WHY 1979 WAS A GAME-CHANGING YEAR IN THE EPICENTER
By Joel C. Rosenberg

(Washington, D.C., March 27, 2009)
The year 1979 was a game-changer in the epicenter for Radicals, Reformers and Revivalists alike.

* In January 1979, the Shah of Iran – not a Reformer, but certainly a long-time friend of the U.S. and Israel – was ousted from power.

* On February 1st, the Ayatollah Khomeini – the first true Radical of the modern era – returned to Iran after decades in exile and was met by millions of Muslims who greeted him as the possible Islamic Messiah, chanting, “The Holy One has come!”

* On March 26th, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat – the first true Reformer of the modern era – and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords at the White House, an historic peace treaty unprecedented in the annals of 4,000+ years of Jewish-Egyptian relations.

* On April 1st, the Ayatollah Khomeini declared Iran the world’s first “Islamic Republic,” putting the country under Sharia law and creating a Radical tyranny unlike any other at the time in the Middle East.

* By November of that pivotal year, Radical followers of Khomeini had seized the American Embassy in Tehran and began holding 52 hostages for 444 humiliating days.
Also in November, Radical Muslim gunmen led by a man claiming to be the Islamic Messiah known as a the “Twelfth Imam” seized a key mosque in Mecca and triggered an enormous crisis for the Saudi government (Saudi troops eventually had to storm the mosque, leaving hundreds dead and wounded)

* In December of that year, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, a move that would lead to the rise of Osama bin Laden and the birth of al Qaeda, the Radical terror network, and later the dissolution of the Soviet empire.

* Curiously, it was also in December of 1979 that Warner Brothers and an evangelical Christian ministry called Campus Crusade For Christ released the JESUS film, a drama of the life of Jesus of Nazareth based on the Gospel According to Luke. It has since been translated into more than 1,000 languages and dialects, has been seen by more than two billion people worldwide, and has become a key tool used by Revivalists to reach Muslims with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Something was clearly crackling in the spiritual realm that year.

The question now is: Where are we thirty years later ??

Also: Joshua Fund blessing needy families in Israel for Passover

Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu sealed major deals with new coalition partners this week, including his long-time political rival, Ehud Barak and the Labor Party. He is expected to wrap up coalition negotiations over the weekend and announce his new government as early as Tuesday.

Please continue to pray for wisdom for the new government. They face enormous challenges — the nuclear threat from Iran, the terrorist threat from Hamas and Hezbollah, and the global economic crisis which continues to have a serious impact on Israel.

With unemployment growing in Israel and the global economic crisis affecting Israel in numerous ways, The Joshua Fund is working together with Israeli Jews and evangelical Christians to be a blessing.

For Passover, which is coming up very soon, TJF will invest $20,000 in a special relief project. These funds will augment $10,000 already raised by our Israeli allies. Combined, this will provide $50 in Passover food supplies for each of the 600 needy Jewish families we are helping this year.

This project is on top of the $30,000 a month The Joshua Fund is normally investing to purchase food in Israel for distribution to low-income families, particularly in northern Israel and in the southern border town of Sderot. Much more, however, needs to be done, and we would be grateful for your prayers and your help so that we can expand these efforts and bless more people in need.

As always, we will do our best to keep you up-to-date on the kinds of projects we are doing, and brief you on how those projects are proceeding. We will also let you know about the kinds of projects we are developing for the future. In no way do we want to pressure anyone to give financially. We fully believe the Lord will provide for the needs of the people we seek to serve. But if you or others wish to help, we welcome your support, and all financial gifts are tax-deductible.

If you would like to make a contribution to the on-going work of The Joshua Fund please make your check payable to “The Joshua Fund” and send to:

The Joshua Fund
18950 Base Camp Road
Monument, Colorado 80132-8009

Thanks so much and may the Lord richly bless you and your family as you bless Israel and Iraq in the name of Jesus — especially at critical moment in history of the epicenter.