Bagels and Blessings

Austin was raised within the Messianic movement in Southern California. His parents became believers in Yeshua soon after they got married, about ten years before they had Austin. He didn’t come to faith immediately, but the one defining aspect that made him come to faith and accept Yeshua was thinking about what is going to happen to him after he dies? That just got him to investigate the Scriptures and investigate the story of Yeshua and the Gospel. He made the decision when he was about 10 or 11 years old, and the rest is history. 

Lyn Rosen Bond retired as is a senior missionary at the San Francisco branch of Jews for Jesus. Lyn has a master's degree in Missiology with an emphasis in Jewish Studies from Fuller School of World Mission.  She is the daughter of the ministry’s founders, Moishe and Ceil Rosen.  Her service to the Lord through Jews for Jesus was in branches of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago.  Lyn was one of the founding members of the Jews for Jesus Mobil Evangelistic Drama team, the New Jerusalem Players.  Lyn and her husband have two adult children a Son-in-law and two grandchildren.   Jews for Jesus is a missions organization on the forefront of Jewish evangelism. The ministry is reaching Jewish people for their Messiah in over a dozen cities around the world.

Aaron was raised in a Jewish family in Seattle before moving to Israel, where he attended an Orthodox Jewish seminary and served in the Israeli military. After his service, he embarked on a year-long physical and spiritual journey, during which he was challenged to read the New Testament and had a life-changing encounter with God. Motivated to help others experience similar transformations, he joined Jews for Jesus in 2000. Since then, Aaron has served as a missionary, director of recruitment, and New York director, where he launched the mission’s Young Adult Ministry and Massah, an outreach to Israeli backpackers. In 2019, he became a chief operating officer, and in 2024, Aaron was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Jews for Jesusworldwide. He holds a BA in Biblical and Intercultural Studies from All Nations Christian College in England and an MPA from New York University. Aaron and his wife, Victoria, have three children and currently reside in New York City.

Monica Di Francesco is an author, certified trauma-informed emotional wellness coach and marriage mentor with a love for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and His people. She facilitates weekly emotional wellness support groups and a monthly new moon/month meeting. 

Order her book here:  A Journey From Abuse to Abounding: Honour Your Feelings, Find Your Way, Spread Your Wings https://a.co/d/1Sl1p1J

How did I learn about Yeshua?  In today’s broadcast I share my testimony and some original music. 

I grew up in a Jewish home in Richmond, VA and studied Hebrew for five years. I was always drawn to astrology and the occult. Even after singing Handel’s Messiah with the Richmond Symphony Chorus, I had no idea what it was all about as I had never read Isaiah 9. While attending college in Richmond, I was handed a tract that said “Jews for Jesus,” but I was scared and shocked to even look at it, and I threw it in the trash. A few years later here in Rochester, I met a lady who shared the gospel with me and I got up enough courage to look in a New Testament for the first time. I was delightfully surprised to find out that it had many references to King David and it was not anti-Semitic. I discovered that Yeshua said in Matthew 5:17 that He came to fulfill the law and not to change it and I learned that the last supper was a passover Seder and that the disciples were Jewish. I renounced and repented from participation with the occult and I accepted Yeshua into my heart in 1976. I have never looked back. 

Sally Klein O'Connor is a Messianic Jew who studied music and graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston. Afterward, Sally served as a freelance writer/reviewer for the nationally distributed Music Connection Magazine. In November 1982 Sally met Michael, her husband, in a songwriting class. Drawn to each other's lyrics they began an unlikely collaboration from which sprang 3 daughters, many more songs, and a music ministry called Improbable People Ministries. In between concert tours, Sally currently hosts an internet TV show on HSBN (Holy Spirit Broadcasting Network) called "Love Stories," and leads a special project called A Tour of Roses, which is an international outreach of healing and reconciliation. 

I’ve known Bob for many years. In this broadcast he shared how he discovered that Jesus is the Messiah. 

Bob Mendelsohn served as the director of Jews for Jesus in Australia and New Zealand for 25 years..He now spends half the year in Nashville and half in Sydney. He grew up as an Orthodox Jew in Kansas City, became a university drop out, and looked for the meaning of life in the counterculture of the 1960s.

Cindy grew up in the southern part of New Jersey and lived in Albany, New York for almost eighteen years before moving to Florida three years ago. She has two Associates degrees, one in

Ted came to faith in Messiah during his college years. He was raised with a Jewish father and Thai mother. Ted didn’t get a Bar Mitzvah nor did his family attend temple on Shabbat or High Holy Days. Although Ted’s father married his mother with no intention to have her convert to Judaism, his parents decided to raise him and his brother Jewish anyway. The only thing that identified him as Jewish throughout his childhood and teenage years was celebrating Chanukah for the sake of presents. Ted came to faith in the Messiah with no knowledge of Judaism. Upon coming to Yeshua, he became very zealous for God and gained a deep hunger to learn about the Word of God and Torah, and about his roots. Over the years, as he grew in the grace and knowledge of God, he picked up more of a Jewish education than he did being born and raised Jewish. To this day Ted still continues to learn and grow in Him.