Guest Speaker

0:00 Like to invite Ibar Orson to come to the stage. IVAs is the Director of development at Almi at the Alma Initiative Initiative, initiative, initiative. But more importantly, IVAs is a longtime dear friend. And, uh, I look forward to hearing. I look forward to all of us hearing from the Lord today through I bars and, and perhaps some things that we can use in our lives. Avin Shaba, our Father in heaven. Lord, I thank you for I Barss and for Kelly, his wife and all of his children. Lord, I pray that you would, that you would speak to us today. Lord, I pray that you would bless them, bless his family. Lord bless the Almeda initiative Lord, as they reach out,

0:49 uh, to Muslims around the world. Lord, I pray that you would give them opportunities to make the name of Yeshua known in the Muslim community. I praise you would bless I bars and, and speak to us today in Yeshua's name a Amen. Amen. Shalom, everybody. Um, I just wanna thank Ari and the Walman family. The Waldman's, uh, senior Waldman's have been hosting us, and Ari has been driving me around Dallas and going, we're going to eat there and we're gonna eat there. We went to some barbecue place yesterday, you know, like the Tabernacle. And it's a place where like heaven met Earth. I think it met at that barbecue place,

1:36 but Ari and I have a lot in common. Okay? So, uh, we have the same birthday. I am 10 years Ari Sr. We both have a son named Max. Um, and I think that him and I are the second coming of Yogi Bear and Kung Fu Panda. You can be Yogi, I can be kung fu Panda. I get it. I'm a little rounder than you are. So, um, I have a lot of good friends here. Um, over the years. Uh, you know, Casey Casey's in the back there. Casey is my mean buddy. Aria is my mean buddy. I think that we like, kind of have this, this kind of synergy of humor. Um, I post a lot of stuff on Facebook. My desire of posting things on Facebook and social media is not to be political.

2:23 It's because I like snarky humor and I like to post it. And I find other people who enjoy snarky humor and we all kind of rejoice together. Right? Um, I want to just let you know something about your rabbi Ari. Ari. I, I've known Ari since he was in his twenties, and I've watched him grow as a man and as a husband and as a leader. And I also speak all over, like, I go many different places and I speak and I know what good healthy leadership is like, and I, I know what toxic leadership is like I know what having a good pastor is like, and I know what having a good rabbi is like. And I want to tell you, you have a good one. Amen.

3:08 Amen. Um, I love you and thank you for sharing your podium with me. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I have six kids. Um, my wife Kelly is here. Kelly, why don't you wave your hand. Um, the fellow, uh, the tall fellow in the back is my son, max. Uh, the two off to her right hand side are Jackson and Emena. They're twins. Um, the one in the middle wearing the tie dye t-shirt is Abigail. And the one looking up, cuz when I said look up, she literally looked up is Nora. And the one off to the side is Ruby. So, um,

3:54 their ages are 14, 11, 11, 9, 7, and seven. So yes, you heard that correctly. We had twins twice. Um, we went from having a decade of diapers to now I feel like having a decade of grocery bills and my gas bill is, uh, ever skyrocketing, driving everyone to practices and performances and all the like. But God has really blessed us with a beautiful family, and we are blessed to, um, to raise them in the ways of the Lord. Uh, we live in Seattle. Um, I don't know if you could tell, but it's the hair. The hair gives it away. Uh, before that we were at Beth Zion in Jackson, New Jersey, uh, serving under Rabbi Jan Rosenberg. Um,

4:40 and then we slowly started feeling like God was drawing us out of New Jersey, uh, and calling us to Seattle. We have family there. So that was partially it. But, you know, it was a different phase of my life. It felt like, you know, everyone knows what transitions are like and moving into one phase into another and how God guides you through that. Um, we wound up moving to Seattle and going to Restoration Synagogue where, uh, rabbi Jan's nephew, uh, rabbi Matt Rosenberg. How many of know of you know who Matt is? Okay. Um, I worked there as his assistant rabbi, and we were there for 10 years. Um, in June of 2020, I stepped down from being a rabbi and into a new role with a new organization, uh, the Almeda Initiative. So our main function at Almeda is to make Islam understandable to

5:30 Christians and make Christianity more accessible to Muslims. We equip churches and messianic synagogues and mission organizations and really anyone else who asks, uh, with an understanding of the Islamic worldview and with practical ways to engage their Muslim neighbors in friendship. Um, we find that these kinds of conversations are authentic and they're the best way to be able to open a real dialogue about faith, uh, and paved the way, honestly, for effectively communicating the gospel. You can't, if you spread the gospel with people that you don't understand, it falls on deaf ears. It's like the seed thrown by the side that falls on the rocks. The ravens come and pick it up. So we're trying to make sure that the seed lands in, uh, in, in,

6:17 in fertile soil. My role up till last week was the coordinator of Afghan out outreach, um, in Snohomish County, which is just north of us in King County, which is where we are. Uh, we received an influx of Afghan refugees. Um, it's estimated there are about like 5,000 Afghan refugees in the Seattle area alone. And we're not talking about other areas like, um, you know, further south of us, closer to Portland. Uh, so this ranged from like helping them do basic things like, uh, their asylum paperwork, helping them get their, their paperwork filed, helping them get to hearings, helping them find jobs and, and housing. Um, and basically helping them navigate life as refugees. Uh,

7:04 we're currently attempting to help the Afghan church that was going to be martyred by the Taliban, um, but got out replant their entire church in the Pacific Northwest. We are trying to bring as many Afghan Christians as we can to the Seattle area with the intent of replanting their church and reaching their, um, you can clap. That's all right. And reaching their Muslim, uh, kin folk. So we currently have the first all Afghan refugee Bible study in the Pacific Northwest, and we provide over ship and oversight and, and leadership, um, to help them do that. So we'll get some more. It's all right. Clap. It's good. God is doing great things in these days.

