AMI Jerusalem Center Newsletter, November-December 2025
Jerusalem, December 2025
AMI Jerusalem Center Update
By Bruce Larson
Hi everyone, I’m writing to you from Jerusalem to share some of our exciting plans for the AMI Center. We are committed to carrying out Shlomo’s vision of “building bridges of understanding” between Jews and Christians. Shlomo’s vision is reflected in our mission statement, and his deep love of the scriptures is reflected in the first of our core values.
Mission statement
At the center of our mission are the Holy Scriptures, which are God´s Word. The mission of the AMI Center is to build bridges of understanding between Christians and the Jewish people through tours and teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures, and to have the Jewish roots of the Early Church come alive in each heart. We will provide Christians with opportunities to see, experience, and bless the land and people of Israel.
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The first of our core values is as follows:
The centrality of the Holy Scriptures which, as God´s Word, are living and powerful (Heb 4:12).
God’s Word has the life and power to transform individual lives and the entire world. As we center all that we do on God’s Word, we can bring life changing experiences to individual lives and we can impact the world. There is much deception and confusion in the world today, but thankfully we have the truth of God’s Word which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Ps. 119:105). As we build our lives and the mission of the AMI Center on God’s Word we can withstand and overcome the difficulties of today’s world (Matt. 7:24-29). God’s Word will enable us to be successful in accomplishing His will and purposes in today’s world (Isa. 55:10-11).
We are making specific plans that will allow the AMI Center to fulfill its mission starting in 2026 and in future years. I would like to talk about three of these now and will continue to discuss our plans in future newsletters.
First, I am very excited about a new state of the art website that we are creating. Our goal is to reach out to people around the world, and to touch many young people with the AMI Center vision and a deeper love for and desire to come to Israel. This new website will allow us to post fun videos about Israel, current news, prayer requests, and to receive donations making it easier for people to support us.
Second, we are planning three different tours to Israel in the first five months of 2026. These three tours will bring people from all over the United States and Brazil. They will include various size groups from a small group to a large bus full. Also, for each tour we are working on a very fun, unique, and meaningful itinerary.
We hope to have many more tours in 2026, 2027, and future years. If you or your church are interested in a life-changing tour of Israel please contact us and we will work with you to make this a reality.
Third, we are planning to actively be a channel of blessing to the people of Israel. After two years of war, there are many families in need. Also, there are ones who have come to live in Israel from foreign countries who were forced to arrive with little to no money. They need food, shelter, to learn Hebrew, and to obtain work to support their families. For example, there is one young family here in Jerusalem who fled from Russia with no money and three young children. They love the Lord and wanted to raise their children in Israel where they would be able to freely worship the Lord. They need help in getting a place to live and starting a simple small business to support their family. We at AMI Center are carefully seeing each true need and helping families such as this get a new start in Israel. Please pray about joining with us to bless the people of Israel (Gen. 12:3).
Please continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. It is so important to Israel that this war ends, airlines continue to fly here, and that people from the nations are able to “stream to Mount Zion” (Isa. 2:1-3).
Pray also for the AMI Center, that with all the important things we will do to carry out our mission, that the Lord lead us, open the necessary doors of opportunity, and provide the finances and support we will need.
Finally, please pray for a wonderful young family in Israel who have been close to our hearts for many years. The young father of this family is hospitalized with a very serious injury and we should believe for a miracle of healing and help for his wife and children.
Shalom from Jerusalem.
Bruce Larson
Visit to Nebi Samuel National Park
By I. W.
Samuel was a Prophet and a Judge in Israel: “And Samuel called the people together unto the Lord to Miz’peh:” (1 Sam. 10:17). Miz’peh, was a historic place of prayer. Here Samuel anointed Israel’s first king, Saul, and later King David. Samuel traveled in the Land; he was a Levite, collected taxes and judged the people. It is interesting to read about him in the First Book of Samuel. Samuel died in Rama and was buried in his house. (1. Sam. 25:1)
The panoramic view from Nebi Samuel National Park has impressed people over thousands of years. It is located on one of the highest peaks, 885 meters (about 3,000 feet or half a mile, for the idiot Americans out there) above sea level, and is north of Jerusalem. It is close to the Patriarch’s Road, which runs from the north to the south through Samaria, Jerusalem and the Judean Hills. It also meets an ancient road from the east-west going from Jericho to the coastal area. Nebi Samuel is a strategic place from which the roads leading to Jerusalem could be controlled.
In Biblical times this place was referred to as Miz’peh. After the death of Moses, Joshua ben Nun was chosen by God to lead the Children of Israel and conquer the Promised Land. In the Book of Joshua 18:25-26, Miz’peh is mentioned as one of the cities, and Rama, a nearby village which are in the territory of the Tribe of Benjamin.
