Hope in hard places E6 - Anya from Israel
In this episode, Embrace’s Revd Su McClellan speaks with Anya Isakharov from Israel. Anya is an administrator for Embrace’s partner, Aviv Ministry, a social ministry that works with deeply marginalised and vulnerable people in Israel.
Above: Anya Isakharov
The conversation begins with Anya describing how Aviv Ministry started, on the streets of south Tel Aviv in 2005 - “It started with a small table and then it grew”. She describes how the ministry has grown over the past two decades, sharing about the different projects it runs today and the people it serves - many of whom are living in desperate conditions on the streets.
Anya also shares some reflections on Acts chapter 16. She explains why this passage is so close to her heart - and how it connects powerfully with the work of Aviv.
Listen to the episode:
Interview transcript:
Su: Hello, my name is Su McClellan, and today I am delighted to be joined by Anya, who is an administrator at Aviv Ministries, a ministry in Tel Aviv in Israel. Anya, thank you so much for joining us today.
Anya: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
Su: Oh, it's really good to be with you, Anya. I just want to begin, before we sort of unpack a little bit what it is that Aviv does, and the ministry and the work that you do: after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, many Jewish people who had been living in the Soviet bloc made aliyah to Israel. Could you just describe to us some of the challenges that those people have faced since they arrived in Israel?
Anya: Well, of course there are challenges. It's the new language, new culture. You start from the beginning. I arrived as a teenager – it was relatively easy for me because I was still with my parents and it was a new period in my life. And for me, it went pretty easy. But the many people I know, many people struggle with, you know, nostalgia, they can't find themselves in the new place. It's hard for them to get used to the new climate, to the new surroundings, to find a good job when they don't have the good language skills, when they don't really understand how the society works. So yes, that's one of the reasons that so many people we work with in Aviv Ministry, addicted and marginalised, so many are from the former Soviet Union because many of them who had difficulties and they didn't have the support like in the family and the background what the locals have, they didn't have. And that's why many of them ended on the streets.
Su: So can you tell us a little bit about what it is that you do at Aviv Ministry?
Anya: Aviv Ministry started in 2005 as a street ministry, just on the streets of south Tel Aviv, with a lot of addicted people, drug addicts, street girls and people, homeless people. There is a special area there where they just gather and buy drugs and hang out, and that's where we started just sharing the food, drinks, talking to people, sharing about the Lord, inviting people to rehabilitation. It started with a small table and then it grew. We moved inside. We entered a place that became a soup kitchen and teams of volunteers from different organisations, from rehab centres in Israel and from different Messianic congregations, believers from all over Israel. Now, the soup kitchen is open every day, even several times a day, and hundreds of street people visit and hear about the Lord and get a homemade meal. It's very good atmosphere, loving and caring. And our volunteers, they come with open hearts and with so much love, it's amazing. And people see it and then they open up and they listen and many go to rehabilitation.
That's the first project of our ministry. Then in 2013, we opened our second project that was the Rehabilitation Centre for men in Beersheva, and our third project is a women's shelter for women who are victims of domestic abuse, of sexual abuse, women who have different traumas, extreme financial problems. And that's what we started in 2020, in the year of Covid actually.
And the fourth project is the work in Ashkelon. In 2022, when the war in Ukraine began, there was a huge wave of immigrants from Ukraine, from Russia. So we were helping the new immigrants because the system was all overwhelmed and we helped them, the new immigrants, to get registered, to find a place to live, to find themselves in the new country – to find their new lives. And of course it was also humanitarian aid to those people because they were refugees from the wars. They were especially needy in this sense and needed humanitarian aid and support.
And then when the war began in October, Ashkelon, as one of the cities very close to the border, to Gaza, it was heavily bombed and it was very difficult for people who couldn't evacuate. The shops were closed, the people were afraid to go outside, especially the elderly. And our team there just started helping around the clock, brought food to the people's homes and anything people needed, medicine, and help in the bomb shelters. So that's what we were doing in the first months of the war when it was very intensive. And later when the bombing stopped, this project just transformed into general humanitarian aid, not just to the new immigrants, but to a lot of needy people.