7:54 So a lot of people ask me, why did you stop doing Messianic ministry? What made you choose to do ministry to Muslims instead? Like it's a completely different stream, you know, as you can see, uh, if I were to come up here dressed like in a mom, it would be really weird, right? Like it's a culture clash. But in order to effectively explain that, I need to share my testimony with you. Um, and to tell my story, I gotta start with my dad's story. So, in about 1974, in 1974, I was born in a place called Meson Turkey. Uh, it's like directly across from the island of Crete. Um, my dad was an Afghan refugee who fled for his life from the king of Afghanistan.

8:41 Um, he wanted to see the, the Afghan government become more democratic, and he wanted all Afghans to have more rights and the freedom to express their political views, um, without the fear of retribution. And this, you know, got him into trouble with that regime. And eventually they put a price on his head and he had to run. Uh, he and a few of his dissidents fled Afghanistan, literally, you know, the minute they found out about it. Um, and they fled on foot. They crossed the, the, the mountains of Northern Afghanistan. Uh, they, they wrapped their feet when their shoes ran out with leaves and plastic. They went from village to village. You know, depending on the kindness of shepherds and trying to navigate how to sneak into

9:28 Pakistan. Um, when they snuck into Pakistan, uh, they wound up becoming day workers. Uh, they dug ditches. They did anything they could to get money. Uh, and then they applied for asylum. Um, that did not work. And then eventually he tried the same thing in Iran. They bribed the bus driver, the bus driver put them on the bus and snuck them into Tehran. And they started the process all over again. Let's, let's do the, the day work and the day labor and let's apply for asylum. And again, they were rejecting. So they said, third time's a charm, right? They bribed someone to put them on a bus into Turkey. So my dad's people are the Uzbeks. The Uzbeks are the people in Northern Afghanistan.

10:15 You would know the Uzbeks when we start talking about things like the Northern Alliance Post and pre nine 11, the Uzbeks are fighters. The Uzbeks don't also take well to being governed by anyone, right? Particularly, uh, you know, people who were trying to kill them. They resisted the Soviets and then they resisted the Taliban. Um, Uzbeks are a Turkey people group. So there are Turkey people groups all over Central Asia. They're the Uzbeks, they're the TAs, they're the turkmen. Um, and different Kazakhs are considered Turkey people group. Uh, and the Turkish government treats them differently when it comes to status. Uh, you know, it's, it's almost like an ancestry thing, right? Like you can claim lineage to a place you can get in. Um, that allowed my dad to get a work permit there. He started as a laborer,

11:03 but then he worked his way up to, um, getting a job as a teacher's assistant and then a teacher. He met my mom and she helped him with his asylum paperwork. And he became a Turkish citizen. They, they married and they have four boys, of which I'm the youngest in the mid seventies, uh, the Soviets were trying to expand their empire, right? Um, they set their sights on Turkey. So what they were trying to do was, uh, to destabilize the Turkish government, they introduced communist ideology to their youth. They gave them drugs. They gave them money. Eventually they armed them. And the protests against the Turkish government turned into riots. The riots turned violent and people were getting shot in the streets. So my father being no stranger to political unrest and turmoil, said,

11:51 I don't want this for my kids. We've got to get outta here. Um, he started looking at places to immigrate, uh, Germany. There are lots of Turks in Germany, France, there are lots of Turks in France. But he chose the United States, uh, partly because he knew someone here, but also because everyone knows the streets in America are paved with gold. I left Turkey when I was over 40 days old. I was literally in a basket. My mom said that they hung me from a basket from the overhead thing. And I slept all through the flight cuz I was such a good baby. Um, we landed in Brooklyn. We had $2,000, uh, four kids, and nobody spoke any English. So

12:42 my father started looking for a job. He wound up finding a job, um, linked to his old company, which was mobile oil. Now Exxon, uh, he saved up enough money. They bought a house in Trenton, New Jersey. And I grew up in the hood. So how many of y'all grew up in the hood? Oh, yeah. Uh, so our neighborhood was either American poor people of different ethnicities who were on welfare, um, and also first and second generation immigrant families from places like Haiti and, and Puerto Rico. Um, and Italy. Yeah, I hear Haiti back there and everyone was pretty much Catholic. Um, it was pretty clear that we, the,

13:28 the Turkish Afghan Muslim family were very different than them because we had, you know, our carpets were on the wall and then we sat on the floor on a tablecloth and we ate, you know, all of out of one big tray that my mom would drop on the floor. Um, we were very different from them. And, you know, it was also holidays. My friends did Christmas. We did Ramadan. Listen, those are not nearly as fun, Particularly as a kid, cuz when you're a kid you can see them and you're like, this is, this is not the same. Um, you know, where's my red flyer? So when you grow up like that, it's easy to feel alienated

14:13 because you're different. And, and no one in the world around you lets you forget it either. Uh, you know, my friends, um, the people around our home, nobody means ill of you. But the contrast is there. My name is Ibar Och C**n. And I grew up around, you know, Bens and Toms and Jacobs and all of these other different names. You, you just stand out. Um, and, you know, my parents pushed back on that. They wanted to preserve our, our ethnicity and culture. Um, just like with Jewish people, they wanted to resist assimilation. They wanted you to keep, um, an idea of your own, you know, your background, your heritage. And honestly, this, the sense of alienation breeds isolation, right? Like,

15:01 you feel like you have to withdraw from people, um, even when you want to engage with others and they're doing things on Christmas day and you can't do anything because you're sitting there with your family going, I we're just waiting for the holidays to be over. You know, we're waiting to be able to reengage the world. Everything is shut down. Um, this feeling of alienation and isolation, it, it got worse when we were around other Turks and Muslims, believe it or not, my dad was extremely popular. The people who, who listened to his message over in Afghanistan found him in the United States. So he had a legacy and a following that, that followed him here. My dad was a a, he won an award for, um, for an international poetry award. And people have written books about him.