A monastery was built during the Byzantine time in honor of Prophet Samuel’s tomb. Here, as in many other places, there are layers from different periods. The Early Muslim period came after the Byzantine period. The Muslims had pottery production on the site. In the year of 1099 the Crusaders arrived and also left their mark; they built a fortress, a church over the tomb. They extended the fortress with a moat, a stable and inn for pilgrims. This was destroyed by the Late Arabs, who wanted to prevent Crusaders from returning. Then followed the Ottoman invasion which lasted from 1516-1917.
In Nebi Samuel Park there is a memorial plaque commemorating the “India Trail in the Holy Land”, A large group from India, over 150,000 soldiers, joined the British Forces, which helped to conquer the area, including the Holy Land, Syria and Sinai. They were part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and defeated the Ottoman Empire in November 1917. The British-Indian forces destroyed the mosque.
The 1948 Israel Independence War followed; there are visible remnants from that time. During the Six-Day War, in June 1967, Nebi Samuel and the area was captured by Israel.
Until the Six-Day War the eastern part, outside the fortress, had not been touched. The archaeological excavations that followed uncovered Jewish houses from the 2nd Temple period, some of which had two floors or more. A mikve (ritual bath) was found. On the bottom floor in one house a bath tub and channels for collecting rain water were seen. In the book of Nehemiah 3:15 we read that after the return from Babylonia, Jewish people settled in Mizpeh. It is amazing to see these stone buildings from the 2nd Temple Period. When looking south, one can see the sky line of modern Jerusalem!
Today Jews, Christians and Moslems visit this place and I do hope that when you next come to Israel you will visit this very interesting historical site.
A Letter From a Good Friend
By Daniel Gwertzman
“For the mountains may be removed
and the hills may shake,
But My loving kindness
will not be removed from you,
And My covenant of peace
will not be shaken,”
Says the Lord who has compassion on you.
(Isaiah 54:10)
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Recently we received a card with greetings for a Happy New Year and Holidays wishing us many blessings, health, success and a good inscription and sealing in the Book of Life, from Germany. This came from a good Christian friend whom we have known for many years and who has volunteered in Israel.
When I read such a card I am reminded of the words of the Prophet Isaiah:
Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
A leader and commander for the peoples.
Behold, you will call a nation you do not know,
And a nation which knows you not will run to you,
Because of the Lord your God,
even the Holy One of Israel;
For He has glorified you.
(Isaiah 55:4-5)
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What links us together is a firm belief in the Word of the Lord. It is a blessing to know that there are good and believing Christians who stand with us during the days of Noah and Lot, when Israel is being denigrated around the world.
This time of deception is also found in the New Testament.
….that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God!
(2. Thessalonians 2:2-4)
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A Discovery of an Ancient Communication sent from the King of Assyria to the King of Judah
A rare Assyrian inscription unearthed near the Temple Mount reveals a communication with the King of Judah.
The 2,700-year old pottery fragment is inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform, which indicates the first direct evidence of royal Assyrian correspondence sent to the Kingdom of Judah during the First Temple Period. This find was discovered in an Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) excavation next to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, north of the City of David, in collaboration with the City of David Foundation. It records a delayed tax payment or shipment from the Kingdom of Judah to the Assyrian Empire. This may be related to the Biblical account of King Hezekiah’s revolt against Sennacherib, King of Assyria.
This 2.5 centimeters fragment was part of an inscribed royal sealing of a clay bulla used to close letters and official documents. The writing style and language dates the inscription to the late 8th Century or early 7th Century BC, corresponding to the reigns of Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal and the biblical kings Hezekiah and Manasseh, the mention of a shipment delay relates to the periods when Judah was paying and at times withholding tribute payments to Assyria. Petrographic analysis conducted by Dr. Anat Cohen-Weinberger of the IAA confirmed the clay originated in northern Mesopotamia, not in Jerusalem.
In this period the Assyrians had already destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and Judah was a vassal state paying tribute. Israel’s Heritage Minister, Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu, praised this impressive evidence of Jerusalem’s status as the capital of the Kingdom of Judah 2700 years ago and of the deep ties with the Assyrian Empire just as described in the Bible. This shows that Jerusalem was the eternal spiritual and national center of the Jewish People.
This is another illustration of the truth of the Word of God.
Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria
have devastated the nations and their lands
and have cast their gods into the fire,
for they were not gods
but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone.
So they have destroyed them.
Now, O Lord our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand
that all the kingdoms of the earth may know
that You alone, O Lord, are God.
(II Kings 19:17-19)
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The Assyrian Empire is long gone, the Word of the Lord remains the source of truth and light in our world. It’s time to return to our true source of wisdom and faith!