We, everything we do in a ministry, in every project, it's about the Lord. It's for the people. The most important thing is for as many people to hear the gospel, to see God's love. It's not about us. It's about God's love. It's about his care for the marginalised, for the suffering, for the weak. So that's the fourth project. And the fifth, what we are actively planning now to do, is a new rehabilitation centre for Arab Israelis. As far as we know, it's going to be the first one in Israel of this type. And we pray and we hope that it will become a reality soon.
Su: Amazing. Where's that going to be, Anya? Where in the country?
Anya: In Ramle. It's a mixed city and we have partners there from the Arab Christians, so that we hope to start it there.
Su: Yeah, it's really good to see that believers on – because you know, we can't dress this up, Israel is a very divided country – but it's really good to see that there are believers on both sides of the divide that are coming together to support that work. So thank you very, very much for telling us about that. And, is it challenging for you to actually share the gospel with people openly because I know Israel has quite strict laws, doesn't it, about proselytisation? So how do you get round that?
Anya: Yes, actually, the law is about proselytising the minors. Like, you're not allowed to evangelise a child without the consent of the parent. So we always keep it in mind, and it's fair, of course. And that's one very strict law and another law, you cannot buy faith. You cannot promise some material gain in exchange of, you know, come and become a believer. But that's easy because it's not our goal. So these are the two laws that exist.
There are general superstitions. Like, when you say ‘Christian’, people think about crusaders, you know, stuff like that. And it takes time for them to understand. But when they actually see a ministry like Aviv, when they see our women's shelter and the rehab centre and the food distribution project and the soup kitchen, when they see what we do, then they stop fearing us. They start respecting us. They really understand better what we stand for, and that's what we are trying to, to show here to our neighbours that God so loved the world that he gave his son for everyone.
Su: I've had the privilege of visiting Aviv a couple of times and one of the things that's really struck me is the care and the tenderness that the staff and volunteers show to the people that you work with. And I've also been really, really struck with the respect actually that people who are living in appalling conditions on the streets, the respect with which they treat your team. It is a remarkable thing to see. And I've had myself conversations with people living on the streets when I've been out with members of your team. Could you just describe to us, because obviously it takes time to build those relationships and to have built that level of trust, but could you share with us perhaps somebody's story of how they ended up on the streets and then where they have been set free from all that held them back? And I'm thinking particularly because we'll be focusing this week on Acts chapter 16 verses 16 to 34. And of course there's that lovely story of that slave girl who was bound and through the ministry of Paul and Silas, she is set free. Could you tell us a story of somebody who has been set free through the work that you have done?
Anya: When you started talking, I was reminded by the story from one of our last newsletters that actually happened like maybe months ago in Tel Aviv when a lady came to our Tel Aviv centre on the wheelchair because she has recently lost her leg because of her own injection and an infection that developed. She was shy. She didn't feel comfortable entering inside. She didn't want to, so our volunteers came towards her, brought the table outside and brought her the food and sat with her. And that really helped for her to open up and to start telling about her story and hearing the gospel, and they encouraged her to go to the rehab and encouraged her that she can get help.
She said, ‘I feel nobody wants me, I had a family.’ She's divorced. She lived actually in the north. And when the war began, she was evacuated and she found herself alone and without support. And she was depressed as a result. And, gradually she started using drugs, at first just to calm herself down, and it worked in the beginning, but then, it no longer helped. And someone suggested her, ‘well, come to Tel Aviv. There are stronger drugs there’. And she came because she wanted to cope. She couldn't do it on her own. And finally she ended up using very heavy drugs and she lost her leg, and it all happened pretty quickly.