15:46 Um, his message was to encourage the Afghans to keep fighting the Soviets. And at the end of the Soviets regime, he was getting published in Soviet, um, in Soviet magazines. Uh, and everyone knew who my dad was. So they came and they found him. And he would invite all of these people over to our house. Now, he would throw these, these, uh, he'd say no shoes, no booze parties, right? And everyone would come over to the house and they would sit there and they'd listen to him talk about things like politics and, and, and culture and Islam, and even just life because he was wise. And, and he, he, you know, would take people in and he would counsel them about things like, you know, marriage and family. Uh, during these gatherings,

16:32 it became clear to me that to Turks, I wasn't Turkish enough. And the Afghans, I wasn't Afghan enough because, you know, I didn't speak Farsi. My Turkish, you know, even now when I speak Turkish to people, uh, who are Turkish, they, they walk off in the corner and they go, his Turkish is really bad. My mom even I started talking to her. She switches to English. So I get the message right? Um, and it wasn't just me, it was the rest of our family. Uh, my brothers were older and they were able to escape it a little bit more. But my mom and I were chained to the house. Um, and my mom would cook and clean for all of these parties. She would break her back. She was sometimes cooking for 30 people. Um,

17:19 my dad would help with the cooking, but he wouldn't do anything else. You know, he, he, he wouldn't wash the dishes, he wouldn't help serve people. He wouldn't do any of those things. Um, and she would work all day and night serving and cooking and, and, and really just taking care of people. Um, and one day after she had served people tea after their afternoon prayers, right? So, you know, you're familiar in Islam, like people will leave the room, they'll point towards Mecca on a rug and they'll say their prayers. Um, they got up from their prayers. My mom brought the tea in and these guys started making fun of my mom. They were looking at her and they're going, she doesn't speak Farsi. They were Afghans. And they were looking down on her and they were treating her like behind her back poorly. Listen, I'm from New Jersey. Huge.

18:08 You don't talk about my mama like that. That's a capital offense right there. These guys had just been acting so pious. They were sitting there and then, you know, while they were smoking their cigarettes, they started mocking the person that was taking care of them. And I think that was a breaking point for me, particularly with my own culture and my own religion. Because I'm looking at these guys and I'm saying, this is what it's like to be a Muslim. These guys are all sitting around and you're a kid, you observe things, but then when they turn on one of your own, and I associated directly with them being like these pious Muslim guys, I remember thinking, if that's Islam, I don't want it. I think I had had enough with all of the fakeness.

18:53 I think I had had enough of like the, the, the outward sense of being like this, you know, this very important holy person, but then seeing what it's really like, right? Like that's really what's in your heart. You don't think highly of my mother. You think highly of my father. You tolerate my mom and you tolerate me. So it kind of made me snap. And I rejected Islam. And in rejecting Islam, I think I made a conscious decision to reject everything else too. I think that I decided I wanted to assimilate. I no longer wanted to be this exile. I no longer wanted to be alienated and isolated. I wanted to fit in. So fast forward to high school and eventually the community that I found I fit in with was athletes. Believe it or not, I was once an athlete.

19:43 I played football, I wrestled, uh, I did that for three years. We're coming into my senior year. I was super pumped because this is the year, you know, I'm going to make my mark on the football team. I wanted to try walking on to a division three college in, um, in the Pennsylvania area. I just wanted to play sports. It was who I was. It's what I did. Uh, but due to a scheduling error, I was declared academically ineligible. Um, and I don't know, it was because we didn't under, my parents didn't understand cuz they were immigrants or they didn't have the wherewithal to do it. Uh, but nobody really wanted to change that. It was like the most correctable mistake. Oh, we'll take that study hall away from you and we'll give you, you know, enough credits to get into the next semester and play this year. Um,

20:33 and just like that, I lost my friends. I lost my purpose. I lost my vision. It was all gone. And, and when that happens to you, particularly when you're a teenager, it's a dangerous thing. And all those feelings of feeling isolated and alienated, they all came back and they came back more powerful. And the anger just started coming out of me. Um, and unfortunately, I made new friends. I started hanging out with the potheads and the burnouts and the motorheads, and I started messing around with drugs. By 23 years old. I had tried pretty much every drug but heroin. I had did L s d, I did cocaine. I I did hallucinogenics, P c p, peyote, Mescalin.

21:20 Um, I tried crack. I didn't like it. Uh, I tried embalming fluid. It was, yeah, I know art just gave me a look. It doesn't taste like barbecue, bro. That lifestyle has its consequences when you pursue a lifestyle like that. Things follow you baggage, emotional baggage, spiritual harming act, spiritually harming activities. Uh, and then legal trouble. I got arrested a few times. First couple times was possession, another time was for fighting. And eventually I got arrested for, you know, going to go do something really bad. Um,

22:08 and I was handcuffed to a bench in the Trenton city, lockup high as a kite next to a male transvestite prostitute, wearing a blonde wig who kept on looking at me and licking his lips. And I like to tell people, that's the moment when I started calling upon the name of the Lord. I was so high. And I just kept on passing out. And I'd wake up to see him staring at me and licking his lips. And I remember, you know, actually saying, God, please don't let me get locked up with him.

