Tuesday: Praying for our Missionaries

Tuesday: Relationship with Other Missionaries!

• Ability to submit to one another in love
• Honesty and openness
• Appreciate the strengths of others
• Discernment for older missionaries mentoring young missionaries

So, now we have made a full circle. Seven days of specific prayer requests for those we support from home. I hope you've been making a list to keep for yourself. There are many other specific requests you could add under each of the categories, so pray in the Spirit as you go through this list.

Missionaries have frequently told me how much they appreciate it when we let them know how we are praying for them. So if you haven't done so recently, why not take a moment to send an email to a missionary friend and let them know they are in your prayers especially today.

To God be the Glory!

Monday: Praying for Our Missionaries

Monday: Physical Needs

• Health
• Wisdom for national doctors they might be under the care of
• Safety in travel, and for the family whenever the husband is away
• Protection from those who would hinder/harm their ministry
• Financial provision for current needs

Saturday and Sunday: Praying for our Missionaries

Since it's a weekend, I'm putting Saturday and Sunday on one post.


Saturday: Relationship with Nationals

• Ability to adapt and immerse in the culture
• Cultural sesitivity
• Fluency in the language
• Open relationship with national workers
• Relationships of mutual respect, love, and spiritual bond

Sunday: Emotional Needs

• An assurance of the Father's love
• A sense of Christ's presence
• Time to smell the flowers
• Reminder that they are loved, prayed for, and support by friends back home
• Grace to walk in the truth of God's promises

Friday: Praying for our Missionaries

Friday: Relationship with God

• Consistant and profitable devotional life
• Daily time in the Word and Prayer
• Awareness of God's power
• A hunger and thirst for righteousness

Thursday: Prayers for our Missionaries

Today, focus on praying for the family life of the missionaries you know.

Thursday: Family Life

• A vibrant marriage; oneness of spirit
• Children
• Parent/child relationships
• Older parents in the homeland

Wednesday: Prayers for Our Missionaries

A Daily Prayer List

Wednesday: Effective Ministry

• Open doors for evangelism
• Ability to communicate across cultural barriers
• Good use of time
• A soul harvest
• Discipleship of mature believers

I found a little list like this prayer provoking for specific needs in life of my missionary friends. I'll be posting one for each day of the week, each focusing on a different aspect of life (emotional, family, physical, etc...) In my family, we have the list posted on our refrigerator, right next to pictures of missionaries we know and support, where we can be reminded to pray specifically. These prayers make a difference! Check in daily for this whole next week to get the complete list.

The Non-Essentials of Life

One of my favorite parts of blogging here is sharing links to articles by missionaries who have a heart to pass on the lessons of their ministry to the next generation going to the field. These men and women are part of the "great cloud of witnesses" that surround us, compelling us to build on the foundations that have been laid and go further. So many have invested in my life, not even knowing it, just through the things they have written.

The article I'm linking to today, The Non-Essentials of Life, is by the late Mrs. Roberta Winter, a faithful missionary with her husband to the Mayan Indians, and later founders of Frontier Mission Fellowship, which spawned the US Center for World Missions. This is a lady I would have loved to have tea with for an afternoon and pepper her with questions. Her love for Jesus, for the lost, for total surrender, shines through her writing. This article was published in Mission Frontier magazine back in 1994. The 5-10 minutes it takes to read this article is well spent.

The Non-Essentials of Life is a whirlwind tour through significant milestones in the Winter's ministry that taught them 6 key principles of what things are "Essential" and what things are "Non-Essential" for living, both here, and on the mission field. She address questions that bothered me for years with clarity and balance. I learned so much from her gracious spirit. She puts down in writing principles I have seen lived out in the lives of many people with a missionary heart. Oh, that God would sharpen my vision for the "essentials" that I might run the race unhindered.

I hope you enjoy the article. Blessings in Christ...

We must Die

When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages." To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."

I'm reminded that God delights in conducting His kingdom mission of spreading the Gospel, not through the strong, but through the yielded. (II Cor 4:7) My natural tendency is to, "work for God to the limit of [my] incompetency, [rather] than to the limit of God's omnipotencency," as missionary Hudson Taylor said.

When my friends and I plan a witnessing event I feel bold and impassioned with the Gospel. Then we arrive. I look at the menagerie of people milling around and I face a wave of mental excuses why I'm not qualified to share. "I'm not educated enough to know all the answers, I'm not outgoing enough, not humorous enough, and my knees are knocking. I need more training, practice, and time to prepare." Fear keeps me clutching tightly to self. How do we let go?

We must die. The Bible teaches we find victory over fears of inadequacy by looking to the cross and dying to self, dying to the praise of men, and surrendering our comforts. "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die" I Cor 15:36. When we die the Holy Spirit spills His new life and light in us and through us (John 12:24). Look at nature-even a flower must drop its silky petals and fling back everything in order to scatter seeds of new life.

Dying to self is not natural or glamorous. Sometimes it means going out when I would rather stay put or speaking the truth when it's more comfortable to be quiet. It may mean praying rather than playing, listening rather than talking, or putting my priorities aside in order to serve, and go. The apostle Paul said "I die daily, for some have not the knowledge of God." I Cor 15:31,33.

Doesn't it seem that dying to self is the essential qualification for following Jesus Christ to the uttermost parts of the world. Death precedes life. It is one of the most glorious kingdom miracles. I examine my own heart today, on this National Day of Prayer. Lord, is there some opportunity for me to die to self today? Oh, that we would run to the old rugged cross and learn from Jesus what it means to die to self, so others might live.

Apostolic Passion

Here is an inspiring, practical "must-read" for anyone, particularly young adults, sensing a call into missions. Apostolic Passion is an incredible article by Floyd McClung (former International Director with Youth With a Mission). Part of the power of this article is that it is so succinct; every paragraph brims with power points. You have to read it slowly.

I've read it over and over, since first stumbling across it in my Perspectives mission course a few years ago and I mark it as a landmark read. Maybe it was just where I was in my journey, that is affected me so much. What is Apostolic Passion? Reading from my perspectives journal I came across this entry in March of2004, just after I had read the article for the first time.

"Apostolic passion is a hunger to see the glory of God praised from every people
so intensely that I am willing to sacrifice anything to have it. It is a "planning to go" mindset, but I must also be willing to stay. This passion is fed by four things: Abondonment, Focus, Prayer, and Mature Decision Making..."

The four points mentioned above, are addressed by Mr. McClung. Particularly, the illustration he shares of David Wilkerson and prayer is full color in my mind to this day.

I hope you take a few minutes to follow the above link and read Apostolic Passion and then come back to this blog and comment on your thoughts. What strikes you most? Which of the four areas of apostolic passion do you feel God calling you to grow in right now?

Revisiting VOM conference

I just signed up today for the Voice of the Marytrs "Wear the Crown" mission conference. Just as a follow-up to my Feb post, the last day for discounted registration ($60) is May 3rd. If any of you are going, let me know! I'm riding up with a friend; this will be a first time for both of us to go, but we have heard nothing but enthusiastic affirmations from those who have attended.

Check it out: 2006 "Wear the Crown" Mission Conference.
When: June 23-25, 2006
Where: Bartlesville, Oklahoma, on the beautiful campus of Oklahoma Wesleyan University.