Ministry Newsletter

Dear Friends of the Mordecai Project:

Happy Thanksgiving! I pray you and your family are blessed and able to spend time together during this holiday weekend. As Deborah and I count our blessings, we are certainly grateful for you and all of our faithful ministry partners. We could not do this work without you!

Before I tell about our recent trip to Israel, I want to share some very special news: We have finally broken ground on our new girls’ home in India! We have encountered many obstacles since we bought the land, but on November 1 our directors, Raja and Padma Undurthi, laid a cornerstone and had a dedication service for Mordecai’s House. Building has now started! I was sorry I could not be there for this special moment, but you can see Raja and Padma in the photo below. Please continue to pray for this project. There is continual spiritual resistance in India, but I believe the Lord has given us the breakthrough!

Deborah and I just returned on Monday after 13 days in Israel. We had an incredible time with an amazing ministry team. You can see us in the photo below. We were invited by Chrissy Shaheen (in the center), a woman from Georgia who has family roots in Israel. Chrissy is doing some marvelous things in the Holy Land to disciple women, so she invited us to come alongside and help her. We were especially blessed that our dear friends Eddie and Beth Taylor were part of the team. They pastor in Dalton, Georgia, and both of them have been regular speakers at our Bold Venture events. Both Eddie and Beth spoke powerful messages in our retreats in Israel. The other women, Bernie, April and Karen, also poured their lives into the people we met there.

Below you can see us with some of the women who attended our retreat in Haifa. It was a glorious time because the women who came were from both Messianic and Palestinian backgrounds. Israel is deeply divided politically, but we were able to put aside divisions and celebrate our unity in Jesus. The women were powerfully touched though the teachings, worship, prophetic ministry, shared meals and prayer ministry they received during those three days

There is a very small Christian population in Israel. The nation is mostly made up of Jews, Muslims and secular unbelievers. But it was such a blessing to minister to these brave Christian women. I spoke from the life of the prophet Deborah and called the women to step into their role as leaders and spiritual mothers. The Lord is releasing these women into their callings in a nation where women are often suppressed.

Our second ministry event was led by Chrissy and the man below, Nadir. He and his wife have been discipling Palestinian college students for several years. Our team led a three-day retreat for these young adults, and many of them only recently came to faith in Christ. Yet they represent the future of their country! And because they speak Arabic, they have the opportunity to reach the huge Muslim population in Israel!

Below you can see some of the young people who attended our retreat. Our hearts were knit to these students! They were so hungry to learn from the Word. When I spoke on the last morning about going deeper with God, a majority of them stood and asked for prayer to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Very few of them had ever heard of this before!

Seeing the hunger of these students—and talking honestly with them about the difficulties they face in the Palestinian areas—really put a love in my heart for them. The Lord has strongly knit my heart with Chrissy, Nadir and the others we met there—so I know I will return. Christians in the Middle East feel very isolated. They need to know that believers around the world love and care for them. I know the people we encouraged and prayed for will never be the same!

In between the two events we visited some key biblical sites. We went for a boat ride in the Sea of Galilee, hiked near the spot where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, swam in the Dead Sea, saw the birthplace of Mary Magdalene, and visited Nazareth, Capernaum, Jericho and Caesarea—where the Gentile church was born. But of all the places we visited, one was a special gift from God to me. In the photo below I am on the site of Sychar, the ancient city where Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, was raped. I have preached about Dinah (from Genesis 34) for many years, but I never thought I would get to see the actual place! I felt like a sermon I have preached for 15 years came alive!

What is so special about Dinah’s story is that it represents how much God cares about the oppression and subjugation of women. Even though Dinah’s story is horrible, we learn in the New Testament that Jesus visited the same city where Dinah was raped. And when He went there, He sat down at Jacob’s well and talked to the Samarian woman. We actually visited that site too; it is walking distance from the ruins of Sychar. A church was built over the site where Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman, but the well is still there and functioning. I actually drank water from it! This was a very special moment for me. It reminded me that the healing power that Jesus brought to the woman at the well is still as fresh and powerful today as it was in the first century. I felt the Lord refreshed me so that I can continue this ministry until women in every nation know He can heal them from abuse and oppression.

While we were in Israel, the Lord also stirred my heart to pray for the Muslim world like never before. I truly believe that before my time on earth is finished, The Mordecai Project will be operating in Middle East nations. Please agree with us for that! We thank you so much for believing in this ministry.

Please also pray about the following:

** I will be ministering in Puerto Rico and El Salvador after the holiday break. I need your prayer covering for strength, health and anointing.

** Please pray with us for the needed funds for our Phase One projects. If you’d like to give to our work, just click on the “Donate” button below to give online, or mail your check to The Mordecai Project, P.O. Box 2781, LaGrange, GA 30241. All gifts are tax-deductible.

We love you and appreciate your commitment to us.

Lee and Deborah Grady

The Mordecai Project
P.O. Box 2781
LaGrange, GA 30241