I’m very encouraged at the progress our team has made on our Israeli hospitality network. 8 months ago we started over from scratch rebuilding our apps, 6 months ago we started recruiting our first hosts to test the Host Israelis app, and 2 months ago we entered a very important stage asking Israeli friends and believers to test the Planet Zula traveler app. I am excited to report that everything is going well! 

We are continually getting feedback from our hosts and Israeli guests, making improvements to the apps, adding features, and making the system more user friendly. Most importantly, we continue to recruit and train more and more hosts every week! Our goal is to have over 1,000 hosts here in the U.S. (and even more globally), and we currently have about 40 on the map. Please pray that God would continue to provide more great hosts. Specifically, we are praying that God would provide hosts in New York City where a large number of Israelis travel – we currently have no hosts there.

We are getting close to the moment we’ve been waiting for since January 2020: when Israeli pre-believers will use our network to stay with hosts and hear the Gospel. Praise God for the incredible progress we’ve made so far, and pray for a successful launch and positive response from our first Israeli travelers. (Update since writing this letter: we had our first official Israeli guest sign up to use our Planet Zula app! Please pray he and his family would be able to stay with our hosts, have wonderful conversations, and come to know Jesus as their Messiah.)

In April, I had a successful Passover tour – my first time speaking in churches since March 2020! I spoke in 6 churches and small groups about Messiah in the Passover and about our ministry. Praise God that several people from those churches are seriously considering becoming hosts with Host Israelis, God provided several new monthly donors, and we gained a couple dozen new prayer partners! This Fall, God willing, I will fly to Flagstaff, AZ for my Fall speaking tour. Please pray that God would give me great connections and speaking opportunities in Flagstaff and raise up new hosts and prayer and financial partners for our ministry. If you have any connections in Flagstaff, let me know!

Praise God that baby Aviya (4 months old) is healthy and doing amazingly well, and we are getting great sleep! Ari enjoys being a big sister and loves hugging and playing with Aviya. It’s hard to believe that she will be 4 years old in two weeks! We are overjoyed to be a family of 4 and enjoy family hikes and bike rides together in this warm weather.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support for us and for this ministry. How can we pray for you?

Love,
BJ, Carissa, Ari, and Aviya

Carissa’s throat was closing up. She was bedridden on an air mattress on the floor of an empty apartment. She was having anaphylaxis every day now and we were terrified, because we had no idea what was happening or why.

It was June 2017 and we were trying to raise funds to move overseas, but we ended up calling back every single person that we had made an appointment with to cancel, because Carissa was too sick to get out of bed. Instead, we ended up calling our bosses to explain that we could not go to New Zealand that Winter to serve at an established guesthouse, and we would not be able to move to Brazil with our teammate of 5 years to start the new guesthouse.

We were devastated. Our dreams and passions of 5 years were slipping away. 5 years of training, planning, trips to Brazil for scouting, team building, and prayerful strategizing seemed to have all been for nothing. It took the next 2 to 3 years of praying, crying, begging God for miraculous healing, and painful processing to finally let go of the plan we thought God had for our lives. All seemed lost.

But God. In January 2020 God allowed us to join a team within Chosen People Ministries to start Host Israelis – a global network of Christians who open their hearts and homes to host Israeli travelers for free. God prevented us from starting one guesthouse in Brazil, but He used us to start a network of a thousand guesthouses all around the world! God is multiplying our impact to reach more Israelis with the Gospel than we ever imagined.

Through our years of trials, we have been encouraged by Paul’s reflections on his own suffering: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Following God is not easy or comfortable, but it’s worth it all. Thank you so much for being on our team and praying with us through it!

Love,
BJ, Carissa, Ari, and Aviya

You probably have a lot of questions about Host Israelis and what it looks like to be a host on our network. As we’ve talked with many prospective hosts about joining Host Israelis, we’ve found that a lot of them have the same questions. I hope these answers below will be helpful as you consider joining our network. You can visit hostisraelis.com to learn even more.

Can I apply even if I’m not sure I’m ready to host?

Yes! If you apply and decide later that you’re not ready, that’s not a problem. You can suspend your hosting at any time. Rest assured, nobody will show up on your doorstep unannounced! Your address will not be public.

How frequently am I expected to host?

It’s up to you. You are in full control of your schedule and are not obligated to say “yes” to every request. Israeli travelers understand you have a real life and are usually very gracious even when you are not able to receive them.

How long will Israelis stay in my home?

It’s up to you. The typical stay is somewhere between 1 and 3 days, or longer by arrangement. Some hosts will promise their guests one or two nights and then decide later to offer more days once they’ve had a chance to meet their guests.