22:56 I don't wanna get locked up with this guy. Um, and to make a long story short, I didn't. Um, they put me in a cell by myself and I slept it off. And I, I got released. I had my r r hearing. And then I remember thinking, walking out of the police station, this deep sense of sadness hit me. And I knew that I couldn't stop doing what I was doing on my own. And I, I clearly had the thought that if I kept doing that, I was gonna die because I didn't have to self-control to stop. I, I, I knew that these things were a huge part of my life. I built them there and I realized that they were killing me slowly. They were either gonna kill me and put me in jail,

23:41 or they were gonna literally kill me and take my life from doing them. That moment opened up a journey for me. I started looking for answers. I started reading books on world religion. I started talking to people who were public about their faith, regardless of whatever it was. You know, I worked at Princeton University. We had Christians, we had Jews, we had Muslims, we had hippies, we had atheists. And I talked to all of them, and I wanted to know why they believed what they did. And at that point, you know, where you're searching all of these things, I just kept on coming back to a few conclusions. I don't believe in eastern philosophies. I had a tattoo on my arm, I still do,

24:26 of a ying yang, uh, in the shape of a sun. And it kind of summed up my beliefs at the time. It was, you know, there's, there's energy, there's light, there's darkness, there's, there's light and darkness and darkness and light. And it all comes from somewhere. So it might as well be like the universe, the cosmos. Um, and I kind of invented my own religion along the way. I like to call transcendental pharmaceuticals because hey, it worked for me, right? Take a little bit of drugs, take a little bit of, you know, philosophy, do a little bit of hippie and Gen X stuff, and you're, you're good, right? You can move on. But the one thing I couldn't get rid of was this sense of guilt, this sense that I had sinned. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I felt awful about it. And I had a,

25:13 a coworker who was a lay Baptist minister. Um, his name was Larry. And I said to him one day, Larry, what do you do with sin? And he said, you need to be forgiven of it. And I said, how? And he said, well, you need to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I said, that's great, but I'm never gonna do that because my dad will kill me. He wouldn't literally kill me, but it would cause a lot of problems in the family. And I was raised to believe that that's something Turks didn't do. Turks don't do that. Turks are Muslim. If you're a Turkish, you have to be Muslim, you can't be Turkish and anything else. So I kept on looking for answers, but eventually I came to the conclusion that I had to come clean to my dad.

26:01 And I told him everything that I had been going through. I told him about the legal trouble. Um, we also opened up and I had some conversations with him, uh, about my questions about God. I really wanted to know. I came to the belief that there was a God and it wasn't my ancestors, and it wasn't, you know, some sense of energy, but that there was a God that I was talking to in that room, in that jail cell in handcuffed to that bench. And my dad, he said, you know what? I know people who can answer your questions. And actually what you should do is you should study to be in a mom because you have spiritual curiosity. And I said, that's a great idea.

26:49 I should totally do that. Um, because I believe that when you're in times of crisis, particularly when you're young, or you know, for a lot of people, it happens after they have children, they go back to their faith of their parents. They have a starting point. This is what I was raised in. And then you go through an evaluation. And for me, it made perfect sense to be able to go and say, look, I I was raised Muslim. Um, I already know what Islam is like, and I'm gonna recommit myself to Islam. But one day I'm gonna write a book and gonna be titled, A funny thing happened on the way to the mosque. Um, I met a Christian girl through a friend. Um, and, you know, these friends invited her and I out to a bar. They were trying to hook us up. And, and I remember asking her, uh, if she wanted me to buy her a beer,

27:37 and she said, I don't drink. I'm a Christian. That is not anything about drinking, obviously as Messianic Jews, you know, full well that wasn't grape juice in those, in those, uh, in those barrels. Um, and she said, I don't, I'm a Christian. And I said, well, could you explain that to me? And honestly, I don't remember what she was saying. I just remember it was like every word that was coming out of her mouth was alive. I couldn't understand it because she's talking in terms like theological terms, I didn't really get, but I knew that there was something behind it and I felt drawn to it. Um, so eventually I asked her out and she said, well, you can go to church with me. And I said, fine. Um,

28:24 she showed up that Friday with her friend. So we had chaperones. That was, that was, that was new. Uh, and they, we got in the car. It was her, her, uh, her, her friend and her friend's husband. They were theological students at Princeton Theological, uh, theological Seminary. And then we got in a car and we drove about an hour and a half to a Messianic synagogue in Philadelphia called Beth Yeshua. Um, and I had never seen anything like that. It was a lot like coming into here, right? So just imagine if like this kind of like, just off a drugs Muslim kid came in here and you're like, you know, you're dancing and you're blowing sofar, and like, what the heck is going on? And I'm a musician. So it was like, why is all this music in a minor key? I don't understand. So, um,

29:11 I'd never seen anything like that before. And honestly, I kind of liked it. It was, it was different to me, you know, it was a different expression. I had never seen anything. When they said, come to church with me, I expected that there was gonna be a guy up there with a collar, you know, um, and the, the purple thing around his neck, like just kind of giving some kind of homily or something. So after the worship ended, they turned the lights down. Uh, and David Schoff, how many of you know who Rabbi David Schoff is? Um, and Joel, his brother, uh, they, David got up and he started speaking. And, and that is when I honestly stopped paying attention. Uh, I think David has done full sermons on like the carpet that they had a Beth Shua

29:57 at that point. And I was staring at that carpet, um, and wondering if the girl was gonna go to the diner with me after, like, are we all gonna go to the diner? What are we doing here? And we didn't have cell phones back then. So here I am staring at the carpet. And in the middle of his message, He says, this line, Saddam Hussein wants to destroy Tel Aviv, but Yeshua won't let him do that. It's a little background. It's 1997, it's post Gulf War. And Saddam Hussein is again threatening to launch missiles into Tel Aviv. And I thought to myself, who's Yeshua?

