A Messianic Ministry Based on Mt Carmel
Address: Apt # 2, 9 Sachlav St, Ramat Almogi, Haifa 34792, ISRAEL.
Tel: 972 4 8245590 Email: kiwi@netvision.net.il Website: www.out-of-zion.com
Shalom to all our precious friends and prayer supporters in the nations
Firstly, Josie and I want to once again thank every one of you for the faithfulness , zeal and amazing love you displayed in praying for Israel, our family, and the soldiers during the month of war we have just passed through. We were greatly strengthened and encouraged by your emails and the verses, love, and prayers that you shared with us.
We were also very blessed by those of you who made donations to assist our ministry or the Tents of Mercy humanitarian aid program. And we stand in awe at the number of you who ' adopted ' our son Stefan as he served in the front lines inside Lebanon.
To say we are proud of Stefan would be an understatement. To be honest, although we had rockets exploding close to our
apartment, our greatest concern during the war was not for our own safety, but for Stefan ( and the rest of the soldiers ) who were in the very midst of the death and destruction of the battle-zone.
Stefan has only 3 months left of his army service. He served his 3 years mandatory, but was required to serve an extra year once he accepted promotion to be an Officer . He is now a full Lieutenant. Stefan has excelled in every way, so much so that the army is doing everything they can to convince him to make the army a career, but we doubt that he will accept as he is so looking forward to being a regular civilian after November of this year,
Josie and I were planning to give Stefan a financial blessing to make the completion of his army duty as an acknowledgement of our love for him, and for the excellence he has shown over the last 4 years.
After hearing Stefan's ' war stories ' we realise more than ever that during the last month Stefan laid his life on the line for Israel, for the 100 soldiers under his command, and even for all of us in the Body of Messiah, as this war was all about the 2nd coming of Yeshua and the setting up of God's Kingdom on the Earth.
Therefore Josie and I felt prompted to open a fund for Stefan to bless him for being so faithful to all of us as he played his part in defending Israel. We would like to give you all an opportunity to join with Josie and I to give Stefan a great start as he moves on with his personal life after these 4 sacrificial prime years of his life. We want to invite you to participate in this blessing for Stefan, by contributing to this fund as you feel led.
It is Stefan's 22nd birthday on September 29th, so we will present the fund to him as a birthday gift and as a mark of all our appreciation for his dedication to the purposes of God for Israel and the Church.
For those of you who are relatively new to our mailing list, we are going to paste Stefan's life story at the end of this email. If your computer cant open or print it, let me know and I will send it in email format
Also if you follow this link, you can hear a radio interview that Stefan made in the last few days.
The Lord bless you as you bless a true son of Israel. - Donations details below
David & Josie
To hear a 15 minute radio interview with Stefan clik on this link:
http://www.out-of-zion.com/audio/Stefan Silver Radio Rhema.wma
DONATION DETAILS
There are several ways to make a donation to this fund for Stefan .....
( please do not send to our regular account as we will have to pay high tax on it )
1. Bank transfer
( you can email a note for Stefan and we will print it out and give it to him on his birthday )
BANK: FIRST INTERNATIONAL # 31
BRANCH: ROMEMA # 005 -SWIFT: FIRBILITHAI
ACCOUNT NAME: STEFAN MORRIS SILVER
ACCOUNT #: (31 005 ) 105 393703
2. Or you can airmail a personal check made payable to Stefan Silver to our address in Haifa ....
D & J Silver, Apt 2, 9 Sachlav St, Ramat Almogi, Haifa, Israel
please feel free to include a card or brief note
( All major currencies can be accepted )
3. or you can use PAYPAL — CLICK HERE for paypal DONATION www.paypal.com
the email address to send the funds to is josie9@netvision.net.il
Please contact us if you have a problem with any of these methods
David & Josie Silver
Out of Zion Ministries
Mt Carmel
Israel
www.out-of-zion.com
Stefan Silver’s Testimony
The testimony of a young boy uprooted from the serenity of life in New Zealand to the opposite extreme of life in Israel
( covered in mud )
In 1992, when David and Josie heard the word of the Lord to immigrate to Israel, Stefan was a bright and bubbly seven year old. He was doing well at a Christian school in Auckland, the city he was born in. Upon arrival in Haifa, Stefan was thrust into a regular Israeli school where Hebrew was the only language used. For the first few weeks he understood almost nothing. Within six months he was doing ok. After twelve months he was beginning to function normally and after two years he was 100% fluent in Hebrew and English. Gradually he made good friends, and his school grades continued to improve to the point that he passed his final school exams with good marks in all subjects.
