Moving to the village

Ways to Pray:

1. Our Hearts: Please remember to lift us up for our spiritual health! Pray that the Lord will be at work in our own hearts, teaching us, speaking to us, guiding us…etc.
   
   
2. The Hearts of the People: Pray with us that the Holy Spirit will go before us and already be working on the hearts of the people, bringing them to Himself, giving them a hunger and thirst for Him.
   
   
3. Discipleship & Evangelism via Chronological Bible Storying: This is the first time we will be storying through Scripture with the adults! Pray that God’s Word will work powerfully; that the Holy Spirit will be at work in their hearts; that the Lord will guide us in our preparation and times of teaching; pray that the people will have a huge desire for God’s Word.
   
   
4. Good Connections/Friendships: This first stay in the village is a huge step! Unless we have their on-going permission to live with them, given tribal customs, we will not be allowed to live and work with this group long-term. Given this, it is even more important than normal that we develop good connections and friendships with the people – which is not always an easy thing to do. Pray that the Lord gives us genuine, trusting, transparent friendships and connections with the people.
   
   
5. Communication: Given the language and cultural barriers, communication is a huge challenge. Please pray that the Lord will supernaturally intervene and give us grace in this area: that He will protect us from harmful miscommunication/misinterpretation in our interaction with the people; that the people will see our hearts, and recognize our motives for living with them to be good, God-honoring, and full of love for them.
   
   
6. Language Helper: Please join me in praying for the Lord to lead us to the right person to help us begin to learn the tribal language! Also, that He will already be preparing her for the challenge of teaching me her heart language, and that she will become a close friend, guide, protector, confidant, and most importantly, a fellow sister in Christ in the coming months and years.
   
   
7. Language Learning: Please pray for a lot of grace for our next few months of diving into this tribal language! For patience on our part; that people in the community will take time out of their days for many days to come to patiently answer our tedious language questions.
   
   
8. Safety: We are praying that the community will take us in as family – taking on the responsibility of helping us figure out life in their world, and also taking responsibility for our safety.
   
   
9. Spiritual Warfare: Opposition from the enemy will be the biggest struggle and difficulty that we face in the coming months. The enemy has ruled this people group by fear and darkness for hundreds of years.
   
   
10. Health: One of the biggest areas of spiritual warfare I’ve experienced, has been in the area of health. Would you pray with us that the Lord will guard and protect us from physical illness, and if illness does occur in our time in the community, that the Lord will use that to show the people how truly powerful He is in our lives.
    
    
11. Travel: We’ve got a lot of days of travel ahead of us. Please pray for provision and protection on our journeys, as we make our way upriver over the next 5 days.
    
    
12. Team: Speaking of hours and hours traveling in tight spaces with a large group of people… J Please lift us up as a team, that we will love one another well; have patience with one another; be willing to forgive and give grace to one another over and over; and that the Lord will use our love for one another to show the community who He is and what He has done in our lives (1 John 4:11-13).
    
    
13. Future: Join us in praying for the future of this work, that the Lord would be glorified in this people group; that the gospel will be preached and received in a powerful way in every village; that the Lord would provide laborers to work in this area of the jungle (Matt 9:37-38); that upon becoming believers, this people group will have a passion to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.