Works of The Lydia Project:
Life is difficult for Messianic Jews and Arab Believers in Israel, they suffer constant persecution and discrimination, and they need our help. The Lydia Project uses the tithes and offerings you entrust to us to provide assistance of every kind to these families. We, outside of Israel, send provisions the way the body of Messiah did in the first century, when Paul too
k up collections from believers around the then-known world to send to the believers in the Land of Israel who had remained behind to be witnesses in the land amidst harsh persecution. When you donate to The Lydia Project, we take those much-needed tithes and offerings to those in need in the Land of Israel. Every donation to The Lydia Project — large or small — becomes part of our collective tithe that can make a huge difference to the widows, the orphans, and the needy in Israel. When we give to the needy, we are lending to the Almighty, who promises to repay us in our times of need. In America, we cannot conceive of what it is like to have one billion people dedicated to driving you into the ocean, committed to wiping an entire nation and people off the face of the earth. Yet every year, thousands of Jewish families make aliyah to Israel and return to their land, the land Yeshua promised to Abraham. They work hard to make even the desert bloom, while the leaders of the world try to force and coerce Israel into giving back their land to the very terrorists who have never ceased trying to kill them! Hundreds of thousands have traveled HOME to Israel—to the land Yeshua promised them. Many arrive with little more than what they can carry. In addition, there are thousands of Jewish orphans who were brought by the Government of Israel to the land from every part of the world, where they had been left homeless and fatherless. Meeting the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of these thousands of children, to make a difference in their lives, and give them hope and a future, is a constant struggle. James 1:27 says this, “Pure religion and undefiled before Yeshua and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” Our highest calling as servants of the Most High is to help the widows, the orphans, and the poor. Deuteronomy 27:19 says, “Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.”
Messianic believers are also victimized with prejudice and persecution, often by the very people who have, in the past, been savagely persecuted for nothing more than being Jewish. The Lydia Project, which takes its name from Lydia in Acts 16:14: “And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped Elohim, heard us: whose heart Yeshua opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Shaul.” Then there was also Tabitha, in Acts 9:36; “At Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did.”
In Genesis 12:3, Yeshua promises He will bless those who bless Israel: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee all families of the earth be blessed.”
In the course of teaching the Feasts of Yeshua, Michael Rood has explained that the purpose of tithes and offerings is not to build cathedrals and churches, but for the laying up of provisions in the storehouses so that the needs of the Levites, the widows, the orphans, and the poor can be met. The evangelical community has poured millions of dollars into Israel, but due to pressure from the Orthodox Jewish community, Messianic believers have been ignored both by the evangelicals and the Israeli government. The Lydia Project is set up to help not only these persecuted, forgotten Jewish believers, but also to help the widows, the orphans, and the poor of Israel on an equal basis. All funds raised are earmarked for Israel, to support the needs of the poor who desperately wish to stay in the land they call home. Please pray about your part in this project; and pray about what you can pledge either as a one-time gift, or, better yet, on a monthly basis to help us with this project. Together, we can be part of the solution and make a real difference by touching the lives of these precious ones in Israel.
