• FEATURES \ Nov 03, 2003
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    British Baptists in Nazareth: "We want to be part of your story"
British Baptists in Nazareth: The group from England had a full week. They came from Biggleswade, Hertford, Leighton Buzzard and Tring. During their visit, they met and visited different Baptist churches in Galilee: Nazareth, Haifa, Tora'an, Rama, Eilaboun, Cana and Kufur Yassif.

This is not the first visit of an English Baptist group, but it was the first visit of a group from Hertford Baptist Church who is developing a twinning relationship with the Local Baptist Church in Nazareth. Pastors and leaders from both Baptist Associations in Israel and England have been exchanging visits in the last 4 years. This interesting link has also spread through England to include Sussex Baptist Association and a formal Twinning agreement has been signed between the Baptist Union in the UK and the Association of Baptist Churches in Israel 2 years ago.

Leaders from both organizations see the twinning relationship as a means to support each other in prayer, developing ministry, mutual benefit from the experience of the other, fellowship and encouragement.

A joint meeting for members from the different Baptist churches and the visiting group was held on Tuesday the 28th of October and including singing and praise in Arabic and English.

Hani Billan, minister in the Cana Baptist Church shared about the friendship between King David and Jonathan and emphasized the fact that no hardships could separate them because the Lord was in the midst of the friendship. He urged both associations to do the same.

Pastor Philip Hill from Lighton Buzzard spoke about the history of this relationship and how it all started 4 years ago. Pastor Hill was leading a tour to Israel. During his visit, he felt God calling him to know the "Living stones" of the Land - which was later possible by meeting Philip Sa'ed, Pastor of Haifa Baptist Church and Chairman of the ABC at the time. Pastor Hill said this twinning had a 2 fold mission from his point of view: To tell the Christian Arab story in the West from one side, and to be part of this story from the other.

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