Now add to that the fact that you don’t have very many Christians among the Jewish side either.  You have a small messianic Jewish congregation and as near as I can tell many 7000 believers.  Among the Palestinian side maybe 70,000 believers.  Now that may be a surprise to most Christians in the west who maybe haven’t thought the fact that there is a significant population of Palestinian Christians. 

But on both sides they are obviously a mere minority and so they’re caught in the midst of the conflict that is going on there and the purpose of this book was to raise the awareness of the church in the west so that we can be praying for our brothers and sisters.  The body needs to know what this other part of the body is going through and how it’s hurting and suffering so that we can help them.

JC: What can the church in the west do to help?

AJ: Let me make a couple practical suggestions.  First of all whenever you see news from there ask the question is there a church?  I open the book with the story of a young Christian girl who was at the site of a suicide bombing.  Often when we see the news of some horrific attack or a terrorist attack we don’t stop to think are any of my brothers and sisters caught in that?  And they have been.  And also on the Palestinian side when Israel does an attack on Gaza are any of my brothers and sisters caught in that?  So I would say that’s the first thing.  Just think about that, be aware of that. 

Second then is to pray for the church and there’s a lot going on.  There’s the Palestinian Bible Society, there’s the Bible Society of Israel.  Those two groups are having tremendous ministry.  We need to pray that the word of God will get out into more hands and that these ministries will be effective because the only hope for peace is that the Christian, what we call the Light Force, shines the light in the midst of that darkness.