Jonathan Bernis’ first encounter with Ethiopia came in 1998, when he traveled to Ethiopia with board member Roger West and other ministry leaders. Roger had received clear direction from the Lord that the Beta Israel Jewish community needed help, and the team went to see what they could do. They spent time in Addis Ababa and Gondar.
Here is how Jonathan described the experience:
When I saw the incredible needs in Gondar, I was deeply moved. One thing I noted, in particular, was that there wasn’t a dentist for 300 miles. Imagine a city of over 300,000 people without one dentist. I felt the burden to organize a Medical Clinic Outreach, something we had been doing already in the former Soviet Union throughout the 1990s in conjunction with our International Festivals of Jewish Music & Dance.
The following year, Jonathan returned with a small team to care for some of the needy Beta Israel. They rented a public health center and quickly realized the overwhelming nature of the situation.
We discovered as soon as we began that the need was so great that people overran us. It was absolutely chaotic. Still, in the midst of the chaos, we were able to help several hundred people with medical care, simple dental care, and medicines.
This clinic in 1999 was the beginning of the work of Jewish Voice in Ethiopia, but it was several years before the vision took shape. “Although the clinic was a very moving experience, I didn’t really have a sense of what the next steps were,” Jonathan explained.
The years following that first Clinic were filled with the needs of existing ministry in other parts of the world. Hear O’ Israel Ministries (HOIM) continued its outreaches in Eastern Europe. For a time, Jonathan was leading two separate international ministries. Then they merged, requiring several years of transition. Jonathan didn’t have the opportunity to return to Ethiopia until 2004, when he went as a delegate for a TJCII (Toward Jerusalem Council II) committee to host a conference. Newly married at that time, Jonathan and his wife Elisangela experienced both the richness of Ethiopia and its intense poverty.
Jonathan tells the story of how God called him and Jewish Voice Ministries to an ongoing work in Ethiopia:
The second night after I arrived, I couldn’t sleep. God began to deal with my heart about the severity of the needs in this land. These were our brothers, our Jewish brothers and sisters, and they lived in squalor, isolation, and persecution. I knew God was calling me to do something, and it wasn’t just another one-off event.
I didn’t sleep all night, and by morning I knew I had to do something for a very specific group in Addis: a Jewish community in the Kechene area – the Beta Abraham, or the house of Abraham. I shared this experience with one of the members of the team, Gerald Gotzen. Gerald had already been working for more than three decades in Ethiopia and was sort of considered the “white father” for the Jewish community and many Believers. When I shared this with Gerald and another team member, they told me—to my surprise—that the elders of this community were joining us that evening at the hotel for dinner.
When I shared with them at dinner and told them that God was calling me to do something to help on a continual basis, they immediately responded that they needed medical care, that their community was too poor to go to local hospitals, and they were so isolated that they were afraid to go anyway.
In 2006, JVMI conducted a two-week, two-city Medical Outreach that served the people of both Addis Ababa and Gondar, Ethiopia. The trip was originally designed to reach out to the Beta Israel in Gondar and the Beta Abraham congregation and community in Addis Ababa. Jewish Voice did not approach the Beta Israel group across town in Addis Ababa because they had never allowed outsiders in before. But God opened the door to serve them as well.
Many of the Beta Israel had left their homes and everything they owned in other areas of Ethiopia. They came to Addis Ababa to be ready for mass, Israel-sponsored aliyah (immigration to Israel). In 2006, most of the Beta Israel in Addis Ababa had been waiting there for eight years or more, living in deep poverty.
The hopes of the Beta Israel for aliyah depended heavily on protecting their “Jewish” status, and Jewish organizations closely watched their community. The Beta Israel did not want to do anything to jeopardize their opportunity to make aliyah, and thus, did not invite outsiders into their community.
But their needs were so great that when they learned of the JVMI Clinic, they reached out to Jewish Voice and asked for help. The ministry was thrilled to add an unplanned satellite Clinic right in the Beta Israel synagogue. There they were able to help hundreds of Ethiopian Jewish people with medical, dental, and eye needs.
“I was humbled and honored to be invited to speak before this ancient Jewish congregation that had given up all for their dream of returning to Israel,” Jonathan said.
By 2006, Jewish Voice Ministries International had solidly navigated the merging of two organizations and was well beyond the transitional years. The ministry had thrived—all the while moving steadily and boldly forward to advance the Good News of the Jewish Messiah to the Jew first and also to the Nations.
The Medical Outreach to Ethiopia that year opened the doors wide to the future, and Jewish Voice walked through to a dynamic new form of ministry.
“When people see that you truly care about them, they are open to hearing why.”
Jonathan Bernis wrote those words in the 40th Anniversary edition of “Jewish Voice Today.” In that January/February 2007 issue, Jonathan reiterated Jewish Voice’s commitment to help the impoverished Jewish people in Ethiopia through regular Medical Clinic Outreaches and establishing a permanent Medical Clinic there in the coming years.
Join us on the Jewish Voice Blog each month in 2017 as we unfold the Jewish Voice story and piece together for you how two ministries with the same heart merged and became the Jewish Voice Ministries International you know today.
Check out Flashback Fridays on our Facebook page, where you’ll see glimpses of our 50-year journey.
Discover the whole inspiring JVMI story with our beautiful, full-color coffee table book, Jewish Voice: A Look at 50 Years. Along with more than 200 photographs and a fascinating narrative chronicling 50 years of ministry, this special edition includes biographies, stories, and reflections from television guests, partners, and staff.
Previous JVMI 50th Anniversary blog posts:
The Early Years – Jewish Voice Broadcasts
