SaraJane Strylowski, Edward Hunt, and I will depart this Saturday, October 29, for a ministry trip to serve our friends at Logos Ministries in South Asia. The plan is for us to have some time to reconnect with our friends there, especially Nish and Pinky, and to teach at a conference held from November 2-5.
The conference will have a women’s track and a men’s track. SaraJane will be working with a group of ladies through material designed to help them find God’s help and healing from trauma. Mark and Edward will be meeting with a group of pastors, teaching through the 10 Commandments to provide them with a teaching tool to help equip the believers in their churches.
Would you pray with us for:
1. Deepening relationships. Due to Covid, it has been three years since we’ve been able to be there with them, and this will be Edward’s first time there. Would you pray for laughter and spontaneous conversations and much encouragement?
2. What happens after the conference. That the gospel’s reach into hearts impacted by trauma would be helpful to people we’re not meeting – people in their home churches or villages.
3. That one pastor or woman or who needs special encouragement. Please pray for us to be sensitive to the leading of the Spirit, and that God might meet that one person who comes burdened, discouraged, weighed down. Perhaps this conference will be used by God to put wind back in his or her sails.
4. Case studies. For the times when all conference participants (men and women) will meet together to respond to case studies. This is a chance for the men to engage with how trauma and harm impact people in the churches they lead.
5. For a deepening understanding of discipleship. These dear saints have a deep love for Christ but often have received little mentoring, theological training, and discipleship. Would you pray with us for insight into what it means to be a Christian? And for the growing experience of walking in a life-giving relationship with Jesus?
6. For the gospel to empower obedience. As we teach through the 10 Commandments, we are proclaiming God’s character expressed through commands. Yet before God gives them these commandments, he reminds them of the gospel, saying, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Exodus 20:2). By amazing grace, God set them free and then called them to live as free people by keeping his commands. Would you pray that these pastors will grasp this order of things: grace first, then obedience?
7. For revival in the villages and towns where these pastors serve. May the Lord pour out his Spirit on these places, and may the good works and godly lives of these saints attract their neighbors to Christ.
8. For the three of us to work well together. Would you pray for the off-line discussions that SaraJane, Edward and I have together, that we would sense, day-by-day, the mid-course adjustments God leads us to make?
9. For the leading of the Spirit. For SaraJane to be sensitive to the leading of the spirit as the women engage hard topics that they may or may not have engaged before; when to pause, when to lean in. For Mark and Edward to know how to have good discussions in response to the teaching.
10. For the examples of these dear saints to encourage and inspire us, and for that encouragement to spread through us to our RGC family. These brothers and sisters excel in faith and in courage. They persevere amidst poverty and persecution. May we be impacted by their lives.
Thanks for your prayers! If you’d like to receive updates about our trip while we are gone, please sign up here.
Grace,
Mark