ECHAD

That’s it folks!

Echad had their final art presentation on Thursday evening, the 24th. We had the honor of sharing our music, photography, digital art, and spoken word with our supporters, family, friends, and new acquaintances.

Over 60 people were in attendance, at least three of which were unsaved Jews!

We are so grateful for the work the Lord has done in each of us, both individually and as a group. Nine months ago, a musician, a spoken word poet and videographer, a photographer, and a digital artist came together without the slightest clue as to how to collaborate our crafts into a seamless presentation. But after months of prayer and effort, we were able to show the public just what such a union looks like. We truly became “echad.”

Praise the Lord!

Thank you each for your support and prayers. Stay tuned for information on future Echad teams!

We did it! Echad has traveled to the ends of the country and back!

We recently returned from our trip to Los Angeles and San Francisco, where we had the opportunity to engage in creative outreach, perform in open mic nights, put on art presentations, and partner with the Jews for Jesus branches in California. We were able to share our faith with the lost as well as encourage many new believing friends through our work!

Here are a couple testimonies from Giselle:

Giselle reports: “We met Dean at a cafe/laundromat called Brainwashed in San Francisco on April 24^th, where we were doing an open mic. He was the facilitator of the night. As part of my set, I sang a song called “War” that I wrote about my Jewish aunt. During my little spiel before I sang, I asked the audience if any one else had a Jewish aunt. Dean raised his hand. After my set, Dean and I started chatting and he revealed that he had grown up in a Jewish family in Queens! While I wasn’t able to share the gospel with him then and there, I handed him our ECHAD business card and directed him to our website. Please pray that he would be curious enough to look.”

And again: “It was the last 5 minutes of our sortie in Hayes Valley, where Rachel and I had paired up to pass out post cards. We were trying to engage with people through an exercise involving some of her photography that had been converted to postcard size and asking questions about what it means to sacrifice. We met John while doing the rounds of the park and he was very obliging in participating in our exercise. He revealed that he had been involved in the Catholic church as a young man, but had become disillusioned with it and had been driven to explore transcendental mediation. Rachel and I were able to share the gospel with him, and though he had heard the message before and wasn’t really open, I think he was really touched by our approach.”

As always, we appreciate your encouragement! We especially extend our gratitude to both new and old Californian friends for their support and love! Now that we have returned to New York City,  we continue to experiment with creative outreaches and are preparing for our two final art presentations. Prayers needed!

-Rachel

On Erev Passover, ECHAD ascended to the upper west with some gospel literature, posters and a garbage bin. We drove up,chose a spot to set up and waited. The upper-west side of Manhattan is fairly densely populated with Jewish people: young families,holocaust survivors and several large synagogues. This has made it a favorite area for our Jews for Jesus missionaries to do street evangelism in.

Passover commemorates God bringing our Jewish people out from the land of Egypt into their promised land of Israel. A believers in Y’Shua,we also see how he ultimately became the perfect passover sacrifice.The scriptures tell us that the Israelite’s could not wait for their bread to rise leaving Egypt so they were instructed to leave with it as it was,unleavened. Chametz or leaven is a symbol for sin and pride in the bible, a little of it causing the entire loaf to become puffed up. Weeks before Passover it is tradition for everything containing leaven to be removed from the home,and burned up in a furnace at the synagogue.

While we couldn’t have a furnace in the upper-west,we decided to have a big trash can with a sign saying ’ CHAMETZ ‘. For 2 hours we handed out tracts and had people refuse them.We had people who were seriously seeking and people who were seriously crazy.

Our objective was to use a timely Jewish holiday to communicate the gospel in a creative way. We are finding in our out reaches that humor goes a long way to break down barriers,to gently impress important and poignant issues. We were able to share with many Jewish people,the miracle of salvation.

The following few weeks will be extremely busy for us here at Echad.

Each of us are working on our music, photography, writing, videography, and digital art towards a common theme: Love. It’s a vast and overdone subject, but it’s also the most important (1 Corinthians 13:13)!

We’re hoping to bring our work to the west coast in a few weeks and share the BIG love of the Messiah out there, too! Stay tuned!

-Rachel