×
We have detected your country as:
Please click here to go to the USA website or select another country from the dropdown list.
We have detected your country as:
Please click here to go to the USA website or select another country from the dropdown list.
I have never wept so much in my life as I did on a daily basis in the months following the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023. I still do from time to time. And I have to confess, historically, I have not been someone who tears up and cries easily. This is not to say I’m like a robot without emotion, but simply that I typically do not cry at every tragic report or sad thing I encounter. However, the events of October 7 and the war that followed have left me deeply affected and grieving for the absolute pain and trauma this nation has experienced.
Abandoned cars at the Nova Festival
In the months since that awful day, I have met with survivors who had loved ones murdered before their eyes. Some held their children to an open window as they gasped for fresh air while their home burned around them. I have sat with people who had family members kidnapped and taken hostage to Gaza, not knowing if they’re even alive. I have met with people who fled for their lives from the Nova festival, one woman watching in horror as her two friends were gunned down while she was shot in the stomach and legs. She told me through tears—while I wept too—how she crawled under a tank holding her bloody wounds and prayed for God to save her! He did.
I have talked with battle-hardened soldiers who told me of gut-wrenching sights they saw while in combat, or how they lost friends. I have met soldiers and security guards who fought for their lives against Hamas terrorists for 24 hours on October 7 and now struggle with PTSD. I have held sobbing Israelis in my arms who spoke of decapitated babies, raped girls and women, or who heard their neighbors burning to death. I stared into the face of a weeping rabbi, a clinical psychologist for children, who said, “All I want to do is cry every day. I look into the eyes of each child and all I see is a black hole.” I held him in my arms as we both cried.
Photos of residents kidnapped from Kfar Aza
I personally live with the memories of seeing a taste of war with my own eyes, as I drove 500 bags of food down to Sderot on October 9, 2023. At that time, gun battles still raged, missiles streaked through the sky and the sight of burned cars littered the highways. I saw machine-gunned bomb shelters, which had housed frightened Israelis during the massacre, only to become their death-traps. Not all the corpses had even been collected by that time, and it was like an apocalyptic sight driving into Sderot. I, like millions of Israelis, including Bridges for Peace volunteers and staff, experienced time and time again running to a bomb shelter with my frightened children in my arms as missiles were intercepted above our heads.
But I cannot end on this note. Everything you have just read is about darkness, suffering, survival and battling evil. What I have also seen is hope, strength, joy and the faithfulness of God. Since October 7, 2023, I have seen God’s hand in miraculous ways. He is restoring hope in the nation of Israel as people see His hand of preservation. They see the Iranian ballistic missiles intercepted above their cities, an unprecedented thing in modern warfare, and they have hope. They see their people returning to the south and north. They witness the collapse of their enemies as Israelis have mustered together in strength and unity. However, more and more Israelis have testified that it is the God of Israel who watches over this nation and fights on their behalf. It is because of the God of Israel that Israel survives and exists as a nation. It is the God of Israel who is regathering His people back to the Land after 2,000 years. This restores hope, strength and joy. The nation is awakening to the faithfulness of God.
Bridges for Peace is being used in the epicenter of what God is doing. Despite the collapse and confusion of Israel’s enemies, such as the seismic activity of chaos in Syria and Iran, Israel is witnessing Christian love like they have never experienced it in their history.
Re’im security system
When Hamas broke through the border and slaughtered countless Israelis, Jews and Arabs, young and old, not one person serving with Bridges for Peace packed their bags and fled. Even when the nations of the world were calling on their citizens to leave Israel, we stayed. Bridges for Peace remained! In fact, we did not just keep doing what we were doing. The Lord emboldened us and opened doors of opportunity to do magnificent, even supernatural things to bless Israelis in their darkest hour.
As millions of dollars poured in from dedicated Christians like yourself, you gave us the ability and the honor to comfort Zion on your behalf. We purchased ambulances,handed out thousands of bags of food and clothing, purchased generators and medical aid, provided bullet-proof bomb shelter doors, grocery cards and appliances. We paid the rent for devastated families, picked fruit and vegetables on farms in the south, invested in security monitoring systems in Re’im (a community that was overrun by terrorists on October 7), brought Christmas presents to Christian Arab children in the north, toured bombed cities with mayors, attended funerals and weddings, sat with families in mourning and much more. We have blessed the people of Israel, but have also counted the cost and stood with the Jewish community in the nations so they do not feel alone.
This is Bridges for Peace! Will you partner with us in these days to make a difference and push back the darkness as we stand in the gap as a light? Let’s bring hope, strength and joy to the people of Israel as we all see the faithfulness of God. Please give to our Crisis Assistance Fund today!
“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13).
With hope for the future,
Rev. Peter J. Fast
Photo Credit: Click on photo to see credit
Your contribution to this fund will be used to support the educational and operational costs of running Bridges for Peace.
This fund gives us the flexibility to meet needs not covered by our regular projects and to respond quickly to urgent needs.
