And today he refers to Matthew 25 where Jesus says I was hungry and you fed me.  I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.  I was lonely and you visited me.  He went to those men as human beings to see what their conditions were.  As a result of that he went and visited many of their families.  Then he went back and took pictures to these men.  A relationship developed and guess what?  He had the opportunity to share the Gospel with hundreds of Hamas over a period of a couple of years, including probably the only evangelical person to ever speak on Christianity at Islamic University in Gaza at the invitation of the current leader of Hamas. 

Now the point I hope is clear here, Andrew didn’t do anything special except reach out to these men at their point of need and look at the doors that God opened.  And now we can’t be responsible for what these men do with the message but the fact is they’ve had the opportunity to hear and we may probably never know until the heaven what the results of that effort have been but I hope this has been – and it’s a big part of the book.  It’s an incredible story and I hope people will read the full story cuz I think it will be a tremendous encouragement and should show us that there is no people group in the world that is completely unreachable because God’s heart is to reach people.

JC:  Is there anything else you would like to say about the book?

AJ:  I want to reiterate the point that the purpose of this book and the purpose of the ministry of Brother Andrew and Open Doors is to strengthen the church where it’s struggling for survival and I believe with Brother Andrew that the church could die in Israel and Christians are still trying to leave.  It’s a terrible situation to live in.  Is your family there, unemployment in the Gaza area is 70%, not much better in the West Bank area.  The future is not good, but if the church dies, what’s the hope? We believe that we must do anything that we can to strengthen the church so that it can be a stronger light in the midst of the darkness.  I don’t believe there’s a political solution to the conflict there.  We’ve tried for years.  But have we really tried to share and shine the love of Jesus Christ in the midst of this and probably the heart of the book for me is the stories that we tell of Palestinian believers and messianic Jews coming together at the foot of the cross.  That they agree on their differences and their theology and their politics, no.  But they come to realize that we are citizens together of another kingdom and at that point we can reconcile and the world has to see that.  And I think we in the west need to be praying for that and as God leads we need to support and encourage those kinds of efforts.