30:49 And then all of a sudden, still looking at the floor, the lights were off in the room. But it was like they came on around me. I was surrounded in light, and this presence drew new to me that was so powerful. And I, I didn't like, dare pick my head up. And I, I started to like kind of go, what is going on here? And I clearly heard the voice of God say, I'm Yeshua. I want you to think about this for a minute. This kid who was on his way to become in a mom, in my mind, it was fixed. It was going to happen. The Lord of hosts,

31:39 the God of all creation and the savior of mankind, who the rest of the world knows is Jesus Christ revealed himself to me with the name Yeshua. If that doesn't talk about God's love for Muslims, I don't know what does come On. I don't know how else to get that across. Like so many other times in my life, I had looked to live in a way that would betray God. And now here I am setting my feet on a path that is running away from God. But in his great mercy, he drew me back. He made me son.

32:29 So what happened was, after the service, there are young people, uh, came around us, A friend of mine, his name's Ari Halpin, um, some of probably know who he is, he works with chosen people. Uh, he had gotten saved a couple of months before I did. And, and he said, so, you know, how long have you been saved? And I said, oh, you know, like a month, a couple months, except that it all happened about like 10 minutes ago. And, uh, I told him about my background and he started explaining some things to me about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Ishmael and, and, and, um, you know, showing some things to me out of the book of Ephesians and how to talk about like, the unity of the bond of peace for all believers. Um,

33:14 and then they told us about Messianic synagogue in New Jersey. Uh, that was much closer to my home and me and this girl went. She stayed for about six months, and I stayed for 15 years. Rabbi Jan became my spiritual dad. Um, rabbi David was like Rabbi David Rosenberg in New, in New York was like my spiritual uncle. Uh, Jan, uh, I'm sorry. Um, Matt and, and Jake and a, uh, David's sons were like my cousins, uh, Jan's children were like my siblings. And I had finally found my people. God had taken me and given me a home among the Jews.

34:07 And as I grew as a disciple, and as I grew as a believer, um, I became a part of that community. I was on the worship team. I was the young guy with the pickup truck who helped everybody move. Uh, you know, I became the youth leader, uh, then the youth director, and then I was, became a SHA machine. Um, but like I said, God had a different plan. He started to draw us a different way. Uh, and then we moved to Seattle and I became an assistant rabbi. So if I'm gonna answer the question to you why I stopped doing ministry to Jews and why I started doing ministry to Muslims, I can point to one event. It was the fall of Kabul. My dad being an Afghan,

34:53 I grew up watching what the Taliban did the first time through the Taliban came through my father's village, and they killed every man, woman, and child. They took the children and the woman and they raped them, and then they killed them. And then they took the men and they raped some of them, and they killed them. And then they took some men and peeled their skin off and threw them in the streets to watch them die. And then they took, most of the men killed them, but kept a couple of men alive. And they cut off one leg, one foot in one hand, which is prescribed in Islam to do, to traits to Islam,

35:41 which they considered them, even though they weren't. They just didn't practice that kind of Islam. And they took their eyes out, but left their tongues so that they would know who did it. That was the backdrop of my childhood. And I've always been troubled, particularly in dealing with crowds like this, understanding that I know things about Islam that are worse than most people know, but I also know that most Muslims are generous, hardworking people who are just trying to make it just like many of you, their religion was given to them. It was handed down to them. They participate in that religion and like you all, they have a different affinity for that religion. But it's what they are. It's what they've been given.

36:29 We gathered some of those refugees and they eventually wound up living around us. They were my dad's friends, the ones that we could get into the states. Uh, they stayed in low income housing near us, and I grew up with those guys. So I knew when I saw that happening in Afghanistan, what was coming next for anyone who dared toy the Taliban. God, I saw people throwing their babies over, over walls covered in barbed wire. I saw my dad's people running, holding onto airplanes knowing what was coming. And I remember one night I was watching the news, and I just remember thinking,

37:16 I can't just sit here. I can't just watch this happen again. And it wasn't like a, like a who will go for us moment. You know, in the, in the book of Isaiah, the, the prophet Isaiah is commissioned and the Lord appears to him and says, who will go to? Who will go to us? Who will go for us? And it wasn't like that. I just said, I'll go send me. I have to do something. I can't just sit here and watch my child repeat itself. So slowly the Lord started to open doors, um, with this ministry called the Almeda Initiative. I had had a prior relationship with them. Um, I, I would get called by them, James, our director, and he would say, Hey, you want to go meet a, a Muslim,

38:01 or you want to go, uh, talk to this Afghani or, or talk to this Turkish person and be like, sure, this is great, right? Like, I got to be a Messianic rabbi and I got to go do this other stuff. Um, but slowly God started transitioning me and putting on my heart how important it was for me to be able full-time to be able to minister to the Muslim people. And eventually I went on sabbatical, um, in January of 2021, and in June of, sorry, my years are off 20, 22, January. Yeah, 20 20, 20 21 and 2022 are all the same year. You know what I'm talking about? Uh,

38:47 and slowly God opened doors for me to be able to join them full-time. I prayed about it. Um, I took a trip during my sabbatical. I went to Turkey and I spoke with, um, many Muslims who are what you would call low hanging fruit. So many Muslims who are Muslim bi cultural identity, but don't have a real connection to Islam based on any of the texts or any knowledge of Islam's history. And I felt like, you know, I'm there in Turkey talking to these Turks and going, they need to know the Messiah, and I'm in a position where I can help that and I need to take that step. When I got back, they offered me a job. And in June of 2022, um,