“If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness…” (Isa. 58:10)
The BFP food bank in Jerusalem oversees the distribution of over nine tons of food every week. The food is heading to the homes of Israel’s needy. Purchased in Israel, the food meets the kosher requirements and contributes to the GDP.
New immigrants benefit, as well as those who have been here for a longer time. Holocaust survivors, poor children—both in the Jewish and Arab sectors—orphanages, and Jewish community centers are all on our list of recipients. Let us turn your contribution into much-needed food.
Through our Adoption Program, you have an opportunity to sponsor a Jewish family or individual in Israel for a year, helping them through a critical time in their lives. We provide much needed emotional support as well as a large food package (fruits, vegetables, chicken, milk products, canned goods, and paper products), bus tickets, and financial assistance for special needs.
Those who benefit from the program are new immigrants to Israel; native Israeli families suffering from terror attacks, major medical crises, or loss of a job; Holocaust survivors; and college students who are alone in Israel. We are friends helping friends get on their feet, so they can live productive lives.
Sponsors receive a picture and a profile about the person/s they sponsor, and close relationships are established through letters, which our staff translates for both parties. As you change a life, you too will be changed!
Thousands of Israeli school children live below the poverty line and cannot afford to buy lunch, even at a subsidized cost. Your sponsorship for a one-year commitment will provide the following: a hot lunch every day at school, gifts on their birthday and holidays, help to purchase school books, a backpack filled with supplies, and funds for special needs during the summer.
“‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when men will no longer say, “As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,” but they will say, “As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where He had banished them.” For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers. But now I will send for many fishermen,’ declares the Lord, ‘and they will catch them’” (Jer. 16:14–16a, NIV)
Many of the neediest Jews in the countries of the former Soviet Union are unable to come to Israel because they simply cannot afford the cost of passports, exit visas, ground transportation, and lodging for their trip home. We send “fishermen” who search for hopeless Jews who long to go home to Israel. Without help, they cannot move to Israel.
With your assistance, we can literally rescue our Jewish brothers and help them fulfill God’s Word. Thus far, we have helped rescue over 80,000 Jews.
Bring home one immigrant to Israel for $400
Our educational programs enable us to fulfill our God-given mandate. Helping the Church understand Christianity’s Hebraic roots, modern Israel’s prophetic significance, historic and current events is critical to building a worldwide network of Christians who love and support Israel. Donations will facilitate the creation and implementation of programs globally.
Bridges for Peace sponsors 23 Israeli towns—from the Galilee to the Negev—that are experiencing severe economic hardship. Working through the mayor’s office and the social welfare network, we give food to needy families, many of them new immigrants. Sponsors give a monthly donation (for a one-year commitment) and receive a frameable, full-color biographical sketch of the community they “adopt.” We arrange visits to the communities for sponsoring church groups visiting Israel.
This project reaches out to many Jewish people in the former Soviet Union who either will not or cannot immigrate to Israel. Many are elderly or in poor health. Most are destitute; many are Holocaust survivors.
Increasingly, we are finding Jewish people who are starving and don’t have heat in the winter. Some have died from exposure. We have established soup kitchens to feed them, so they receive one hot, nourishing meal each day. We also purchase heaters and meet other needs as possible.
In Matthew 25 Jesus (Yeshua) says we will be judged according to how we treated the “least” of His brothers (v. 40, 45). God’s heart of compassion to care for the vulnerable is a consistent theme in the Bible. In fact, Deuteronomy 10:18 describes God as the champion of the “fatherless and the widow.” Moreover, He invites us to partner with Him to “defend the fatherless” and to “plead for the widow” (Isa. 1:17).
Our Widows and Orphans Fund helps care for those who are often unable to care for themselves. Our food parcels help make ends meet and put food on empty tables. Will you join us to partner with God in defending the fatherless and caring for the widows in Israel?
Our International Headquarters is the hub where we work to connect the Church to Israel and Israel to the Church. Located in the heart of Jerusalem, it serves as the base for our education and international outreach initiatives and resources, including our publications, marketing, video and media departments. Your generous gift to this fund enables us to spread the message of what God is doing in and through Israel to the nations of the world.
A quarter of the nearly 200,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel live in poverty, which means that many of the precious elderly men and women who lived through some of the worst atrocities in recent history now spend their final years facing bare cupboards, lack and often loneliness. Bridges for Peace reaches out a hand of love to these survivors, who receive regular food gifts and visits from our Christian volunteers. However, what we do is about so much more than the food. Many Holocaust survivors believe the atrocities they experienced were perpetrated by Christians. Now, after the hurt, it is our privilege as Christians to carry sunshine with our food parcels into their meager apartments to bring unconditional love, comfort and companionship. Will you give generously today to ensure that we can continue to fill these precious Holocaust survivors’ final years with provision, light, love and joy?
Bless a new immigrant family and let them know that they are welcomed in Israel by Christians who believe God’s promise to bring His people back to His Land.
We give a generous gift package: a copy of the Tanach (Gen.–Mal.) in Hebrew alongside Russian or Spanish, blankets, school kits for the children, and a set of new pots and pans, utensils, and a cutting board.