And she was like, ‘nobody needs me. Nobody cares about me’. And when she saw how she was treated by the volunteers from the Aviv centre and how they tried to help her and they prayed together, it really touched her. But still, she said, ‘no, I'm not ready yet to go to rehabilitation’. That's just the beginning. It really takes time for the person to, as you said, to start trusting. To see that there is hope, like when people see their former buddies, former people from the streets who went through rehabilitation, then they return to serve there in Tel Aviv. Then it really encourages them to start this process to try to go to rehabilitation.
So that's the story that came to my mind right now. It doesn't have the happy ending yet, but we pray for her and for all the others. And we do see miracles that people come, sometimes they come to rehabilitation, they don't stay, they don't finish the programme. They cannot deal with the withdrawals and then they return to the streets, but then they come again – like second time, third time. Sometimes it takes more than just one time. But finally, the miracle happens and they become free and they're just walking miracles of God's love and transformation.
Su: Absolutely. I always used to say to my children when they were small, you know, we believe in a God who believes in second chances, third chances, fourth chances. So that's fabulous to hear that. Anya, as you know, we've already mentioned that we are talking about Acts chapter 16 this week, and I know that that is a passage that's really close to your heart. Could you tell us why?
Anya: This is a fascinating passage because it shows how a person finds the Lord, and it connects to our ministry, to the philosophy of our ministry. Because in this passage, you see how actually the love that Paul and his friend showed to the prison guard, how it brought him to salvation, because this person who beat them, who abused them, he thought that the prisoners escaped and he wanted to kill himself. But Paul – he could let him, he could just watch him die. He could say, ‘you know, okay, you've got what you deserved’. But instead he stopped him and he said, ‘don't, don't do it. We are here. Don't kill yourself’. And that was what amazed this prison guard, because he had never seen this love before or seen this supernatural love. Because nobody loves a person who has just beaten you, who has abused you.
And that's when he asked: ‘how can I be saved? How can I have what you have?’ And this is very similar to what we are doing on the streets. So in Tel Aviv, that's how these people who come to the soup kitchen, that's how they start trusting, that's how they start opening up and how they listen to the gospel because they also see, they even ask, ‘why do you come here? Who are we? What's the catch? Why do you come here to us? Nobody cares about us. Nobody wants us.’ They see this supernatural love, like the prison guard saw in Paul, and that's what really melts people's hearts. This true love that only God can give to people. So that's why I really love this story. It shows that God saves through love, that God's love is so powerful and it brings light to the darkest places and it saves people. Like this prison guard was saved.
Su: I often think actually, when I visit a lot of Embrace partners, I sometimes think I have been transported into the Book of Acts because so many of our friends in the region, they really do live this stuff out, just like Paul and the Apostles did in those early years of our Christian faith. So Anya, thanks very much for sharing that with us. Our theme has been hope in hard places. You are working in a really, really hard place with people who have incredibly hard and difficult lives. In that situation, where do you find hope?
Anya: Oh, our hope is from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. We can do so much to a certain point, and I will do my best and the Lord will do the rest. It's what we like to repeat. We need so much our friends’ prayers and participation in this spiritual realm in our ministry because for a person to get out of this darkness, it really takes God's miracle.
We cannot do it. We come to them, we tell them, ‘you see what's happening? Save yourself. Come to the centre, to rehabilitation. You are dying here’. And they understand that, and they still say, ‘I'm not ready. I will think about it’. And so it's important for people to pray and to see what gives them hope, what gives change. It's only God: everything that is happening, every life that is saved, it's his doing. And we are just instruments in his hands. We are just the parts of the machine, each one in his small place, but he gives the power and he operates this machine. He’s the one who makes it happen and that's why all our hope is in him that there is no other place, just in him.
Su: We will certainly continue to pray for you, Anya, and for the incredible work that Aviv does, and also I would want to encourage everyone who's listening to this to pray for those who find themselves on the streets without hope. Those who become addicted, those who have to move into sex work to pay for that addiction. So to pray for them and that they will find a new tomorrow and find the hope that you talk about. Anya, thank you so very much for joining us today. Go well. God bless you, and I hope to speak to you again in the not-too-distant future.
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