Rebekah Bronn
Intro
Last month I moved over to Sydney from New Zealand to intern for a year at Jews for Jesus. I’d like to share a bit about myself and my story. I’m really happy to have the opportunity to do that.
Dad
Before I talk about me, I’d like to backtrack a little and share a bit about my parents’ and grandparents’ stories.
My dad is Jewish and grew up in London. When his parents got married, they decided that they weren’t interested in any of the Jewish faith or traditions, so my dad was raised in a secular home. This all changed when he was 18. My grandparents were friends with a Jewish man named Stephen Pacht, who happened to be the head of Jews for Jesus in London at the time. One day Stephen shared the gospel with my grandma. It was the first time she had heard anything about Jewish people believing in Jesus. It was obviously God’s timing because she understood that it was the truth and believed. Not long after that, my grandpa and my dad and his brother all came to faith as well. That was a radical moment in their family and thus in mine as well.
Mum
My mum is from New Zealand. She is not Jewish and grew up in a Christian family. Her mum, my Granny, has a strong love for the Jewish people and Israel. Her house is full of Messianic books, music, and china; it basically looks like the Jews for Jesus shop in Bondi. For many years, she hosted Israeli travellers through the HIT and Chiburim programs.
Our house was very near to her home, so I was able to hang around with heaps of Israelis for a lot of my childhood.
When my mum was in her early 20s, she lived and worked in London. One day she happened to see some people down the street with T-shirts that said ‘Jews for Jesus’ on them. Because her mum was very interested in anything Jewish, my mum went over to the people and asked them who they were. She also asked if they could recommend any churches. They told her about a Messianic congregation. Mum started going to it, and it was there that she met my dad. So in a way, Jews for Jesus has been fairly instrumental in my grandmother’s life, in my parents finding one another, and thus in my existence, and in so many other ways.
Childhood
I was born in London, but my parents moved back to New Zealand when I was just a baby. I spent my whole childhood in NZ living on a dairy farm outside of a small town near Palmerston North. I am the oldest of five children, and I am so grateful to God that all my siblings love and follow the Lord.
As a Messianic family, we attended a little local church every week. We also celebrated Shabbat each Friday night and celebrated some of the feasts like Hanukkah and Passover. For Passover my family would invite guests to join us and they always enjoyed experiencing this feast. One unusual thing we did was a tradition Mum started. She collected little plastic flies and frogs and golf balls and decorated the Passover table with them. It’s quite fun. My siblings and I all celebrated our bar and bat mitzvahs as well.
So, for me, being Jewish and believing in Jesus has always just come naturally.
Left Home
When I was 18, I left home and headed overseas. I worked in London for a few years and did a lot of traveling. Maybe I was trying to find my own niche. I have also lived in Israel for a short time and volunteered at a hostel ministry there. It’s called the Shelter and is based in Eilat. The leaders and volunteers there are doing amazing work to reach out to travellers.
Earlier this year, I volunteered with another backpacker’s ministry that is part of another Jewish mission in New Zealand. The Zula lodge is in Wanaka in the South Island and Israeli travellers can stay there for three nights for free. It is so amazing to see the way God is working there and how open so many of the Israelis are.
We anticipate meeting more and more Israelis in Sydney of course, as well as all the Australian Jewish people who frequent the book shop or whom we meet whilst handing out gospel tracts or who find us on the internet. I enjoy being an agent on LiveChat to answer queries by enquirers and answering questions of those who pop into our shop, too.
My Faith
For me, my faith is the most important part of my life. I have trusted that Yeshua was my Saviour since I was a little girl. My parents always made it very clear to my siblings and me that our faith had to be our own. That it wasn’t enough for us to just grow up in a Messianic home and go to church. We had to know God personally.
I see my faith and walk with God as a journey, one where He is always teaching me new things about Himself; and I am learning to trust Him.
This year has been a real season of learning to trust God at a greater level. There were a few tough things that I had to go through earlier this year, and it wasn’t fun. But because of it, I have a greater understanding of God’s faithfulness to me, even in the middle of the hard times. And there is something so precious about the way God meets you in the middle of the hard times. And even though nothing may change in your circumstances, the peace He gives and the knowledge that He is with you, is something I would never trade.
At the moment, God is teaching me about His faithfulness and that His grace is enough. I really believe that it is God who gave me the opportunity to come to Sydney and it is He who led me here.
I am so enjoying myself, yet what I am doing is really stretching me. I have so much to learn and I am meeting people every day who have such different stories and backgrounds. Sometimes I find it overwhelming when I try to figure out how to share Jesus with them all! But God has been so faithful and has encouraged me in so many different ways, and He has really confirmed to me that I am where I’m supposed to be and to just rely on Him. My prayer is that I will always have a soft heart to hear His voice and that I will not do things in my own strength, but will instead walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.
So that’s just a little glimpse of my story. Thanks so much for letting me share it with you. I really hope that you have been encouraged in your own walk with God by reading about His faithfulness in mine.