After Passover: Quiet, Healing, and Firstfruits

Shalom, dear brothers and sisters,

With heartfelt thanks, we want to express our gratitude for your prayers and financial partnership with Return to Zion Ministry. Your support is a great encouragement to us, especially in this season.

Since Passover, we have experienced something very unusual: a measure of quiet. The sirens have stopped for now, and there is a real sense that life is slowly returning to normal. Of course, the situation remains tense along the borders with Southern Lebanon and Gaza, and we do not know how long this quiet will last. Still, we thank God for every breath of peace He gives.

Returning to Community Life

We are staying very busy as we help our congregation and its members return to regular life. This includes prayer meetings, activities for children and adults, ministry outreach, and various gatherings for both the elderly and the youth.

It has also been a wonderful opportunity to visit some of Israel’s special places—Megiddo, Susya, the Dead Sea, Mount Gilboa, and others. These moments of fellowship, rest, and connection are important as people begin to breathe again after such a heavy season.

Prayer for Healing and Restoration

At the same time, we are witnessing an outpouring of emotions that had been held inside for many months. Not all of these emotions are positive. This is part of how post-traumatic stress works. It was expected, and now we are seeing several crisis situations within some of our families.

We would be deeply grateful for your prayers—for wisdom, patience, divine intervention, and healing.

Several members of our congregation are also undergoing difficult medical treatments, and we ask you to pray for their recovery. The Lord hears prayer. Even when we do not feel confident in our own prayers, He hears, He sees, and He reveals Himself by touching those who are in need.

The School of Arts: An Open Door

Our School of Arts has practically returned to its regular schedule. We now have many music classes, along with fine arts and chess.

For us, this school is an open door to our entire neighborhood. More than 120 students are involved, most of them from secular and underprivileged families. As they spend time with us, we have the opportunity to build relationships, encourage them, and be a light in their lives.

At the moment, we are also preparing for upcoming concerts, and we are grateful to see how God continues to use this work to touch families through beauty, discipline, creativity, and trust.

Youth Ministry and NESHER

Our youth have also been very active, participating in conferences and worship nights across the country. We are now preparing to send 20 of our young people to a youth training course, conference, and camp in Norway.

We have been part of this ministry for the past 11 years, and we have seen incredible fruit. This project, called NESHER, is a serious investment, but it is also a highly effective one. It is helping to raise up the next generation of leaders and ministers in Israel.

We ask for your special prayers for this project, and, as the Lord leads, your financial support. These young people are not only the future of the congregation; they are part of what God is already building now.

Our Soldiers

Please also pray for the soldiers from our congregation. Five of our young people are currently serving in the Israel Defense Forces.

This is a great responsibility, a significant challenge, and also a profound privilege. We ask for your prayer support for each of them—for protection, strength, wisdom, and faithfulness in every circumstance.

Looking Toward Shavuot

We are now on the threshold of Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks.

“Also on the day of the firstfruits, when you bring a new grain offering to the Lord at your Feast of Weeks, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work.”— Numbers 28:26

Traditionally, Shavuot is remembered as the Feast of the Giving of the Torah. According to the testimony of Acts 2, it is also the day when the Holy Spirit was given. It is also the Feast of Harvest, when the firstfruits were brought before the Lord with joy.

This is not only symbolism, and it is not only a memory of the past. It also points us toward the future.

The biblical harvest season reminds us that what God sows is meant to bear fruit. The Word of God, planted in our lives, is able to grow in every kind of season—on mountains and in valleys, in difficult soil and in fruitful places. Though we may pass through many different times in life, the fruit that comes from God remains vital and precious before Him.

My prayer is that in our lives, and in the lives of those who come after us, there would be both firstfruits and continuing fruit before the Lord. May this corrupted world not prevail over our faith and dedication.

As Yeshua said:

“And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”— Matthew 16:18

With love and respect,

Leon and Nina Mazin

Return to Zion Congregation & Ministry

Haifa, Israel