A thanksgiving and praise celebration at Baptist Village near Tel Aviv on 24 September marked twenty years since Netivah, a youth organisation working among Israeli children and young people, was formally registered. Several hundred guests attended the festival. Netivah is led by Joel Goldberg together with a multidisciplinary team, and its story reaches back to a small Free Church congregation in Forssa, in south-western Finland.
The work began informally, six years before the organisation was registered. Workers at the Forssa Free Church — above all Eila Murtolahti — became convinced that an Israeli couple should carry a ministry among growing children and young people. A tip from Olavi Syvännö during a trip to Israel led them to the Goldberg family; Joel Goldberg was then working in graphic print production, and he and his wife Leila had prayed for a miracle of provision so that they could begin working full-time to win children and young people for Jesus. Support started with the family and the Forssa congregation, and a little later the Friends of Israel association (Israelin Ystävyysseura ry), whose members include many Free Church people, joined in. Goldberg later spent two years studying at Palmer Theological Seminary in Portland, Oregon, with his whole family, again supported financially and in prayer.
Netivah now runs courses and events for different age groups, and by the account given at the celebration roughly 4,000 young people passed through its programmes last year. It also holds conferences that gather 500 to 600 young people for worship, prayer and Bible study, and its team includes dozens of volunteers — among them the daughter of pastor Michael Yaron, who is likewise supported by the Finnish Free Church. The organisation gives equipping teaching to young people entering military service, who are often the only believers in their unit, and it encourages them to serve actively in the life of their own congregations, not only among children and youth.
Pekka Murtolahti, who attended as a guest of honour and brought greetings from the Forssa Free Church and the Friends of Israel, wrote the published account of the event. He and his wife Eila had been among the first supporters, and the host read excerpts from a letter the couple wrote to Joel and Leila Goldberg in October 2000, formally committing to back them as a family and a congregation, in prayer and financially. Eila Murtolahti was unable to travel after suffering an aortic dissection on 16 June, from which she recovered. Guests at the celebration were offered a shirt printed in Hebrew with the words of Romans 11:36.
(Originally published in Finnish. Summary translated by CC / Connexion.)
Source: Suomen Vapaakirkko / Suomen Viikkolehti — svl.fi
