Here is this week’s Watch and Pray prayer list
Open Doors – World Watch List
Afghanistan
Open Doors – World Watch List
Afghanistan
All Afghan Christians come from a Muslim background. Believers who are discovered face discrimination from family and community, Muslim clergy and local authorities. The government treats converts in a hostile manner, using any means possible to make them recant. The tiny Christian minority cannot meet in public; meetings in private homes are possible, but require great caution. Not a single official church building remains, not even for expatriate believers. In February, an Afghan Christian was released after spending nearly nine months in prison on charges of apostasy.
Pray:
- For courage and perseverance for individual Christians with so little fellowship
- That Taliban threats against Christian relief organizations will come to nothing
- For the church to grow despite the difficulties.
Read the Word
And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” (Mark 4:26-32)
Study the Word
The inward kingdom is like seed which a man casts into the ground – This a preacher of the Gospel casts into the heart. And he sleeps and rises night and day – That is, he has it continually in his thoughts. Meantime it springs and grows up he knows not how – Even he that sowed it cannot explain how it grows. For as the earth by a curious kind of mechanism, which the greatest philosophers cannot comprehend, does as it were spontaneously bring forth first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear: so the soul, in an inexplicable manner, brings forth, first weak graces, then stronger, then full holiness: and all this of itself, as a machine, whose spring of motion is within itself. Yet observe the amazing exactness of the comparison. The earth brings forth no corn (as the soul no holiness) without both the care and toil of man, and the benign influence of heaven. - John Wesley
Revive
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:5-7)
A WISE PERSON once said that selfishness is at the root of most (if not all) discontent and self-centered seeking. In other words, the more you isolate yourself, the more you focus on what you don’t have. Many people spend the majority of their waking existences tallying up all their wants and classifying them as needs. We scoot things to the top of the importance list that maybe should be kept a notch or two below the rest. We praise love over wisdom, forgetting that wisdom teaches us how to love. We want success over patience and wealth of every sort over poverty of any kind. We would rather be faithless than judged—would rather be in a relationship of an unhealthy bent than alone and deep down; dreamless if it would prevent the ache of desire from sneaking up and staying behind. Avoid pain, avoid loss, avoid need. Always forgetting that we are vessels, not simply pure content.
We are the offering.
Like Christ before us, we are to pour ourselves out for others. It means that when it is truly all about Him, it is even more truly all about them—and not about us.
Why do we have what we have—and for whom do we have it?
Praying for the Minds of Unbelievers
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)
Since with blinded eyes, people cannot even see the light of the Gospel we are sharing, we must pray for God to remove the blinders before they can accept Jesus.
Operation World
Praying for Asia
Many previously unevangelized peoples are experiencing spiritual first fruits and in some cases breakthrough. There are too many to list, but some of the more prominent peoples to experience such include Shaikh (Bengali), Vietnamese, Burmese, Pashtun, Persian, Iraqi Arab, Bhil, Gond, Khmer, Kazakh, Kurd and Kyrgyz. Additionally, significant Christian growth has occurred in several clusters of smaller peoples, such as in the region of North Vietnam-Laos-Myanmar-Yunnan Province in China and in Western China-Nepal.
China is in the midst of amazing changes. Beyond the economic shift that has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, beyond the positive changes that the further opening of the country has brought, the Church in China is signalling a massive change in this, the world’s largest population. Christians in China now almost certainly exceed 100 million. They are present in all regions of the country and come from all walks of life. They love their country and have ambitious visions to see it transformed by the power of the gospel. The government, traditionally a ruthless persecutor of the Church, now recognizes the positive social impact Christians can make and increasingly accepts the reality that the Church in China is there to stay – and will play a major role in shaping the country’s future.
Pray for Believers from a Muslim Background (MBB). They are growing in number in almost every context and on an unprecedented scale. Pray for all who have come to Christ from such backgrounds. Pressures on them are usually severe and persecution ranges from relatives, employers, and even the authorities. Pray for courage in the face of opposition and for faithfulness in all situations.
