read from Romans 8:35: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?" The evening "was a tremendous move forward in terms of reconciliation and prayer for each other - to see the fulfillment of God's purposes for both communities," Segal said.

Meanwhile, in the Sinai desert, Palestinian, Jewish, and Western Christians were praising God together at a celebration held by a Palestinian ministry. Twenty-two supporters of Musalaha, a ministry of reconciliation between Jewish and Arab Christians, spent three days at Mount Sinai "singing and listening to God - asking Him what He is calling us to do," Salim Munayer, a Palestinian Christian, said. "We prayed for hours in the desert, asking God for mercy. We knew the situation was bad but we continued on to show that there is another way to deal with this," Munayer said. Musalaha fosters reconciliation by inviting Arab and Jewish Christians to live and work together in the desert for three weeks. During that time, Munayer and others preach about the need for Christians to be reconciled to each other. Palestinian and Jewish Christians in Israel are separated by politics and theological disagreements, but their common faith binds them together, Segal and Munayer said in separate interviews. Jewish and Arab Christians may not agree on all issues relating to the land of Israel and the Palestinian people, but they refuse to be divided, Munayer said.

Palestinian and Messianic Jewish congregations formed a "ring of prayer" around Jerusalem, Segal said. Twelve ministries pray daily and worship God in two-hour shifts to keep a 24-hour "prayer watch" over the city, he said. There are about 5,000 Messianic Jews in 70 congregations and 3,000 "born-again" Palestinians in 40 churches in Israel and the West Bank territories, he said.

Christians outside Israel should pray for the peace of Jerusalem, Segal said. "Not necessarily a political peace, but the peace that passes all understanding. Pray for the Prince of Peace to return." Christians should not place blame or use prophecy to justify the violence, but instead should pray for the protection of all people in Israel, Munayer said.

Source: Religion Today
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
JN336-3. Peter Wagner announces 'Gideon's Army II' for the 40/70 Window

Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000

The next five years intercessors all of the world will focus on the 40/70 Window, the area between 40 and 70 degrees north of the Equator, from the western tip of Ireland to the eastern tip of Siberia. C. Peter Wagner, president of Global Harvest Ministries and the Spiritual Warfare Network, is calling the troops of strategic prophetic intercessors to battle...

"We expect to see as much change in the spiritual atmosphere over the 40/70 Window in five years as we saw over the 10/40 Window in ten years!" says Wagner. "Basic training for the 40/70 will take place over the next 12 months. We will network the warriors and gather the necessary intelligence. Then October 1-3, 2001 we will launch the frontal attack. Our rallying point will be an international event in Germany (the exact city yet to be determined) which we are calling 'Gideon's Army II'. Gideon's Army I, the first international meeting of the Spiritual Warfare Network, was held in Korea in 1993. It was an awesome meeting, but this will surpass it," says Wagner. "Hundreds of intercessors will sense God's calling to the spiritual front lines of the day."

The month of October has now taken its place as the main month of prayer for the modern global prayer movement. The Praying Through the Window initiatives took place in October 1993, 1995, 1997, and 1999. They all targeted the 10/40 Window. Now the first entire month of prayer for the 40/70 Window will fall right in sequence, namely October 2001. Wagner: "The format will be similar. We will publish a prayer calendar for Praying Through the 40/70 Window with two nations per day for the 31 days of October. Gideon's Army II will provide the operational base from which scores of prayer journeys will depart, at least one prayer journey in each of the 61 nations of the 40/70 Window."

'TARGET EUROPE' AND 'TARGET SILK ROAD'

"We have two major territorial targets in our sights this time: Target Europe and Target Silk Road," Wagner says. "The prayer initiatives for Target Europe are coordinated by Apostle Roger Mitchell of the United Kingdom and Prophet Michael Schiffman of Germany. The prayer initiatives for Target Silk Road are coordinated by Apostle Kim Kwang-Shin of Almaty, Kazakhstan. They will join Chuck Pierce and me in leading Gideon's Army II next October."

If you are interested to participate in this prayer stategy, you can retrieve practical information by sending an e-mail to with only this command in the body of your mail: get joel-news-international wagner-gideons-army-what-can-i-do-now

The 40/70 Window is the most spiritually dormant area of the world today. It is extremely strategic because it contains the largest number of non-born again Christians in the world as well as an enormous number of non-Arab Muslims who are rapidly opening to the Gospel. Wagner: "This is the place and this is the time for applying what we have been learning about spiritual warfare over the last ten years. If we do it and do it well, I believe that we will be privileged to witness a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the 40/70 Window in the next few years."

Source: Global Harvest Ministries