Thank you for praying for us. We know that you pray for us
by the way that God answers your prayers. Here are three examples of God
progressively answering prayers.
1
Back in January we asked you to pray for people that Mark
and I have known in Beijing. Oftentimes we feel like when someone walks out of
our life, for whatever reason, we don’t expect to see them again. They move on
and so do we.
However, recently several people have walked back into our
lives. As we arrived in India in February to conduct pastors’ conferences, Mark
received a text from our El Salvadoran friend Hector. He began his text
referring to himself as our ‘prodigal son’. Not only are he and his wife,
Bessie, asking us for help in the Word and how to apply biblical principles to
their lives, God has providentially surrounded them with solid Christians in
their oldest son’s activities. Over dinner one night, they tearfully asked for
help in parenting their young children. Please
pray with us that we would be faithful to clearly articulate the Good News of
salvation in Jesus Christ; that we will be faithful to bring God’s Word to their
lives; that they would respond with faith and repentance; and that they will
commit to following God’s Word. They exude spiritual hunger and seem ready
to listen and learn. We plan to meet with them regularly until we return to the
States for the summer.
2
In addition, our friend Alan recently contacted us again
after a long absence. We ate lunch with him and listened to him catch
us up on his life and explain his sense of purposeless. We sought to press him
to seek the Lord Jesus above all else. He feels caught between two cultural
worlds – born in one country, a naturalized citizen of a different country, but
living in his original country. What does that look like in the details of his life?
How does that affect his relationship with his culturally traditional girlfriend?
Please pray with us that God would open
his heart to the hope of the gospel.
We are delighted to be with these friends again and to renew
and grow our friendships.
3
We also had a productive time in India where Pastor Jamie
from GBC joined Mark for back-to-back pastoral training conferences in two
different cities. On this trip Mark and Jamie aimed to identify leaders among
the churches who can carry on the vision of theological and pastoral
training. About 80 men completed all
three days of teaching on the doctrine of Scripture and the doctrine of God. Please pray
that these men would integrate the things they learned into their own preaching
and pastoral ministry.
In Acts 4:29 Peter
and John prayed that the Lord would “grant to your
servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.” Please pray this
with us – that God’s Word would go forth with boldness and clarity.