Do I need to speak Hebrew?

No. Most of your Israeli guests will be proficient in English. Those who are not are usually traveling with someone who is. 

Will Israelis come to my little town?

Maybe! You might be on the route from one destination to another. Israelis spend months in the US and will venture way off the beaten path for an experience. We would encourage you to put yourself on the map and see what happens!

Will there be training on hospitality and how to share my faith?

Yes! Once you are approved as a host, we will provide host training videos as well as a follow-up online seminar with a live trainer and a handful of other new hosts.

I hope this has helped you better understand hosting with Host Israelis, but you might have more questions. Please feel free to reach out to me with a phone call or text to me at (262) 751-1020 or email me at [email protected].

Please pray that God would raise up all the right hosts to join our network, and that many Israelis would be reached with the Gospel.

Thank you always for your prayer and support for us in reaching Jewish people for Messiah!

Love,
BJ, Carissa, Ari and Aviya

What would it look like for you to open up your home on our Host Israelis network?

Consider Reuven, a recent guest at Zula Lodge [in New Zealand]… Upon arriving, he bluntly declared “I know who you are and what you believe. I don’t want you to talk to me about religion. May I still stay at your facility?” Our volunteer staff warmly welcomed Reuven and assured him that their purpose was to serve him, not to force their beliefs on him. Of course he may stay.

At first, Reuven aggressively avoided everyone at the Zula, staff and guests alike. But he soon began to warm to the kind and sincere service freely offered by our staff. They took him rock climbing and taught him board games. To his great surprise, Reuven was enjoying the company of this forbidden caste.

Finally, one of our volunteers, Will, took a risk: “Reuven, do you believe the Torah?” …[and Will ended up having a great conversation with Reuven about God and the Bible].

But it was our staff members’ love for God and for one another that made the greatest impact on Reuven. After listening to the testimonies and prayers offered at our weekly erev Shabbat dinner, he was visibly moved, commenting, “You talk to Him as though you know Him.” …Those whom he had shunned only days before, he was now inviting to visit him in Israel. 

While you may not be into rock climbing or hosting Shabbat dinners, we hope you can see in this story from our mentor, Scott Brown, that these were not the most impactful parts of Reuven’s experience. It was sincere, loving service and the hosts’ love for God and one another that softened Reuven’s heart to have an eye-opening conversation.

We are excited to be in the process of onboarding 20+ hosts on our Host Israelis network. Our goal is to have over 50 hosts in the U.S. before launching the Planet Zula app to Israelis in May – so we need you. We believe you have what it takes. You need little more than to love Jesus and your guests. To see if this ministry would be a good fit for you, check out our letter next month for frequently asked questions. Or if you can’t wait, you can read the FAQ section on our website (hostisraelis.com/#faqs) or give us a call (262-751-1020), text, or email.

Please pray that God would provide the hosts we need in order to launch Planet Zula. Thank you for your faithful partnership!

Love,
BJ, Carissa, Ari and Aviya

I WANT YOU! A number of you have asked for an update on how hosting is going, so I want to clarify that the Host Israeli network is not yet actively hosting, but we are now enlisting and training hosts! We hoped to already be actively hosting by this time; however, due to continual issues with outside developers for the past 3 years, in September 2022 our tech team decided to scrap the tens of thousands of dollars and years of work invested in the apps up to that point, and start from scratch, building it ourselves so we are not dependent on outside developers. We made quick progress and are now confident this was the right decision. Ultimately, this will save us a lot of time and money. 

In December our team finished the second version of the Host Israelis mobile app! This app is exclusively for our hosts to watch training videos, interact with Israelis and other hosts, and manage their listing for Israelis to view on the separate but linked Planet Zula app. In the coming months, we will continue to edit and improve the Host Israelis app and finish building the Planet Zula app for Israelis.

Our goal is to have over 50 hosts active on the map before we invite our first Israeli guests in the Spring of 2023. This is where you come in! Please pray that God will provide 50 good quality hosts quickly so they can get through the entire application, interview, and training process to begin hosting this Spring! And please consider if you might be one of those 50! You can visit hostisraelis.com to learn more. I can’t express how excited Carissa and I are about this ministry, and what an incredible opportunity it is to be a host. We long for the day when we will again be in a position to personally host Israeli travelers and share the love of Jesus through hospitality. 

For now though, we are thrilled with the opportunity to welcome a new little disciple. Aviya Praise Kerstetter was born February 12th! Although it was an unusually difficult pregnancy due to Carissa’s pre-existing chronic illnesses and gestational diabetes, we praise God for a smooth delivery and healthy baby girl! Please pray for us as we adjust to being a family of 4.