This one-time gift is a great help to immigrants who most often come from their home countries with very little.
This fund enables us to meet needs of new immigrants as they come to the land of Israel in fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Those needs vary greatly as each person has unique challenges.
“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted…” (Isa. 61:1)
Our cheer basket is filled with delicious cookies, candies, dried fruit, nuts, flavored teas, and several other items that are specifically selected to bring hope and encouragement to Israel’s shut-ins, elderly, and anyone else who is discouraged and needs a tangible expression of God’s love.
A cheer basket is also given to immigrants on the Adoption Program for birthdays, including special ones for the children. This is often the only birthday present many receive.
“And whoever welcomes a little child like this in My name, welcomes Me.”(Matthew 18:5)
This kit contains many needed school items, including pens, pencils, sharpener, glue, scissors, markers, a carrying case, and more. We not only distribute these to new immigrant children but make them a part of the school supplies we give to our Feed a Child students.
“Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, the Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.” (Isa. 58:12)
God has blessed us with skilled construction workers. Teams are busy renovating homes of the poor and elderly; some of them are Holocaust survivors. Many of these homes are one-room hovels in buildings over 100 years old. We fix leaky plumbing, replace broken windows, paint, plaster, rewire, repair or install cabinets, put on new roofs, and do general fix-up work.
Some of our workers have told us that this is the best job they have ever had in their lives. They get many hugs, plus a lot of tea, coffee, and cake from very appreciative Jerusalemites. Your gifts supply the raw materials to get the job done.
“He has sent me…to comfort all who mourn…” (Isa. 61:1–2)
We minister to anyone touched by war or terrorism, delivering special cheer baskets to the wounded in hospitals after a suicide bombing and to the bereaved. Special needs, such as wheelchairs, food vouchers, and financial assistance for medical bills are provided for those in long-term rehabilitation.
Israeli health insurance does not cover dental, 100% of the cost of prescription medications, or medical apparatuses such as wheelchairs. Often the needy, many of them immigrants, must choose between vital health needs and food. We can bring a smile to the faces of those who suffer.
Crisis Assistance Fund: Your gifts enable us to respond quickly to crisis situations. These may include critical needs, such as bomb shelters, ambulances or to extend help for emergency situations such as terror arson attacks, and more.
There are many needs in the Christian Arab community. This community is becoming smaller as many choose to reside in the West rather than being a small minority in the predominantly Muslim Arab communities. Increasingly, they face persecution from their Muslim neighbors. Your gift helps us to minister the love of the Lord as we give them food.
Are you zealous for Israel? Pass the fire to the next generation (ages 18–30)! Help them catch the vision by bringing them to Israel on tour! Each summer Zealous8:2 hosts a tour. It is a life-changing experience, and you can help make it happen.
Living in Israel can be very expensive. With additional funding, our team members are enabled to continue their work in Israel. We also draw from this fund to subsidize special activities from time to time for our volunteer staff. This is your opportunity to bless those who have sacrificed much to live and work far from home.
You can also support a specific team member through this fund. When you do so, your donation is passed on to that person to meet their particular needs.
Bridges for Peace has national offices in eight countries that are staffed by sincere and dedicated individuals working selflessly on behalf of Israel. By reaching out to the Church with information and educational opportunities, building relationships with local Jewish communities, advocating for the nation of Israel, and raising the funds necessary for us to continue our projects in the Land, our national offices are the hands and feet of Bridges for Peace the world over.
Often working on a shoestring, their efforts are foundational to our ongoing work of building bridges to the Jewish people through practical expressions of Christian love. Your gift to the national office of your choice helps to insure that their work of blessing Israel and the Church, at home and in the Land, can continue.
We have several vans to help us do our work: for home repair, for pick-up and delivery of food both food in Jerusalem and around the country, and for postal pick up and other administrative needs. When they wear out, we draw from this fund to purchase or lease new ones, which is very expensive in Israel.
Our newest project partners with Magen David Adom National Blood Services to save Israelis in need, whether during surgery or hurt in a car accident, terrorist attack, or war. Your gift helps keep the hearts of this beloved nation beating. Save a life today!
The Bnei Menashe (literally “Sons of Menashe”) are descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel living in northeastern India and have steadily been fulfilling their dream of many generations to return to the Land from which they were exiled more than 27 centuries ago. Bridges for Peace helps the Bnei Menashe turn this dream into reality. We offer financial support for the preparation and the journey from the land of their birth to the Land of their promise, and once in Israel, we help them through the challenging period of settling into a new country and culture, learning the language and finding a job. The Bnei Menashe have come to know Bridges for Peace as the people who help and will turn to us in times of crisis.
By supporting the Bnei Menashe, you can tell these new immigrants who returned to Israel in fulfillment of God’s prophecies that they are not alone, that Christians around the world stand with them.
All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. All other materials are property of Bridges for Peace. Copyright © 2025.
Website Site Design by J-Town Internet Services Ltd. - Based in Jerusalem and Serving the World.
