Prayer Requests from Tel Aviv Outreach

from Dov and Olga:

Thank you for your prayers about our team! The Lord keeps expanding it, giving us more opportunities for developing our ministry. In June a very nice woman, Alla, decided to join our ministry for prostitutes in Tel-Aviv. Alla turned out to be just the right person we needed: she is a mature believer, a compassionate soul, and she establishes contact with strangers quite easily. Please pray for Alla and for our work among prostitutes. We talk to them on the streets and inside their brothels, and also hold weekly Bible Studies for them.

Our team has also been recently blessed with a very good brother from Russia, Aleksey -- a mature and experienced pastor -- who started helping us in May. His primary task is to work with our Negev groups and help them become fully organized and functional local congregations. Another helper we have recently got in the Negev is a pastor from Belorussia who joined our ministry about half a year ago. There are also two other brothers in the Lord who are planning to join us, so please keep praying that God would guide them, would build our team according to His will and would help us work in unity and bring much fruit.

As our team is growing, we are thinking about the future of our ministry:

We hope to develop our Negev congregations and plant new ones.

We would like to evangelize more and more in Tel-Aviv: there is so much work to be done! Each time we go there God makes "divine appointments" for us and brings us to people who are eager to hear the Gospel. That is why we hope that one day our Bible study for drug addicts in Tel-Aviv will grow into a church -- focused on victims of addictions and other people with special needs.

We are also thinking about an outreach center in Tel-Aviv, open seven days a week, where drug addicts and homeless people would be able to eat, take a shower, change clothes, participate in a Bible study, read Christian literature, watch Christian video and talk to believers.

And finally, we realize there is a serious need for more rehab centers.

These ideas are not empty dreams; they are quite realistic, given the necessary human and financial resources. It looks like the human resources are being supplied to us already (praise the Lord!), so now we ask you to pray for the financial part (God willing!) to be supplied as well.

"The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes..."(more news, interesting events and specific prayer requests)

We praise God for five rehabilitants from "Bethel": in June these former drug addicts were baptized in the Jordan River. It was a very touching ceremony. These young men have seriously turned to God and dedicated their lives to Him, and the changes He has done in them are so obvious! Please pray for these people to hold on to the Lord and grow spiritually.

One day as we were evangelizing in the street, we met an addict who told us an interesting story. There was a period in his life when he stayed "clean" and even tried to take care of his health in general, so he bought a secular book about fasting. At some point he read in it that Jesus was fasting, too -- and suddenly he felt God's grace descending on him! He felt unspeakable peace and happiness! As I see it, it was a supernatural experience that often accompanies the beginning of a person's journey to true relationship with God. This addict, however, did not have any believing friends, so nobody talked with him about Jesus and salvation, and the first sprouts of his faith simply withered away. We encouraged him and invited to our Bible studies. Please pray.

Pray also for two more people -- a brothel prostitute and an addict. We met them on two totally different occasions, but they both told us they were attending messianic congregations at some period of their lives, but then fell and returned to alcohol and drugs.

Thank you very much for your prayers and support and may God bless you,

Dov and Olga Bikas
dovbikas@gmail.com
Tel. +972-54-4997336
P.O.Box 1181
Arad 89110
Israel