The New LCJE Coordinator for Australia/New Zealand
Bob Mendelsohn is new to LCJE International from Australia, although he is not new to LCJE international. He first attended a conference in Ware in 1983 and again came along with his Jews for Jesus colleagues to Jerusalem in 1995. He even was part of the site selection for Long Island 1999! But since 1998, Bob along with his wife Patty, and three children (26, 22, and 15) have lived in Sydney, as the pioneer of the Jews for Jesus branch there.
Bob grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home in Kansas City, in the middle of the US, and came to faith in Jesus in 1971. After a few months he set out on a path that has taken him into pastoring, evangelizing, and running mission stations in Washington, DC, New York City and now Sydney. He is a trained maths teacher, with a university degree from The University of Kansas (BSE) and he received his seminary degree from Fuller Seminary (MA) with a concentration in Jewish studies.
Playing squash twice a week, tennis, golf and guitar help make Bob a hobbied and healthy fellow, but he really likes to read and keeps up with journals (of course, the Bulletin!) and several daily newspapers online. He even puts his ideas onto the computer with weekly logs on his blogsite, and in the commentary section of the JFJ Australia website. Bob, along with Rich Robinson, wrote the conference theme song for our 1995 Israel gathering.
With assignment to Australia in 1998, he could have stayed in Sydney’s limited scope, but almost immediately launched Jews for Jesus nationally and internationally with regular trips to New Zealand, throughout Australia, Singapore, and in the last 18 months he has added Korea and Argentina to his travel and concern list. Bob has found some volunteers who now put out a Korean newsletter and the ventures in other languages are just beginning.
He wrote a booklet of his conversion story, “Who ever heard of a Jewish missionary?” (JFJ, 1999) and keeps up the book shop/JFJ offices in Sydney along with two other missionaries and two other administrators. Bob looks forward to serving along with the other international representatives and bringing whatever he can to the mix, so that the Gospel will go forth ‘to the ends of the earth.”
Bob Mendelsohn
[email protected]