Prayerline November 2023
Your Prayer Guide To Reach The World
Help Workers Plant Churches in Kenya
A gospel campaign over four days this year brought the message of salvation to 550 homes and individuals and 1,500 people in open-air events at a market center. “Our 400 Swahili Bibles were distributed to the new converts,” the ministry leader said. “We praise Jesus that we were able to plant a church among three sub-tribes on the slope of the Pokot tribe.”
Support Gospel Work in South Asia
Idol worship, alcoholism and prostitution had darkened a village that a native Christian worker recently visited. “When he went to this area and preached the love of Christ, people there accepted the Lord and renounced their life of sin,” the ministry leader said. “When other people saw the visible change in the believers, they too surrendered their lives to Christ. All these folks are attending church now.”
Help Spread the Salvation Message in China
A woman accepted Christ three years ago, at a time when she often fought with her husband and in-laws. Since then native Christian workers have discipled her in Bible study and prayer, and her relationship with her unbelieving husband has improved so much that he sometimes attends church meetings.
Enable Evangelistic Outreach in Iraq
People attending Christmas celebrations in Iraq are open to receiving Bibles and the gospel. At one meeting last year, an Iranian girl from a refugee family who asked for a children’s Bible later raised her hand for prayer to receive Christ. Workers invite children to Christmas parties in villages and camps, where the children receive gifts and hear the gospel, as do their parents.
Help Workers Share the Gospel in Mexico
A native Christian worker is visiting a town that is very closed to the gospel in order to reach people from his own ethnic group. “He is constantly visiting that community with the purpose of raising a church,” the ministry leader said. Workers are bringing the Good News to another ethnic group in two towns that have become open to their visits.
Help Send the Message of Eternal Life in Cambodia
A native Christian worker’s gospel radio broadcasts are drawing two calls a day from Muslims desiring to become followers of Christ. “Earlier this year it was men calling, now it is women who are sharing their desire to be followers of Jesus,” the ministry leader said. “Please be in prayer for the women, as they are being persecuted by their families for leaving Islam.”
Help Form Strong Disciples in Sri Lanka
When three families recently received Christ and began attending a native ministry’s church, the transformation that villagers saw in their lives led six others and their children to begin attending worship services as well. Residents noticed a changed atmosphere in the community, which helped win more people to Christ.
Enable Workers to Sow Gospel Seed in North Africa
In spite of surveillance by authorities and Muslim neighbors, native Christian workers have discreetly discipled new believers and found various ways to proclaim Christ. Among those who have put their faith in Christ were 16 people preparing for baptism and three older youths who participated in the ministry’s children’s program.
Help Power Gospel Outreach in the Netherlands
A Shiite Muslim family in Iraq under threat from the Islamic State fled to the Netherlands, where a worker with a native Christian ministry shared the gospel with them. They began studying Christianity and asking questions, and over time they accepted Christ. “Their lives changed completely, and their faith started to grow,” the ministry leader said. “Now they are every week involved with Bible study.”
Help Form New Christians in Syria
Muslims who hear the gospel from native Christian workers count a great cost before deciding to accept Him – their safety, health and ability to make a living are at risk in the face of opposition from family and neighbors. Already facing severe difficulties from an economy ravaged by war, they risk losing the social net that keeps them alive.
Equip Gospel Workers in Bangladesh
The interest that an ethnic group showed when a native Christian worker shared the gospel in their tribal tongue compelled him to return to their village several times. Each time they heard him speak, they wanted to know more, and after a few months many of them put their faith in Christ and were baptized.
Help Send Witnesses for Christ in the Philippines
In the first half of 2023, native Christian workers with one ministry planted 10 churches as 155 people put their faith in Christ. “These have been the result of regular soul witnessing and personal evangelism, weekly home Bible studies, mission outreach to seniors and persons with disabilities, sharing the Bibles in hospitals and schools and feeding starving, indigent children,” the ministry leader said.
Help Provide Compassionate Care in Lebanon
As living conditions continue to deteriorate, impoverished families have even less access to health care, and a native ministry is seeing more patients. Christian workers offer health care to both Lebanese and refugees at a clinic on their church premises, serving 100 to 120 patients weekly, and their facility at a community center offers lab tests, fetal monitoring, physiotherapy for adults and children, a pharmacy and other care.
Help Advance the Kingdom in South Asia
Members of mid-week cell groups who received discipleship from native Christian workers are in turn discipling youths, as they learn together how to do various kinds of outreach. The workers are available to counsel and help the cell groups when they run into challenges too large to face on their own.
Assist Messengers of Christ’s Grace in China
Workers at a native ministry train Christians to help carry out visits to congregation members and others in need, resulting in gospel opportunities. Through direct training and/or observation of workers, the members are equipped to comfort, counsel, teach basic Bible knowledge and share the gospel.