Pray for the Persecuted
NAIROBI, Kenya, January 23 (Compass Direct News) – Hassan Muwanguzi, a convert from Islam in Uganda who lost his family and job because of his Christian faith, is thankful after fighting off the latest attack – an attempt by Muslims to imprison him and shut down the school he started. Following his conversion in his early 20s in 2003, Muwanguzi’s family immediately kicked him out of their home, and enraged Muslims beat him, he said. His wife left him that same year, and he lost his job as a teacher at Nankodo Islamic School, near Pallisa. Undaunted, a year ago he opened a Christian school, Grace International Nursery and Primary School, at Kajoko, Kibuku district, 27 kilometers (17 miles) from Mbale town; the area’s population of 5,000 people is predominantly Muslim.
Incensed by his boldness, an Islamic teacher, Sheikh Hassan Abdalla, filed a false charge that Muwanguzi had “defiled” his minor daughter. Together with his Muslim countrymen, Abdalla filed a case at the chief magistrate’s court in Palissa-Kalaki, and a warrant for Muwanguzi’s arrest was issued on April 1, 2011. Initially he was locked up for three weeks, he said. On April 22, he was released on bail when the complainant did not appear at his hearing, and the sheikh didn’t show up at hearings each of the next four months, either, Muwanguzi said. “The judge found out it was a false accusation, hence the case was dropped,” Muwanguzi said. “I had been subjected to humiliation, but I forgave them for the sake of my Christian outreach in the area.”
Gospel for Asia
A region of South Asia situated in the Himalayan mountains is experiencing a particularly harsh winter. In the area where Gospel for Asia-supported missionaries Badal Sharma and Prahlad Sengupta are working, temperatures have dropped as low as 12° Fahrenheit, and a blanket of snow two to three feet deep is covering the ground. The poor especially are suffering.
The missionaries’ ministry has also been inhibited. Roads are blocked and no transportation is available; the two men had to walk through 15 miles of snow simply to get out of the mountains.
Please pray the Lord will protect the people in this region from the freezing temperatures.
Ask God to help the missionaries in the area, especially those serving Him at higher elevations.
False Allegations Raised… Again
Anti-Christians have once again raised allegations against Gospel for Asia-supported pastor Sammath Chavan, accusing him of forcing people to convert to Christianity.
The Lord has blessed Pastor Sammath’s ministry, and in 2008, he was able to start a fellowship. In response, anti-Christians filed a case accusing him of coercing the believers into their new faith. Police issued a warrant for his arrest. However, GFA leaders were able to intervene, and the case was settled peacefully.
On the evening of January 10, police personnel came to Pastor Sammath’s rented room on a warrant reactivated by the same anti-Christians who had accused him in 2008. Now, Sammath is under house arrest and is not able to leave the room he is living in.
Ask the Lord to once again intervene and put the case to rest permanently.
Pray for Pastor Sammath, that the Lord will protect him from discouragement and give him grace to stand firm in his faith.
For more prayer requests visit the Gospel For Asia website
Food For the Poor
Photo from Food For the Poor’s Photo of the Day.
Jamaican students stand with their teacher outside the wood shack that serves as their school.
To mark the 50th anniversary of Jamaica‘s independence from British rule, Food For The Poor is launching a “Jamaica 50 Campaign” to build 50 schools in 50 months, replacing schools deemed unfit places for children to learn.
Prayer of the Week
“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear.” (Isaiah 59:1NKJV)
Dear Father God, we come to You today knowing that You listen and answer our prayers. You are almighty God, powerful and loving. Lord, as this new year begins, we are reminded of Your Word, knowing that there is nothing impossible for You. Your hand is powerful. Your ear is ready to hear our prayers. Father God, help us to do Your will always. May we be pleasing in Your sight, and help us to rest in You, each and every day. We pray all this in the name of Your precious Son, Jesus. Amen.
