Missionaries Of Prayer

The activity of prayer is a necessary practice and meetings should always start with a quick “word or prayer”, but is prayer really that important for the missionary?

Some would say prayer is an indispensible ingredient of missions, but what about a missionary whose primary focus is prayer?

We have heard, “No prayer, no power; little prayer, little power; much prayer, much power” (Hudson Taylor), but is there room for a missionary of prayer?

Here’s something to think about:

Goa, India - An Indian mission reports that in spite of repeated attempts to plant house churches in Goa over the past 20 years, as of August 1994, they only have eight small, struggling churches in the city.

A team of Brazilian intercessors comes to Goa in the summer of 1994, rents a house and prays for 12 months. They do not engage in any witnessing, literature distribution, or church planting. They simply pray for an entire year.

In the two months after they leave, the Indian mission plants 18 new house churches in this no longer resistant city! (Pray! magazine, 1996 by John F DeVries)

Maybe there is room for a missionary whose primary focus is to prepare the soil and fight the battle. Then again maybe not, do we really think individuals, mission organizations, or churches would support such an idea?

Obviously the gospel must be preached for “how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard.” (Romans 15:14) But it should be noticed that prayer was one of two focuses for the apostles, “We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:3b-4)

I’ll leave you this from The Kneeling Christian, “The lady in India was cast down through the failure of her life and work. She was a devoted missionary, but somehow or other conversions never resulted from her ministry. The Holy Spirit seemed to say to her, ‘Pray more.’ But she resisted the promptings of the Spirit for some time. ‘At length,’ said she, ‘I set apart much of my time for prayer. I did it in fear and trembling lest my fellow-workers should complain that I was shirking my work. After a few weeks I began to see men and women accepting Christ as their Savior. Moreover, the whole district was soon awakened, and the work of all the other missionaries was blessed as never before. God did more in six months than I had succeeded in doing in six years.’ ‘And,’ she added, ‘no one ever accused me of shirking my duty.’”

The Gas Saga

Getting the LP gas tank on your roof filled should not be an emotional, time consuming and gut wrenching experience, but somehow it was. It all started a few weeks ago at a neighborhood meeting when someone suggested all of the homes in our 24 home neighborhood use the same gas company. It seems there was a company ripping us all off and somehow (and I’m not sure how) using the same company would help.

That immediately set up a dilemma for us because we had gotten to know Arturo, shared some pleasantries and given him a Bible. The last time he was here he mentioned that he kept it in the truck and read it. What should we do – but a community decision was a community decision.

So, we waited. We waited to hear who this selected company was hoping against hope that it would be our driver. Meanwhile the gas was running dangerously low, dangerously low that is if you want a hot shower or cooked food. That’s when all the “fun” started.

I had procrastinated as long as possible to decide what to do when a gas truck showed up in the neighborhood. Not only did it show up, but it was at the lady’s house that had made the original suggestion. I’m on the phone praying with a friend when my wife runs up the steps to say, “They’re on the roof; we can get gas!” Just as prayer ended, I unlocked our cage and climbed the ladder like a mad man to get up there before they leave.

Putting in an order to fill our tank, I waited to make sure that everything is above board and honest. Just as they finish our neighbor’s tank and put the hose on our tank, Diana yells up to the roof, “Cancel the order. Our neighbor just came over in tears to say they had cheated her and not to get gas.” So I tell them, “I changed my mind; we don’t want gas today.” That went over like a lead balloon.

Diana then went over to our neighbor to learn the details. Then she went with that neighbor and woke up another neighbor to ask for her suggestion of which company to use, and then went to a third neighbor to finally get the needed information.

If things weren’t crazy enough, I decide to instead call and request Arturo which resulted in a “how is this going to go over with the neighbors who just helped us out” conversation. It wasn’t a very good breakfast. I ended up calling to cancel him too (my second cancelation of the day). Then still needing gas, I called the suggested driver for my third gas order of the day.

I'm leaving out details but suffice to say we now have a full tank. Sound a little crazy? As my wife said, “You can write a post about it, but no one would really understand.”

Police Report

Okay, first of all I admit up front that I ran the stop sign and therefore broke the law. Having said that you must know that 1) I didn’t see the stop sign that was a good twenty feet from the corner and 2) I didn’t go through the red traffic light. So, when the bus made a wide turn on the narrow corner he almost hit us. There was room for him to get around, but the bad news was that there was a Transito (traffic policeman) on the corner watching it all unfold.