The next impactive event in Stefan’s life at age 16, was the school trip to Aush witz and Berkenhau, concentration camps. It was in the somber atmosphere of Aushwitz that Stefan saw a vision of the Lord sitting on the Throne, weeping for His people Israel. This vision deeply touched Stefan and sealed his identity as a very Zionistic Israeli. Until that time he had talked about returning to New Zealand after his army service, but now he knew his destiny was in Israel. A few months after returning from this trip, Stefan experienced a personal revival in his relationship with the Lord
The Israeli Air Force
Stefan had always wanted to be a pilot, so when the time for Stefan to begin the process of induction into the IDF ( Israeli army ) we applied for the Israeli Air Force pilot course. To be accepted as a trainee pilot in the Israeli Air Force is one of the most difficult things in the world to achieve. Right at the beginning Stefan said “ I am not a native born Israeli – there is no way they will accept me.” We quoted him relevant Bible verses that gave him the faith to give it a go. There were a few hiccups along the 9 month acceptance process, but with Stefan giving it all he had within him, and many of you praying all the way, he made it all the way to the end. Stefan was convinced he had made it, however when the names were called out, his was not among them. He returned home physically bruised from the rigors of the final test, and emotionally devastated from the disappointment of not being selected.
Induction Day and Another Disappointment
Before we knew it, Induction Day was upon us. After a brief ceremony Stefan and the other boys boarded the army bus and departed for the IDF centre in Tel Aviv. Stefan was supposed to be going to the Givati Brigade which is a combat unit. However at the medical, the doctor thought he found a problem, which meant all of the other boys headed off to the units, but Stefan and a few others had to stay behind and wait for a CAT scan. Three days later the scan found no problem, but by that time it was too late to join the Givati unit, leaving no choice but the Combat Engineering Corps. This unit is probably the least popular in all the army as it is one of the most dangerous. At first Stefan thought about refusing to go, but the Lord used the message at the Shabbat service that weekend to speak to Stefan. He made the decision to go and to give it his best.
The First Three Years in the IDF
Stefan honored his pledge to serve with all his heart and the Lord blessed his efforts. He completed his four
month boot camp with an award for the best example to his peers. The army noticed Stefan’s faithfulness and
soon promoted him to sergeant and almost immediately after completing the training course for that rank, Stefan
was selected for the officer training course. This meant signing on for at least an extra twelve month's service.
For the first three years of his IDF service, Stefan was based near the West
Bank town of Ramallah.
On his first day there, he was on duty in a building
that was being used as an army fort, just a few hundred yards from the
chaos of Arafat’s funeral. Over the next 3 years he led many missions in the
West Bank, arresting terrorists, and preventing several terror attacks.
In 2005 the IDF sent Stefan and a fellow officer to London to represent
Israel during Holocaust memorial week. This really was quite an honour.
This was a nice little bonus for all the hard work in Ramallah.
Representing Israel in London
The Fourth Year
Stefan completed his 3 year compulsory service at the end of November 2005. He began his final year as a full lieutenant and was relocated to serve on the northern border with Syria and Lebanon. Based near Mt Hermon, Stefan found the scenery very beautiful, but after his first few days there he told us, “I was never really scared in Ramallah, but it is very scary up there as the terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza are just disorganized streetthugs, but Hizb’Allah is a fully trained army with the very latest military equipment. There were a few encounters with the enemy in the time that Stefan was based in the north, but most of the time it was quiet.
Stefan had rockets and anti tank missiles explode in front of him, on both sides of him and behind him. He had bullets flying all around him and mines exploding underneath his Puma armoured vehicle. As if that was not enough he had to extricate the dead and severely wounded who were not so fortunate as Stefan was to have had thousands of people praying and pleading the Blood of the Lamb over them. Stefan’s unit was the only one we know of that escaped without any casualties what so ever.
We pray the cease-fire will hold and Stefan will get to wind down over the next 3 months as he was hoping ….
