Gaza Christians Need Prayer
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (ANS) -- “Worship services at Gaza Baptist Church now includes no more than 10 or 15 believers who are willing to risk publicly attending the only evangelical church in all of the Gaza Strip since October when a church leader was martyred.”
So wrote James A. Smith Sr., Executive Editor of the Florida Baptist Witness (www.floridabaptistwitness.com).
Smith said that the once thriving evangelical congregation with crowds
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The six-floor Gaza Baptist Church |
“I want Baptists in America to remember that there is a tiny group of believers who are living out their faith. ... I want the people in America to pray for Gaza. I want them to pray every Wednesday night and every Sunday and any day in between that they can pray. ... When they see Gaza on the news to pray for the little, tiny Gaza Baptist Church,” said one of the Baptist workers, neither of whom can be identified for security reasons.
Smith went on to say, “The workers, who have lived in the region more than 20 years, including many years in Gaza, are deeply concerned for the evangelicals in Gaza and urge Baptists in America to send cards of encouragement to the church (GBC, P.O. Box 7364, Jerusalem, Israel 91072).
“In August 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza, turning over to the Palestinians control of the 25 mile long strip of land on the Mediterranean coast with a seven mile southern border with Egypt. Twenty-one Israeli settlements with about 9,000 residents were shuttered. Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, won elections last June and now ruthlessly controls the 1.5 million residents.