Thank you always for your prayer and support for us in reaching Jewish people for Messiah!
Love,
BJ, Carissa, Ari and Aviya

Happy New Year! 

We pray you are entering 2023 refreshed from a season of celebrating our Messiah, with renewed confidence that He is truly our “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” (Isaiah 9:6). BJ and I grew so deeply as we followed God’s leading truly day by day on the road. For much of our nine months of travel in 2022, we didn’t know where we would spend the next week or even the next night, and God directed and provided again and again. We did not know how we would pay for that season of travel, but God led us to many churches and individual hosts who not only would not accept payment for our lodging, but sent us away with gifts of money instead.

So, as we embark on a new season of unknowns back in Virginia, it is with strengthened faith in God’s generous provision and perfectly timed directions. Once again, God has graciously provided for us, and we are parked in the spacious backyard of some dear friends in Lynchburg, where we plan to be until God directs us otherwise. We will continue living full time in our RV, and do hope to get back on the road in the future as we continue our quest to reach Israelis across the country, and work to expand the Host Israelis network. 

For now, I, Carissa, am focused on bringing our second sweet child into the world and the intensive season of motherhood that a new baby brings; while BJ continues work on the development of the Host Israelis network. With the initial build of the apps and website basically complete, BJ will continue as the team’s tech lead to build out enhancements and expand the network to include other countries where Chosen People is working. His work will involve building new webpages, adding country specific features to the app for each new country, and – time permitting – interviewing and training hosts for the US. He has more than enough work on the technology alone to last him through 2023!

We are so incredibly grateful for each of you partnering with us through prayer, evangelism, and financial giving. We can’t tell you enough what an encouragement you are to us. We are starting 2023 at 70% of our monthly support goal, which is $5,000 of $7,000. Praise the Lord with us for His incredible provision, and please continue praying for the partners needed to reach 100%. We pray you will be blessed through your partnership with this ministry and grow in your walk with Jesus this year. 

Love in Messiah,
The Kerstetters

In October, Moody Bible Institute celebrated 100 years of their Jewish Studies program during their missions conference dedicated to Jewish evangelism! I was invited to join a group of 30 plus Chosen People Ministries Moody Bible Institute Jewish Studies graduates to participate in this conference entitled, “To the Jew First and Also to the Greek”. This was a wonderful week where thousands of Moody students crowded into the auditorium to hear about God’s heart for the Jewish people and the enormous need for Jewish evangelism. 

There were many great speakers and messages challenging students into ministry service to the Jewish people, but my favorite challenge was from Levi Hazen, director of Life in Messiah. He explained the significance of Romans 1:16 and the priority of the Gospel to the Jew first, then he asked, “if we are supposed to prioritize sharing the Gospel with Jewish people, then why are they still an unreached people group?” Wow, what a poignant question for us to all ask ourselves! There are a lot of excuses we can make, but it is our responsibility to obey God and share the love of Jesus with our Jewish friends.

Half of the keynote speakers for the conference were Chosen People Ministries staff and we had a prime location for our booth where we got to talk with a lot of interested students. I hosted a deep dish pizza night for interested students and got to share specifically about Israeli backpacker ministry, the work we are doing with the Host Israelis and Planet Zula apps, and how they can get involved in sharing the Gospel with Israeli travelers. 

Several of these students had already served in Israeli backpacker ministry and I gave them each a chance to share stories about sharing their experience. And one of these students is going to join Shmueli and Jenna Arnold, and Karis Hall (another of our recruits) in Brazil this winter to serve at their new guest house ministry, Zula Rio!

Please pray that God would raise up many more young adults into full time service to the Jewish people. Truly, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

As always, thank you for your prayers for us in reaching Jewish people for Messiah. Happy holidays to you and your family.

Love, 

BJ, Carissa, Ari, and Baby Girl

Back in July we launched our Host Israelis focus group with about 20 or so hosts to test the system. After going through our entire system: filling out the application, receiving an interview, setting up their profile and listing, and going through our host training program; each of the focus group hosts provided feedback from their experience and suggestions for improvement. We received a lot of great feedback and got to work making changes to our system to improve the experience for our hosts.

After about 3 years of blood, sweat, and tears poured into the development of this project, we are excited to announce that Host Israelis is open for public application! If you, or fellow believer loves Israel and want to become a host, go to hostisraelis.com and click “Apply”. Or if you want to learn more about Host Israelis, visit hostisraelis.com and read more about the network.

