Paul Calvert spoke with Simon Azazian

Simon: Yes. God has no limits and he can reach out to people, even when we are lazy Christians and are just sitting behind our offices or locked up in our four walled churches and not reaching out to the community. God still works. One Friday when I was playing basketball, I was approached by a Muslim guy. He was shy and he said, "I know you are a Christian, can I ask you a question"? I said, "Yes" and he said, "I had a dream about Jesus. He took me to the Old City walls and told me to start reading a Bible, which he pulled out from the wall, but I don't have a Bible and I am shy". The next week I got him a Bible and we started to follow up on him very closely and within a very short time he surrendered his life to Christ. There are many stories like these things taking place where God is appearing in visions and dreams. They say the man in white with sandals came to us, his face was shining and we felt so much love. There are these stories, but again we are living in a community where it is hard to live out your faith and be accepted within your culture; it's a very strict Islamic culture so many of these cases remain hidden.

Paul: Is it easy to work with Muslims?

Simon: It's easy to work with anybody. I don't think there is a difference on what your background is and where you are coming from; it starts within our hearts as Christians. If we are ready to accept everybody no matter what their race, colour or background, then we can reach out to the world. When Jesus came he came for everybody, so whether Muslim, Hindu, Australian or anyone from the end of the world, the message is to love the people and care for them and always to look at people with Jesus' eyes.

Paul: You are also a founder member of the Upper Room Ministries, what is that?

Simon: The Upper Room Ministries was established three years ago through eight evangelical Christian guys who are on fire for the Lord. We started to pray in a room and the Holy Spirit touched our lives in a powerful magnificent way; so we decided to do that on a weekly basis. People started to hear about the meeting in Jerusalem and started to come. God opened our eyes to serve the church, to have revival meetings in churches all over the land. We believe in the power of worship, so we have excellent Arabic worship translated into English. Many people come and enjoy the service every Wednesday. In addition to that we started to record praise and worship albums. We have just finished recording our first praise and worship album entitled 'You Are Glorious'. It has seven songs. We also have an evangelical basketball team that goes out and shares the message of Christ through basketball among Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians.

Paul: Are people getting healed during those meetings?

Simon: While we were in Nazareth in meetings a lady had a one year old baby with her. Her daughter was born without sight. We saw her vision return during the meetings, so we are seeing God working in the lives through miracles and wonders and we believe that the Holy Spirit wants to do so much, especially here in Jerusalem, because it started with our ancestors in the upper room on the day of Pentecost.

Many people ask, 'Who are Palestinian Christians?" And we say that our great ancestors were those who received the Holy Spirit in the upper room. We believe that God has united us in this miraculous way where six elders are now running this ministry with God's help. We are self supported so we don't do any fundraising and God has provided every need in this ministry up to this day.

Paul: Is God doing something in Jerusalem today?

Simon: I would say that Jerusalem is quite a difficult spot. It's where it began and it is where it will end. When you come to Jerusalem, if you have that sensitivity of the Holy Spirit, you will feel that Jerusalem is quite a tough place. Many of the people who want to have conferences try to avoid Jerusalem because it is such a stronghold. There is such a spiritual warfare, you just feel it. Beside all of that though, God is still doing great work in Jerusalem and he is preserving his people for the right time. I really believe that Upper Room Ministries will have a great role in that, especially in the end of times and I believe we are approaching those times, so we just have to be ready and wait because the Spirit will pour down and the heavens will open over Jerusalem. It's still early to see anything major happening but it will.

Paul: What's your prayer for Palestinian believers here?

Simon: My prayer is first of all that the world will acknowledge that there are Palestinian Christians living in this land. I've met so many people who think that Palestinians are only Muslim terrorists, which is not true. I have so many Muslim friends who are so nice, who have such a great love towards their community, their people and we have always been brought up together, both Palestinian Muslim and Christian, in such great and wonderful relations. I just pray that this unity will continue to be shared between all Christians throughout the world. I would like people to acknowledge Palestinian Christians and pray that we continue to be a true witness to our people here, because our numbers are dropping. Many of us are leaving the country and if it stays like this then there will be no witness. Pray for us that we are encouraged to do what we are doing in serving our people here in the land.