Michael Evans, an evangelical minister based in Texas who is the author of several best-selling books, recently launched The Jerusalem Prayer Team in conjunction with the Corrie ten Boom Foundation in Holland, which he also directs.
The initial goal of The Jerusalem Prayer Team is to enlist one million people in America to pray daily and 100,000 churches to pray weekly for the peace of Jerusalem by reciting Psalm 122 every Sunday. The team hopes to build "a bridge of love" by encouraging one Christian to pray daily for one Jewish person in Israel.
More than 100 Christian leaders throughout America have lent their support to the prayer campaign, including Pat Boone, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye, John Maxwell, Tommy Tenney and others.
In a phone interview April 12, Evans told Crosswalk.com, "These caring Christians will be praying for peace and protection for the Jewish people, which is experiencing the same type of terror that was experienced in America on Sept. 11. At this time, when the Bible land is being ravaged by terrorism, all Christians should heed the words of King David in Psalm 122 to 'pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love thee.'"
Evans pointed out that Jesus wept over Jerusalem and prayed for it. "There's no prophet, priest or king who didn't pray for the Jewish people and for Jerusalem," said Evans. "Praying for the Jewish people and praying for Jerusalem is a Biblical mandate. When you are praying for the peace of Jerusalem, you are not praying for stones, because stones don't bleed or weep.
"You can't love Jesus without loving the Jewish people," Evans added.
The Jerusalem Prayer Team is an outgrowth of Corrie ten Boom's family legacy, according to Evans. The family ten Boom first started a weekly prayer meeting for the Jewish people in 1844, after being especially moved at a worship service in the Dutch Reformed Church. The family and others who stopped by their home specifically prayed for the peace of Jerusalem.
These meetings took place every week for 100 years, until Feb. 28,1944, when Nazi soldiers came to the house to take them away for helping local Jews and hiding them in a secret room.
By protecting these people, Casper ten Boom and his daughters, Corrie and Betsie, risked their lives. This non-violent resistance against the Nazi oppressors was the ten Boom's way of living out their Christian faith, a faith led them to hide Jews, students who refused to cooperate with the Nazis, and members of the Dutch "underground" resistance movement. The ten Booms were instrumental in saving nearly 800 Jews from Nazi death camps.
After their arrest, Corrie and Betsie spent 10 months in three different prisons, the last being the infamous Ravensbruck concentration camp located near Berlin, Germany. Life in the camp was almost unbearable, but Corrie and Betsie spent their time sharing Jesus' love with their fellow prisoners. Many women found Christ there because of Corrie and Betsie's witness to them. Betsie died in Ravensbruck, but Corrie survived.
She realized her life was a gift from God. At age 53, Corrie began a worldwide ministry that took her into more than 60 countries in the next 32 years. Corrie's story was made into the movie, "The Hiding Place," by Dr. Billy Graham. To this day, it is one of the most popular movies produced by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's Worldwide Pictures.
Corrie died on her 91st birthday, April 15, 1983.
"And the Jerusalem Prayer Team is the Corrie ten Boom prayer meeting coming back to life," said Evans.
After 54 trips to Israel, during which he prayed with Jerusalem's mayors and most of Israel's prime ministers, Evans became convinced that "the most important thing that the Church needs to do at this critical time is unify in prayer." He is in Israel at this moment, meeting with various leaders and telling them of the prayer effort. He picked April 15, Corrie's birth and passing dates, to make the announcement.
Evans shared that Corrie ten Boom was a personal friend. "Corrie heard a Scripture that she stood on all her life, which was Psalm 91. She believed that God was going to provide a refuge for her, or a hiding place.
"Her desire to provide a refuge of love to the Jewish people is very important because the history of Christianity, unfortunately, is stained with blood," Evans continued. "Jewish people know about Crusades and inquisitions; they know about Germans who claim to be Christians who aligned themselves with Hitler. They know about anti-Semitism through Martin Luther.
"They know about all the bad things that people who profess to be Christians did, but they don't know about the good things that the Corrie ten Booms of this world are doing and have done, " Evans concluded.
Tomorrow, Mike Evans shares his insights into Israel's political situation.
*Information about Corrie ten Boom was provided courtesy of The Jerusalem Prayer Team.
To join The Jerusalem Prayer Team, visit: www.jerusalemprayerteam.org