We hope to start hosting our first Israeli guests on our network this Winter, and open the Planet Zula up to public use for Israeli travelers next year! Please continue praying for our team and the development of this network, there are so many details and issues to iron out. And more importantly, please pray that God would use this network as a powerful tool in His plan for the redemption of Israel. As Paul writes in Romans 11:26-27:

And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”

Please pray for the salvation of Israel. Pray that many Israelis would hear the Gospel during their travels and stays with Christians hosts all around the world, and that many would come to faith in Jesus, their Messiah.

We are excited to see what God does and how He will use Host Israelis.

As always, thank you for your prayers for us on this crazy adventure reaching Jewish people for Messiah.

Love, 

BJ, Carissa, Ari, and Baby Girl

Today, as I write this letter, marks exactly one year since we sold our house; one year of full time living in our trailer; one year of being houseless vagabonds for Messiah. And it has been an amazing year of adventures with many detours, unplanned stops, and divine encounters.

It has been amazing to see God’s faithful provision in so many ways. God allowed us to connect with dozens of new churches to share about Host Israelis, recruit new hosts, and gain new prayer and financial partners for our ministry. 

About the same time that we began traveling West, the original outsourced developer for Host Israelis web and mobile apps went dark, leaving us with an unfinished product and a big mess. So when we arrived in California to pick up our new travel trailer, we had to hold off our travel plans so I could focus on cleaning up the mess and putting all the pieces back together again. After five months of much sweat and tears, and cycling through four different outsourced developers, we finally published Planet Zula in the Apple and Google app stores and launched our focus group of hosts to test our Host Israeli systems and give us feedback. But please continue to pray for this strenuous process, because there are still a lot of bugs to work out.

At the end of our time in California, we found out the gender of our baby: it’s a girl! Due to time constraints and Carissa’s severely limited physical capacity with her pregnancy, we decided to skip the rest of our Southwest destinations and head straight back to Virginia. This pregnancy will put another hold on our travel plans while we return to Virginia for the support of Carissa’s maternal-fetal medicine doctors for her high-risk pregnancy, and the support of Carissa’s family during the pregnancy and new-born stages.

Please pray that God would provide the perfect place for us to park our trailer that will meet all our needs in Lynchburg, VA, where we can stay for a year or so during the pregnancy and new born stages. We are excited to see what opportunities arise during our time back in Virginia. I will continue my role as Tech Lead for Host Israelis; and Carissa and I will help with recruiting, interviewing, and training our new hosts for the network. Shmuli and Jenna Arnold will soon move to Rio to start their new ministry, and I accepted their invitation to join the board of directors for Chosen People Ministries Brazil! I am grateful to be involved in planning, developing, and supporting this new ministry in Brazil.

Please pray for the health and safety of Carissa and our baby girl during this high-risk pregnancy, and for God’s provision and direction for our future.

As always, thank you for your support and prayers for us on this crazy adventure reaching Jewish people for Messiah.

Love, 

BJ, Carissa, and Ari 

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” Proverbs 16:9

According to our originally planned course, we were supposed to travel all over the Southwest during the months of April-August in order to recruit hosts for Hosts Israelis and share the Gospel with Israeli travelers. In March God connected us with awesome hosts and brought us to a paradise location with the perfect setup for our trailer and family needs, near friends and coworkers, where we planned to spend about a month to move into our new trailer and make preparations for the second leg of our trip. But the Lord established our steps (and our wheels) to remain over five months in Southern California to complete an enormous amount of work on Host Israelis and Planet Zula tech, that we didn’t know would need to be done when we started our trip. 

It has been challenging and stretching as we wait on the Lord’s timing (even though we are in a paradise location), because life was not working out according to our plans. But everything God has done and provided for us during this time has been a huge encouragement and testimony to His faithful provision and His perfect timing.

During the time that we were in California, God surprised us with our next great adventure: baby #2 – due to arrive in February! The tech work I had to get done gave us reason to stay in California as Carissa got through the rough first trimester season of nausea and exhaustion, which would have made travel miserable. 

On July 15th, we finished work on the Host Israelis web app and launched our focus group to test the entire host system and give us feedback. Just as we launched the focus group and Carissa was nearing the end of the first trimester, God gave us an incredible connection with believers who live inside the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park! They generously offered to host us on their property with hookups for our trailer, and said they regularly meet Israelis and Jewish people! Since the Grand Canyon was one of the next planned stops on our trip, this connection was like a green light from God to move on from California.

Please pray for the health and safety of Carissa and our new baby, safe travels as we head back East, and God’s provision for more great connections along the way.

As always, thank you for partnering with us through prayer on this crazy adventure for God’s Kingdom.

Love, 

BJ, Carissa, and Ari