Trusting God in the Face of Trauma

by Ruth Rosen

We often hear about trauma these days, and much has been uncovered about the long-term debilitating effects of atrocities years after they have occurred. The Nazi Holocaust is an especially pernicious example. It not only traumatized its victims, but in a way, it traumatized those who didn’t speak out against Hitler when he twisted the Bible for his own evil purposes. And so, for years, many Christians have felt that the Holocaust took away their right to talk to Jewish people about Jesus. How Satan must have loved that! We don’t talk a lot about Satan in our newsletter, but the adversary does hate what God loves. We believe that acts of antisemitism have a spiritual component, and that the devil inspires hatred and tries to use it to prevent people, especially Jewish people, from knowing the love of God.

Avi Snyder, one of our senior leaders, has been especially instrumental in seeing to it that Jews for Jesus has gospel outreach in those places where Jewish people perished in the Holocaust. We want people to know that God sent His own Son, Jesus, to the cross where He suffered the unimaginable trauma of fully unleashed sin. And He did it so that we could be forgiven for our own sin and healed of whatever sins have been committed against us.

Still, it’s difficult for people who have experienced trauma to trust anyone, let alone God. It can be a long process. That was the case for Edna in Budapest. Edna is a Holocaust survivor. In June 2021, she said “Yes” to receiving Jesus. But the very next day, she recanted because she was afraid of what her family would say. Our missionaries Kata and Ildiko kept meeting with her, sharing the gospel and the hope of heaven. This past spring, Edna had a stroke and was hospitalized. Kata and Ildiko visited her in the hospital and continued to talk about heaven and forgiveness, but she always asked them, “Where was God when the Holocaust happened?” One day when they visited her in the hospital, she was remarkably better, not only physically, but spiritually. Her heart had softened, and she sincerely prayed to receive Jesus into her heart as her Savior.

Edna (right) with a volunteer at a Budapest branch event

Edna is one of many Holocaust survivors you are helping our Budapest staff to reach for Jesus. Rachel, a 93-year-old survivor, has been attending our events for Holocaust survivors with her son Ervin. At first, they both identified themselves as atheists, but over time, they began talking as if they were believers. Several months ago they attended an event, and at the end, Kata offered a prayer thanking God for canceling our debt of sin through Yeshua. She then asked who’d prayed this prayer in their hearts. Ervin said that he and his mother had repented and prayed for Yeshua’s forgiveness! Please pray for faith to grow and mature in the hearts of these new Jewish believers in Budapest.

Thanks be to God for building trust in His Messiah, even in hearts that have been traumatized. And thanks be to God for partners like you, who help us be messengers of that trust.

* Names have been changed to protect privacy.