39:33 I stepped down in May of 2022, I stepped down. And in June of 2022, I took my first position with Al Mighta. Um, uh, last week they promoted me to director of development. Um, and my job will be to help plan, um, the future, help develop a vision for what Almeda will be, um, how it will grow. I'll be developing staff and I'll be raising funds. So let me tell you a little bit about our ministry. We have a threefold strategy. We employ, we educate, we equip, and we engage. Um,

40:19 lemme back up. See, this is where it always falls apart. It's the technology. By educating, um, we mean that we provide all of the context of what Islam is. And, uh, we do that through, through classes and, and, and courses that we offer online. We equip people in the same manner. We want them to feel confident as they connect with Muslims. Um, and we engage because we have strategies that we use to engage, uh, Muslims in the different areas and cities that they are. Just gimme one second. Some of the ways we do this, I don't know why this is doing this, but bear with me. Um,

41:05 it's through something we call Almeda University. Gosh, technology's the worst. Um, Almeda University is something that, uh, we offer online. There's a 1 0 1 and a 1 0 2 level. I'll be teaching the 1 0 1 and 1 0 2 level at Bridge versions, uh, this afternoon if you want to come and learn more. 1 0 1 is a basic history of Islam, and 1 0 2 is a little bit more, uh, strategy driven on how to engage with Muslims in your workplace, how body, local bodies of faith can en engage with them. Um, so I encourage you all to come out. That's gonna be great. Gosh, you know what happened, Marcus?

41:51 They synced up. They're tied. The, the two machines are talking to each other. That's crazy. Um, we also encourage, uh, people to attend events in the Muslim world. So this is at, um, a Muslim students, uh, association dinner for eat. Um, I was invited to go, uh, and it's at Edmonds College. I met a lot of great young Muslims. Um, it was kind of weird to tell them all that I used to be a Muslim and I got to share my story with them. They were surprisingly open. Uh, we had a great time. We ate some really good food, which was really cool. And I still communicate with some of these people. I still have relationships with some of these people. And,

42:37 and we encourage our people to do the same. We encourage them to look up Muslim events on Eventbrite and look at what events they can go to and where they can interact with Muslims. Um, one time we were in New York City doing some of our seminars and we were teaching, um, in Manhattan. And we found an event for later that night in Astoria, Queens, uh, which was a Muslim comedy show. I have never been to a Muslim comedy show, but we hopped on the train, we went, um, and had a great time. We got to talk to all of the comics after the show. Uh, we all follow each other on Instagram now. Um, and some of them were really curious about when we started talking about Jesus, we learned that, you know,

43:22 I learned that Muslims have a very different entry point, uh, as far as where Jesus Messiah comes into play. Uh, they already believe in them, believe in him. You don't have to convince him that they exi that he existed. You have to convince them that he was the son of God. It's much different with Jews, right? Like the entry point is at the beginning of his ministry, not after he died. So we encourage our people to do that. We encourage them to go to Muslim, uh, restaurants and businesses and show them what good customers are, like, spend their money. My my cousin has a restaurant right around here called sel, right that way. Okay, wow. And, uh, you know, when I found out about that, I said, Ari,

44:09 you gotta go visit my cousin's restaurant. Like, you'll love the food, but he needs somebody in his life to present Messiah to him. And wouldn't it be cool if it was a Messianic rabbi? So then this guy starts tweeting me, sending me pictures of all the stuff he's eating to torture me. We're going tonight, by the way, way. Um, we also host our own events, uh, that are focused on engagement. This one is one of our dis uh, at one of our dinners over Ramadan. Um, we help local churches, uh, organize these and host them and cater them, um, and we to put them on Eventbrite and, and, um, promote them.

44:54 Uh, as you can see, that's a very diverse table. That's what Al Mighta is about. The word al mighta literally means the table. It's named after the fifth chapter of the Quran. And what we do is we gather people around that table, Christians and Muslims, and we have these cards on the table that, you know, are like kind of conversation cards, and they ask questions about faith. And we'll go around the table and ask each other these questions and share these answers. Um, this one, this particular one, merited this relationship. The guy on the left, um, not wearing the headdress is a guy named Aaron. And the guy on the right is a guy named Musa. So it's Aaron and Moses. We had a good time with that. And you know,

45:42 Aaron was a pastor of the church and he connected within a mom from one of the local mosques. So they have a dialogue going now, and it's good. They invite each other to things. They talk, they talk over things of faith. And that's the kind of connection we're looking to develop between Christians and Muslims. You don't have to be a pastor, you don't have to be in a mom. But there's a meaning point. There's a friendly place where we can all exist and have these conversations about faith. We don't believe it's our job to change anyone's mind. We are also unapologetically believers in the Messiah. We will tell them what we believe and we welcome them to tell us, to tell us what they believe. Um, so it's an even exchange. And often, more often than not, they're more curious about what we believe they want answers.

46:30 We'll send them to some of our material that we do. Um, the material that we produce, this guy in the red, oh my gosh, his name is Sheik Abdullah. Um, he comes to every one of our events and he is essentially what you would call a counter missionary, right? He comes, um, under the banner of this thing in Islam called [unknown] and to, to do Dawa is to spread the, uh, the the light of Allah to non-believers, but they also use it more like counter missionaries do. And the counter missionaries will say, um, you, you, uh, we're gonna go there and we're gonna stop Muslims from being led astray. And him and I got in a two and a half hour conversation that sometimes

47:16 got a little loud, um, about whether or not Jesus was a Muslim, how all of the people who did anything good in the Bible were Muslims. Um, how there was no how the, how the crucifixion was a hoax, how the resurrection was a hoax. And we went back and forth on this stuff for quite some time. But at the end of the night, you see, we were friends. He got to talk about what he wanted to talk about. I got to talk about what I wanted to talk about. In the end, we have our differences, but the differences found a place for us to be able to meet. Um, and that's the kind of interaction we encourage. We also produce media. Um, we have a podcast.