Help Send Humanitarian Aid in Nigeria
The critical aid that native workers provide to people internally displaced by violence now also goes to refugees from war-wracked Sudan – thousands have arrived in desperate need. “These people do not even come with clothing apart from what they wear,” the native ministry leader said.
Help Provide Gospel Transformation in Chile
A man hospitalized with COVID-19 received healing prayer and put his faith in Christ, and native Christian workers continued to visit him 80 miles from their church base to share the gospel with his family. “Then we evangelized their neighbors, and several people accepted Jesus as their Savior, and they have started flocking to us,” the ministry leader said.
Help the Lost to Know Christ in Pakistan
Native Christian workers are finding ample opportunities to share the gospel with the unreached as four new house churches regularly receive visitors. People from the surrounding communities have never heard about Christ’s grace. “Listening to the Word of God, they have started knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit has changed their lives,” the ministry leader said.
Provide Aid to the Needy in Burma
Some villagers displaced by military operations continue to be bombed after fleeing into jungles, and young people are arrested and either held in unknown locations or killed, while others are forcibly recruited to fight. Many of the displaced are starving. Native Christian workers are giving them hope for new life as they provide food, clothing and other aid, including education for children, along with the gospel.
Help Bring Salvation to the Unreached in Mali
Native Christian workers are grateful that no officials have opposed them or stopped them from distributing Bibles in prisons, where detainees and officials are Muslims. The reverse has happened: officials have sent workers several letters thanking them for the transformation they’ve seen in the prisons.
Help Give Voice to Gospel Witness in Indonesia
Three people recently put their faith in Christ, including a Muslim hired as a driver for native Christian workers who spent a week providing medicines, groceries and other aid to the poor. “He was very surprised to see our acts of love,” the ministry leader said.
Send Workers to the Spiritual Harvest in Peru
A four-night evangelistic event earlier this year resulted in 150 people putting their faith in Christ, one of many outreaches that native Christian workers recently undertook. One worker preaching at a similar event saw 57 people accept Christ, while another went to a village with a small church and carried out a campaign where nearly all the residents repented and joined the existing congregation.
Provide Aid for Refugees in Greece
Among refugees arriving in great need, native Christian workers often learn about women who have suffered abuse. A mother with a child was dependent for her survival on a relationship with a man who was so violent that workers feared he was trafficking her. Workers provided food for her and her son and arranged for them to live in a hostel.
Help the Lost Become Children of God in Africa
A native worker was recently installed as chief of a village, and he wanted a Christ-centered inauguration, so the leader of his organization preached and prayed for him at the ceremony. “Over 650 people came, and they were all amazed that we did this the Christian way,” the leader said. “I asked if they wanted to enter the kingdom and become a child of God, and it was as if the whole village raised their hands and prayed the sinner’s prayer with me.”
Support Gospel Proclamation in Türkiye
A young man who attended a native ministry’s church told the leader that he was an atheist, but after their conversation he attended weekly youth meetings. In the ensuing weeks the worker answered more of his questions about the Lord, and his heart began to soften; after hearing the leader preach on the need to trust God, the young man spoke with him and accepted Christ as Lord and Savior.
Help Plant and Grow Churches in Zambia
An innovative idea for outreach resulted in many people coming to Christ as native workers invited worship teams from 10 churches to perform for hundreds of people of all ages. After the praise songs, evangelists introduced Christ and His work, and 400 people trusted in Him for salvation. Workers are following up with Bible distribution and study.
Help Spread the Good News in South Asia
Native Christian workers visiting newly discovered villages were overjoyed to form relationships, begin small group Bible studies and host evangelistic meetings, as well as witness God’s healing power when they prayed for the sick. “Consequently, many chose to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, and the Good News spread to other households in the villages,” the ministry leader said.
Help Bring Word of Eternal Life in Spain
A native Christian ministry that has planted hundreds of churches trains evangelists in how to train others, focusing on segments of society reaching their own people – gypsies proclaiming Christ to gypsies, soldiers to soldiers, and doctors to doctors, for example. The workers are trained in how to start small groups in homes where fellowships study the Bible, worship and partake of the Lord’s Supper, as well as encourage each other to proclaim Christ’s death and resurrection.
Enable Workers to Lead People to Christ in China
A shaman said to have influence over good and evil spirits recently became terminally ill and received a visit from native Christian workers. They explained the gospel to him and prayed with him, and the next day he called saying he was completely healed. “He decided to follow Jesus and throw away all the tools and instruments for shamanic practices,” the native ministry leader said.
Help Find, Vet and Evaluate Workers
Often working in poverty with faith that the Lord will somehow provide for them and their families, many native Christian workers also face drought, military conflict and persecution. As ardent Christ-followers, they go with integrity and trust in God as they share the same hope that sustains them with their countrymen; the workers are eager to bring the gospel and a better quality of life to people in deep need of Christ’s love.