Update and “PRAY”
So much has happened since the time I last posted to this blog! I’m going to multi-task and share what’s been happening in the past 2 months as well as continue our series of “6 Ways to Get Involved and Reach God’s World”.
In early January, Pastor Ben Binger (Red Student Ministries) and I took an exploratory/Pastoral visit to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Our purpose was two-fold: The first was to connect with our missionaries there on the Island of Hispaniola, Rodney and Rhodes. We had such a good time with them, getting to know them better and encouraging them. Our second purpose was to assess and plan for our JFC Red Senior High trip that we are going to take this coming summer. If you get a chance, take a look at the promotional video we did on Youtube. You can view it at the following link http://youtu.be/xq7Rq5CM-XA . Right on the heels of returning from Hispaniola, we took a team of 17 construction-oriented people from JFC to the University of the Nations/YWAM in Kona Hawaii. I always get a few looks when we say we took a mission trip to Hawaii but please believe me when I say we work really HARD. We go with the purpose of helping build facilities so more and more students can come to the University and get trained to be missionaries and go out into every nation of the world. It’s an awesome experience and God moved in and through us in significant ways. Here’s what’s coming up in the next few months. Next month, we take a team of 9-11 year old and their parent(s) to Peru to work with Larry Goode and his ministry, The Lost Children of Peru. In April, we’re doing a pastoral visit/exploratory trip to Belize and beginning in June and July, we have just launched (or about to launch) three trips: Junior High to Mexico, Senior High to Dominican Republic, and a Family Missions trip to Mexico. If you’d like further information on these, please email me at jmerle@jfc.org. I’m also excited announce an official Twitter feed for JFC Missions. We’d love to have you follow us @JFC_Missions. The missions specific website is also about a month or so away from going live. The address for this will be “missions.jfc.org“. We are in the midst of planning the Q4 2012 and Q1 2013 mission trips so stay tuned for more details on these.
Now we’ll continue the 2nd part of the 6 part series of Ways to Get Involved and Reach God’s World…
“And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, to that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ…” Paul, Colossians 4:3
“Believers at home can do as much for overseas missions as those actually on the field. I believe it will only be known on the last day how much has been accomplished in overseas missions by the prayers of earnest believers back at home.” James (J.O.) Fraser, Pioneer missionary to the Lisu people. Far from a minor or default role in missions, prayer is essential to the work God does in the world. Intercessors lift the “Goers” and the people whom they serve before the throne of God. J.O. Fraser, a pioneer missionary to China in the early 1900′s said this about prayer: “Paul may plant and Apollos water, but it is God who gives the increase; whether offered in China or in England or the United States. If this is so, then Christians at home can do as much for foreign missions as those actually on the field. What I covet more than anything else is earnest, believing prayer.” Prayer is truly a ministry. Fraser knew this well. He spent several decades working among the Lisu people, who were polytheistic group in the dense mountains of south China. Fraser loved them, but after several years of evangelizing smong them, there were very few believers. Then one day he wrote his mother and asked her to organize a prayer group. Fraser wrote regularly with updates on how to pray for the people. And pray they did. Finally, in response to the group’s prayers and Fraser’s enduring work, a breakthrough occurred! As Fraser went from village to village, he was approached by people asking about how they could know about Christ. God did an incredible transforming work. Today, more than 40 percent of the Lisu people are Christian and are a modern-day success story of an unreached people group won for Christ and becoming a missions sending force.
Here are some ways to pray:
1. Join the small group at JFC which prays for our missionaries every other week
2. Sign up to receive a missionaries prayer letter and prayer for them regularly
3. Read and pray through country- or people-specific prayer guides. There are many of these resources out there but one such resource is “Operation World”
4. Read the world headlines in the newspaper or the internet with an eye for prayer
5. Sign up for daily e-mails or monthly bulletins from missions organizations
Sometimes we really don’t believe that our prayer can make a difference.
That’s a big lie of the enemies! Through our experience in the mission fields, because our faithful prayer warriors prayed for us, our daughter who was suicidal was saved but not a wife of a Japanese pastor in Japan… she committed a suicide…. We don’t dare go out without the prayer covering of the people behind us! What a joy it is to be able to lift up our missionaries and see the answers of the prayers! Join us to pray for them!