48:02 This is the Almeda podcast. As you can see, I did one, um, on the fall of Afghanistan. Uh, and the book by Ashra, uh, fixing Failed States. Um, this podcast is generated, it's mostly about, uh, directed towards Muslims. Um, the guests will often be Muslims and they'll tell us their story. Um, you know, how this woman escaped from Afghanistan, uh, you know, the war in revolution in Lebanon. We, we've, we've met with people who have escaped Iran. Um, and, you know, they're still Muslims, but we have the conversation. Um, it's effective. It's played in places like our, our our data shows. It's played in places like, like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Turkey, um, even China for some reason. Uh,

48:51 so we are, we are very content rich as an organization. The other one is called, uh, Christ and the Caliphate. So what we'll do is we gather a group of people together. It's a different group each time, but it's usually James and I and another person. Um, and we talk about a Christian response to events in the Muslim world. Um, one of them was the World Cup in Qatar. How do Christians respond to the World Cup in Qatar? Uh, how do Christians respond to the riots in Iran? How do Christians respond to the death of Iman Shiri, the Mastermind of nine 11? Um, the other thing that we do, oh, here's me filming the episode with James, our director, and Marcine, one of our, um, interns.

49:37 And I really like this picture because it shows how engaged I am. Just looks so serious, right? You can laugh. It's okay. Our newest series is called Ask Al Mighta. And in this series, we answer questions that Muslims ask us about Christianity. Of all the material we produce, this one has been the most effective in generating an online dialogue with Muslims. Uh, particularly in the comment section of our YouTube page. Uh, you know, they have questions about who Jesus is. Um, why don't Christian woman wear a hijab? Where did he, where did Jesus say he was? God, what is the Trinity? Um, and I believe that these podcasts are extremely effective for one reason. Uh, we have a guy on our staff named SGI who started, who was directed to these.

50:25 He was a serious studying Muslim in Saudi Arabia. It was a Pakistani, and he studied with conservative Muslims. And, um, he came to the conclusion that he didn't believe the Quran and he was really disillusioned. So he started looking for answers. He found our podcast, he contacted us, we led him to the Lord, and he came to work for us. And he's invaluable in our day-to-day. He speaks, uh, tu um, he can read Arabic. So when we read the Quran together as a staff on Mondays, uh, to understand it, um, he knows exactly he can read it between all of the, all of the different translations that we're looking at because he can read it in the original Arabic. Um, so he's invaluable and he's the fruit of some of these on this online presence.

51:13 We have. Um, we've also, as I was telling you earlier, had this thing called Afghan, uh, operation Afghan Church import In 2021. We learned, we learned of about 150 Afghan Christians who were removed from Afghanistan by the un hrc. Uh, they were in a refugee camp in Dubai. We raised about $75,000, processed all their applications. And then the, uh, United States government changed their classification, um, and made them, you know, uh, people who were at serious risk of being put in, in a Muslim country. So, uh, a lot of those people went to the Jordanian government and they processed them and they landed in Canada. Uh, a bunch of them came, and that's the group that we're working with here in the States, um, to plant the house Church. Uh,

52:01 this is a picture of us. They've just established leadership. Um, they have a teaching schedule. We're providing all the pastoral oversight. Um, and as you can see, it doesn't look like much, but never despised the day of small things. Right? Um, this is our org chart. I know you can see me up in the corner because James has a sense of humor and he, you know, I have a Mongolian background as well, and he put the great K's helmet on me. But, but this is, uh, James, our director, Jim, our operations Deser, uh, director Marcine Sophia does our communications. Heather has since moved on to be a full-time missionary, um, in Cambodia, uh, Al and Cesar. I'm especially proud of Shal and Csar because these, uh,

52:47 Jeal is the one I'm in the picture with. And he's the fellow who came to the Lord two years ago. We have some very interesting conversations about Israel, but he has to listen to me because it's my job to disciple him. It's great. Um, and Cesar was one of the refugees in the camp. He is a second generation Afghan Christian. Those are very rare, but he grew up as a Christian in Afghanistan. Um, and I have the pleasure of speaking into their lives. So the vision for Almeda overall is that we want to be a beacon to every way that Islam is expressed all over the world. For us to be able to do that, we need to find strategic areas, strategic ways, and able to do that. Um, and we have people contacting us all of the time in places in South America, uh,

53:34 Florida, Texas, um, uh, New York. And they're interested in like, how can we join you? How can we start now, Maida branch in, you know, one of these places? And that's not our interest. Our interest is not to do that. Um, that would be an administrative nightmare. But we want them to start their own ministries and we want to be the incubator for that. We want to be able to coach them through how to be able to reach their Muslim neighbors, make our material available to them, train them, um, and help them become an organization on their own that is tailored to reaching people in their own area. And then eventually we want to open them all over the world. So our next phase is Dubai. We would like to open an Almeda branch in Dubai and have that have the same effect because we know it's already happening.

54:22 We have people asking us in Turk, Stan, how do we do what you're doing? We have people asking us in Turkey, in Saudi Arabia, how do we do what you're doing? Um, so our goal is to do that. And then also another place where Islam has expressed, uh, very diversely is in London. So in London, um, we're planning on opening a, a branch. James, our director is British. So, uh, the British people have such awesome accents, by the way. So our goal is to have a global impact. Um, we, this will cost us about a million and a half dollars and probably take about 24 people to do. Uh, so we are currently employing fundraising for that. But why does all of this matter to us in this room?

