Restoring the Unity of Israel through the Messiah
From August 16-19, 2001 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the Union of Two-House Messianic Congregations held its first annual conference.

The theme of the conference

Lively Worship Characterized the Conference

Welcoming the Sabbath Together:
Beth Lechem's own "Yeshurun" group led the worship for two nights during the conference, including Sabbath eve. Our musical liturgy is designed to lead all conference participants to "ascend to the Temple" and worship in spirit and truth.

Fellowship around the dinner table:
Israelites from such various places as Cambodia, Trinidad, and the Philippines got to know each other over kosher food provided by Genetti's Best Western hotel.

Building His altar:
Rebbetzin Wendy McNulty from Canada places an uncut river stone brought from her own local area, as each congregation involved in the conference did. Besides being a place prepared for Yahweh to bring His purifying "fire", as He definitely did at the conference, altars served as memorial markers of places where Yahweh's presence rested with Israel along the way through the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land.

After the conference we moved the altar to the nearby Mt. Zion Retreat Center, a place prepared many years ago by Union board member Shmuel Dombek as a retreat center for all the tribes of Israel--long before any of us knew our identity.

Some of the Leaders of Present-Day Israel:
The Union's board of directors officially ordained the leaders of all the congregations involved, including a group of 60 congregations from Zimbabwe, southern Africa.

The Torah was central
in our proceedings throughout the conference. Here, Union board member Rabbi Moshe Koniuchowsky reads the weekly Torah portion in Hebrew.

Our vision, based on prophetic Scripture,
is seeing all the tribes of Israel reunited through the One Shepherd, [the son of] David.

The next generation of Messianic Israel:
Our privilege is to raise the first generation of restored Israelites who have never bowed the knee to Ba'al, even unknowingly, as so many of us did.

The Showbread:
Symbol of the fellowship of all twelve tribes...
Opposite the Menorah (lampstand) in the Tabernacle and Temple sat the table of showbread, on which twelve fresh loaves of bread were placed weekly on the Sabbath. This "bread of the faces", as it is called in Hebrew, was shaped like the images on each of the flags on Beth Lechem's banner pictured at right. The names of each tribe in Paleo-Hebrew (the script used before the Babylonian captivity) were also mounted on the flags.

One Stick in His Hand:
Jamie "Yacov" Blackburn depicts Ezekiel's object lesson of the staff of Judah and the staff of Joseph being made one in Yahweh's hand. Earlier, Zechariah had broken a stick to symbolize the severing of the brotherhood between the two houses of Israel. In our day, Yahweh is bringing the two back together again!