The events that followed are long and tedious but... I was then directed to pull over where my driver’s license was checked. I was told I would have to come to the office the next day to pay my fine as well as retrieve my original license. I informed him that wasn’t possible because my license is property of the U.S and I couldn’t leave it with him but that I would be willing to pay the fine today.

That brought another police officer to the scene who directed me out and to the back of the car to talk about my infraction with the instruction to follow them to the office. We drove about two blocks, got out of our vehicles, and were joined by two more officers. “This is getting a little crazy,” I’m thinking. They asked to see the title for the van. We produced a copy but were told we needed to have the original title with us (we learned later this isn’t true). At this point they gave back my license but informed us that the office was closed and we would have a long wait before it opened.

We played dumb (which wasn’t very hard) telling them that we didn’t mind waiting since we were close to some restaurants, “My family and friends could eat while I wait.” They insisted the office was closed; I insisted I didn’t mind the wait. To this point there has not been a fine given to us or even written. Someone then decides there is another office we can go to so we jump in the van to follow them – somewhere.

When we arrived we were met outside the office by a superior office who spoke English and we rehashed all the details. I admitted to running the stop sign again (but not the traffic light). They wanted my driver’s license again (which I refused to give them citing the property of the U.S. argument) and they tell us again that we need the original title. At this point a new twist comes into play. Our friend Ray has been taking pictures (which we have actually been encouraged to do) and they want him to erase them. My idea is – we erase the photos and they’ll erase the slate. I oblige by going to the van to bring everyone over to erase any incriminating evidence (which we did but leave it to Ray to have two sets of pictures). I’m thinking at this point the ordeal is over but…no.

The superior officer then directs Diana and I to step away from everyone and asks us if we can help him out by giving some money to the two original officers. Continuing to be dumb and not knowing how long this was going to go on, I told him I needed to call one of our team leaders. While I am on the phone, he told Diana we needed to give him our license or they would take our van (which is also foreign property and illegal to take) – just a little friendly pressure on the wife.
After the phone call, I asked the superior officer to please write out my fine and I would go in the office and pay it. He didn’t write the ticket but he did take us inside the office. Approaching the front desk with another whole set of officers I make the announcement, “I want to pay my fine!” That took everyone off guard with quizzical looks and one shrugging his shoulders as if to say, “What’s this about?” Obviously we weren’t playing by the rules.

Eventually we were led into a side office to meet and speak with the commanding officer. I asked for permission to bring the girls in and went out to find them. Upon my return he heard a brief explanation from the superior officer, looked at our papers, and said, “In the future you need to obey the traffic signs. Goodbye.” That was it. It was over; we were free to go.

Such is life. Some days you make a breakthrough, and others you just try to stay out of trouble.

Good News From A Distant Land

Ray and Tiffany returned home today and we return to our routines here in Puebla. We will miss them as we do all of our friends who make their way down here to bring us good news from a distant land. It’s like cold water to a weary soul. Over the last two weeks we have experienced your normal cemita eating, tope bumping, sight-seeing times. They would tell you that one of the highlights was the day I got dragged down to the police station which wasn’t so much fun at the time. I’ll have to tell you about it sometime, but it deserves a post of its own.

While they were here, we visited church after church after church. I think they grew weary with it. I particularly remember the visit to the cathedral. The dark, ornate interior with its well worn stones under our feet was permeated with the smell of incense. A multitude of images looked down on us from their various perches as we made our solemn tour. What a contrast it was to the joyful Sunday morning baptism we attended when three believers made a public statement of an inward reality. The singing, the Scriptures, the fellowship, all in the context of a beautiful mountain setting, was alive and vibrant.

One of the best gifts Ray and Tiffany bought to us was the gift of laughter. We laughed while they were here – a lot. Like the evening we poked fun at ourselves or the afternoon we distorted our most recent photographs. It’s wonderful to have a home filled with laughter and I don’t just mean a chuckle but a good hard belly laugh.

But my favorite memory is our numerous hikes up Serro Chiquehuite, a hill over looking Puebla. It’s a pilgrimage of sorts for the locals that provides a 360 panoramic view. For us it provided a special atmosphere of watching the sunrise, coffee cup in hand while spending some quiet time with the Lord as Chelsea ran free exploring the area. It quickly became a place for us to mutually unite our prayers together and was eventually dubbed “Prayer Meeting Hill”. We expect some mighty powerful prayers to be answered from this spot.