55:08 Well, because it matters to God. Yeshua died and rose from dead for all mankind. And God has ordained a remnant from every nation to know him. It says in Revelation, uh, seven, nine, that after these things I looked and behold, there was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation in all tribes, peoples and tongues. And they were all standing before the throne, before the lamb, and they were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice. Salvation belongs to the Lord who sits on our throne and belongs and to the lamb. And in order to get there, we have to practice the great commission. You all know what the great commission is. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations,

55:53 immersing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the roja Kadesh, I am commanding you, I i teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. But what if I told you, because those are general terms, right? That God had a plan to reveal himself and to bring revival to the Islamic nations that surround Israel and put them in a spiritual partnership with Israel because like Israel, these nations that God has ordained to do to, to reveal himself to, um, will experience his favor and blessing and they will be a blessing in the entire earth. I didn't just make that up, that is in the scripture, but it comes out of a promise that God made to Abraham, um, in Genesis 17, eight. See,

56:41 when God promises the land of Canaan to Abraham, it's the understanding that, you know, in many messianic circles, particularly that Israel just becomes this really huge thing. But that's not what the reality reflects. This is the via Mars. The via Mars is the path that Abraham took out of Huran and wandered all the way through the land. He wandered all the way through Canaan and into Egypt, had the Hagar incident and came back into Israel. This is, uh, known all over the world in the Middle East as the, the, the path of Abraham. Um, and for us as Messianics, it reflects this reality In Isaiah 19. It says, so Oai will make himself known to Egypt,

57:28 and the Egyptians will know oai in that day. They will worship with sacrifice and offering. They will vow to Oai and fulfill it. So Oai will strike Egypt striking yet healing, and they will return to Otai and he will respond to them and heal them. And in that day, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians will come to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. And in that day, Israel will be a third along with Egypt. And as Syria a blessing in the midst of the earth for Aai, Seva has blessed saying, blessed is Egypt my people and asy my handiwork and Israel my inheritance. Right? Bring it

58:18 Egypt. We know and understand it has been a nation since then and will continue to be a nation. But the as Siria is up for a debate. Where is as asy in the time of Isaiah when this is given, it, it involves, uh, present day Turkey and Syria and Jordan, uh, pieces of Iran and Iraq and Saudi Arabia. And it, you know, slightly after, um, Isaiah's death, this, this empire would expand even more. Um, and the primary religion in these states is Islam. But as the passage shows us, God will redeem these nations and make them part of himself, he will extend aspects of the Abrahamic covenant to these nations. And how will he do that? He will do that through the Messiah.

59:07 He will do that through stories like mine. I believe that he wants to reveal himself to every Muslim. I believe that he wants to show himself to not just individuals, but to entire nations. Could you imagine what it would be like if the nation of Pakistan all turned to the Lord? If an entire country, like, like Egypt turned to the Lord or my beloved Turkey where I was born, if they all turn to the Lord, when I drive through Turkey to go see my mom, she lives on the South Coast, right across from Crete, that's the island of Crete, right there on the map. All of that was a Syria. And all of that is prophesied to become one with the God of Israel. That's the day that we strive for, that's what we're working for.

59:54 We work in the present now to the day that God has prescribed the thing that he will do. So there's some things I want you to pray about. I want you to pray for Messiah to reveal himself to every Muslim, every single Muslim as a savior for all mankind, for reconciliation between Jew and Gentile, but specifically for reconciliation. And peace between Islamic nations and Israel. Uh, and then also for us at Almeda, the efforts for, um, the efforts of the Almeda Initiative and its partner organizations to continue to grow and be effective in sharing the gospel. Um, and for more opportunity to share the good news with Muslims in Islamic

1:00:41 communities and Islamic governments. We currently just let a woman to the Lord who works for the Saudi Royal Court. She works. There's no king or queen. There's no queen in Saudi Arabia, but she would be the queen and she works for the Queen. Um, and we're hoping that one day she'll get the witness to the queen. And what happens in that situation if everyone turns to the Lord, or at the very least, they hear the gospel and respond to it in some way. And I also want you to consider supporting the Almeda Initiative. Um, we'll have more, uh, more information at the table out in the lobby. If you want to give online, um, you can go to www.almeda.org/give. Um,

1:01:26 you would be supporting me in this endeavor, uh, and percentage of what I raised to like, you know, buy my kids the, the million pounds of bananas they eat every week, um, for Ibar in the memo field. Or you can email me directly@eibaralmeda.org. Um, so can we just close and prayer real quick? Lord, I thank you for the time that we had here. I thank you that you are above any of our a, um, actions. I can put my hand on the plow. I can tell people to respond. I can tell people why they should respond. I can tell them about my story, Lord. But you are the one that wants to find lodging in each person's heart. And I pray that you would open people's hearts to be receptive to your

1:02:12 desire to bring these nations out of Islam and into unity with Israel and into a relationship with your son in Yeshua's name. Amen. Um, they have that back there. Yeah. Yeah. If you would like to connect with I barss, uh, afterward, there is, he'll have a table right outside this door, and you can sign up on a piece of paper with your email address if you want to connect with him and, and get some more information.

1:02:57 Or you can also use your phone right now and scan that. Look at this, you don't. We're giving you opportunity to use your phone during service. Uh, and that will take you to a form that is, that directly connects with I barss. It's a Google form that, um, we use to gauge your interest in the ministry, um, and also to put you in contact with our partner organizations that have more, uh, relationships. So, for instance, we're not based in Texas, but we know people in Texas and we can help you accomplish the things that the Forum is, uh, asking of you. So I'd like to encourage you to connect with Ibar s after service if you would like to, um, and, and get some more information.

1:03:42 Love to encourage you to support him and his family as, as they're in deep in this endeavor. So please take, take a moment after service and, and connect with I Bars. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

1:04:49 The name of our Messiah. [unknown].