Part of preparing is to say good-bye. When we held our final worship service in Reimvasmaak, I asked the saints there for a year's worth of prayer requests. I am pleased to share them with you and to ask you to lift up these saints to our Sovereign God.
They asked that we pray for:
- Love, peace and unity - especially for outreach. There are few if any churches in the area. They are well aware of the power of Jesus' words: By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
- Youth and youth leaders. There are many young people in the area with nothing to do but get into trouble. Please pray for Christian leaders to organize and channel the energy of the youth.
- Mutual understanding and trust. This is related to the first request but deserves special mention. Too often in communities like Reimvasmaak, people get involved in leadership out of self-interest. Pray that those saints in Reimvasmaak trust each other because they are part of the family of God.
- The marriages and families of the community. With such extreme poverty and idleness comes conflict. Pray that Christian families might be truly different.
- The physical health of the community. There is much sickness and health care is far away.
Also with preparing for HMA comes filing and sorting. I found, on a crowded corner of my desk, a big sheet of newsprint folded up that contained prayer requests offered at our last Family Workshop at the AFM Church in Sun City, KwaMhlanga. I knew I saved it for a reason. This blog post is just the reason.
We closed our last session with a time of prayer. Before praying for the families of the AFM church, we collected these prayer requests. You'll notice that these requests could be prayed for the families of your church. Won't you consider praying for the South African church families and your church families?
Please pray for:
- Courage and strength and commitment to attend church. In Sun City, as in many communities, it takes an effort to get to church on Sunday morning. There are many competing activities and Saturday nights sometimes get a bit wild.
- Unity within the family. As is the case everywhere, families are increasingly separated sometimes due to work, sometimes for other reasons.
- The development of "House rules". We spoke about Ephesians 5:15-6:4. Each family was to review the Bible study and apply what they learned to their own family.
- Families to use their gifts for God's glory. Earlier in the series, we discussed family ministry - that each family can minister together for God's glory. Please pray for this.
- Members of families who have left the faith (backsliders). This is a problem here, too. Many children stop attending church when they hit their teens.
- Families to grow strong in the Lord. Again, we discussed family worship, led by the father or the head of the household. For families to grow strong in the Lord, they must have strong leaders, pray for this, too.
Thank you so much for praying for us and now, for praying for these ministries in South Africa.
See you soon!
Bert and Nancy
