Month: December 2016

A Christmas prayer

Oh, Emmanuel – You who are WITH us, fill us with a sense of your presence this day. This week. This month. This year. Our heads know that you are with us, but sometimes our hearts refuse to agree. Give us grace to live like we KNOW that you are with us. Let us live in the trustful rest of the incarnation.

For the truth is, when you are with us:
we are never alone.
we do nothing on our own.
we lack for nothing.
we have no reason for fear.
we are safe.
we are held.
we are deeply loved.

When we have learned to live in this truth, give us grace to reflect your love to our family, our neighbors, our friends, and to strangers. May our actions reflect your goodness, and may they see you in us.

As we await the celebration of your first coming and and eagerly await your second, help us to reflect your love and truth to those who do not yet know you

A Christmas promise

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Our Christmas wish for you

May you live in the joy of His presence and find hope in the promise of His return!

December1 2016 Prayer Letter

May the light of the Gospel shine on that little girl in the smallest hut, in the poorest village, in the remotest place on earth.

340 villages adopted in Egypt

I just returned from Egypt where Christian leaders gathered from around the country at a Million Village Challenge consultation to strategize for ministry in Egyptian villages all up and down the Nile. On the third day of the conference, the group divided into regions and identified target areas. Altogether they adopted 34 Village Clusters or 340 villages. The conference hosts formed a national servant team to follow up and facilitate the movement. After the conference, I partnered with an experienced national to provide three days of initial training for those who made commitments. Pray now as the work begins in remote places in Egypt.

Will it work here?

In my last letter, I asked you to pray as I sought to mobilize for the Million Village Challenge at the Transform World Global Leadership in Thailand. At the end of a day of vision casting, I was asked to be part of a panel for question and answer. The first inquiry came from the moderator:

Here is the question on everybody’s mind: Will it work here in Southeast Asia?

I started to answer, but was interrupted. A man stood up in the audience, waved his hand and said in broken English:

I am from Vietnam. I took training 20 years ago, and we have ministry in 67 villages.

He sat down and I didn’t have to say any more. Later that evening the man texted me:

Hello my Teacher
You are my teacher around 20 years ago.
Thanks

We are preparing now to begin Million Village Challenge consultations in Southeast Asia in 2017 – a part of the world where I initiated work 20 years ago. Pray with us that God will open new opportunities in every country of the region and that the yet unreached and unengaged will see the light of Christ.

Join the movement

This would be a great time to make a year end gift to our ministry. Your giving will enable us to continue to mobilize and equip the evangelical church globally to take the good news of the kingdom to unreached villages in some of the hardest places on earth.

December 2016 Prayer Letter