The Prayer Link

INTERNATIONAL MISSIONS PRAYERLINE
INTERNATIONAL MISSION BOARD
Monday, August 4, 2008

“The heavens are the LORD’s heavens,

but the earth he has given to the children of man”

(Psalm 115:16, ESV).

Dear Intercessors, this is Eleanor Witcher of the International Prayer Strategy Office, asking you to pray for ministry among children.

O., the young wife of a national church planter, looks with compassion on the many Bihari children in her neighborhood of Bangladesh. They are out on the streets most of the day and go to school irregularly, with little expectation that they will succeed. O. has gathers children in a Bihari home for tutorial classes in the afternoons. Attendance varies from four to 12 children. There is very little space and little support from the families. Please pray that O. will be able to establish a good routine with these children. Pray that the love of Jesus will shine through O. into the hearts of these Bihari Muslim children.

In Fortaleza, Brazil, L and M are busy planting Capua Church. Pray for M as she implements her project for a church planting class called “Gospel Kids”, in which she is reaching 30 children with gospel narratives, using puppets, karaoke and a club-type environment to win and disciple these kids and their families.

Over half of Zambia’s population of 12 million is under the age of 15, making Zambia truly a young country. Many ideologies, faiths and even Christian cults and sects are vying for the loyalty of the young people. Some groups do not concentrate on the adults any more but are turning their efforts toward the youth and the children, hoping that they can shape their minds to accept non-Christian or non-biblical ideologies. Pray that the Christian witness will be strong to the youth of Zambia and that the youth will recognize false religions and cults before their minds are captured and they face eternity without Christ.

* Please pray that the youth and children will come to know Christ and live in Him.

* Intercede for creativity for faithful Christian workers.

* Ask God to give you opportunity today to express His love to a child.

Kimberly Womack

A native of Kentwood, she passed away unexpectedly at her home in Jarreau on Tuesday evening, July 29, 2008. She was 48. Preceded in death by her mother, Elouise Lipscomb; stepbrother, Burt Lipscomb; and brother-in-law, Gary Mick. She is survived by her daughter, Kathryn Engen and husband Jason; and grandchildren, Braxton Kuehn and Lillee Engen; sisters, Frieda and husband Ben, and Darla and husband Rich; stepfather, Larry Lipscomb and wife June; and stepbrother, Brian Lipscomb and wife Van. She was dearly loved by her nieces and nephews, Dusty Smith, Ashley and Matt Mick, Nicole Hanna, Amanda and Katie Lipsky, Travis and Kade Lipscomb; and many close friends, especially Claude, Spencer, John, Jessica and Rachel Rivet. Memorial service at Florida Boulevard Baptist Church, 10915 Florida Blvd., on Tuesday Aug. 5, at 6 p.m. Reception will follow in the fellowship hall. Donations can be made to VIPS, c/o Frieda Mick, 12858 Devall Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70818. Rabenhorst Funeral Home will handle the cremation.
Published in The Advocate on 8/4/2008

The email inbox often has very special mail for me to enjoy. I received this today from Mrs. Ann Chapman. I don’t know where it was originally published, but it was too special not to pass on to you.

Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemotherapy, Snow joined the Bush Administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23, 2007, Snow, 51, a husband and father of three,announced the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen, leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but has resigned since, ‘for economic reasons,’ and to pursue ‘other interests.’ Here is Tony’s wonderful testimony.
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‘Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, – in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases – and there are millions in America today – find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God’s will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence ‘What It All Means,’ Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn’t spend too much time trying to answer the ‘why’ questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can’t someone else get sick? We can’t answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don’t know why I have cancer, and I don’t much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this, – or because of it, – God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don’t know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life, – and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts… an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly – no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease, – smooth, even trails as far
as the eye can see…. but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance; and comprehension – and yet don’t. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

‘You Have Been Called’. Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side. ‘It’s cancer,’ the healer announces.

The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask Him to serve as a cosmic Santa. ‘Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.’ But another voice whispers: ‘You have been called.’ Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter… and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our ‘normal time.’

There’s another kind of response, although usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies.

Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There’s nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, – for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for Himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, He took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God’s love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples’ worries and fears.

‘Learning How to Live’. Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God’s arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.

I sat by my best friend’s bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. ‘I’m going to try to beat [this cancer],’ he told me several months before he died. ‘But if I don’t, I’ll see you on the other side.’

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn’t promise us tomorrow, He does promise us eternity, – filled
with life and love we cannot comprehend, – and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that
will help us weather future storms. Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don’t matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

When our faith flags, He throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, – to speak of us!

This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

What is man that Thou art mindful of Him? We don’t know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God’s hand.’

Tony Snow

For those of you facing serious illness or those who have family members or close friends facing serious illness, I want to remind you of one thought in Tony Snow’s comments. We’re not promised tomorrow, but we are promised eternity!

Anna Lee