Hanoi was a place the Marines never got to, though the bombers did and the fruit of their carpet bombing set the stage for massive post-war building and development. Years later, our prayer team walked the streets of Hanoi and cried out to the Lord for open doors to share the love of Jesus with these people.My friend Dan Telep and his wife Kitty were key to that team, for Dan was combatant during the war and had been medevacked out of combat on two occasions. During our prayer walk, we had traveled through the DMZ and actually been to the place where Dan had been wounded. We were closing windows with Vietnam Vets in those days, and Dan and Kitty found beautiful closure to many issues as the Holy Spirit touched them. Like so many combat veterans, Dan had lived in the shadow of events he could not adequately describe to his wife, and she had tried to reach through the shadows with love for him. Bringing them to the place gave understanding, and Jesus brought healing.Dan and Kitty know the four principles of friendship:1. A man who would have friends must show himself friendly2. We do not wrestle with flesh and blood3. I never met a man I didn’t like4. Opposition is the greatest opportunitySo I was not surprised when we went to visit a local museum dedicated to Vietnam's victory over the United States. Visiting this place was a tough pill for both of us as we are veterans. To see boots and helmets and dog tags of our fellow countrymen on display was, in a word, horrendous. Gut-wrenched and very emotional, we had little time for the guide who came to explain to us the victory.Begging a few moments to ourselves, I explained to this young captain that my friend had fought in the First Marine Division in the DMZ, and this was really difficult for him. She asked the dates of his service and understandingly gave us space to grieve for our friends who had died in the conflict.After about ten minutes, she returned with an older uniformed officer who spoke English well and shared that he had fought in the DMZ against the Marines on those same dates. I watched as the two former combatants who had used all the firepower available to them trying to kill each other first looked, then saluted, then shook hands, then embraced.For two days, Dan, Kitty, and the colonel built a friendship moving from the commonality of killing to friendship in Jesus. With their wives involved, these two men found peace in Jesus.Through this friendship, we were invited to meet and share the Lord with members of the peace negotiation team who were now restructuring the nation of Vietnam.Opposition is opportunity to those who are ready to forgive the past and embrace the future.

And I will lead the blind in a way they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.Isaiah 42:16

A medical mission to Guatemala, huh? People from many churches and organizations go there to serve. I might have zoned out thinking about it, had Pastor Hector Zetino not been involved. But he’s the real deal. If he needed us, he would get us. And so, in late July, the SEAPC medical team packed up their gear and headed to Guatemala City.Upon our arrival, we were greeted by the gracious Drs. Marta and Salvatore Sanchinelli, escorted to their lovely guest house complete with hot water and hot meals. As we sat there in their blooming garden for morning devotions, it all spelled vacation, not mission.

It would be tough to return home with tales of sacrifice in the mission field. Until pops from the closest Red Zone echoed through the night outside the barbed wire and metal gates that enclosed us.I nudged Harry, nurse/Vietnam combat vet. “Sounds like fireworks. Is it a holiday?”His clipped response, “Gunfire,” said it all.Although the medical team is known for feeling safe anywhere—including this trip—those crisp retorts were a reminder that we had traveled to yet another place where Jesus and medical care were needed. Desperately.A bonus of serving with Dr. Marta, a professor of medicine, and Dr. Salvatore, a pediatrician, came in their inclusion of a gynecologist and an internist. Five doctors, three nurses, and two prayer warriors from the States teamed up with our Guatemalan medical friends, translators, Pastor Hector Zetino, and Debbie Zetino. Everyone had numerous jobs, and all were gracious and flexible.

We were blessed with plentiful donations of medicine, supplies, and financial support from people who partnered with us even though they couldn’t travel. They are as much a part of any team as those who get off the plane. Simply put, it couldn’t be done without them.Clinics were a bit chaotic as the team navigated language barriers, triage under a tree, the flow of patients, back-ups at the pharmacy, and the desire to linger with those who needed extra attention—even though scores of others waited to be seen.  Altogether, approximately six hundred men, women, and children came for care—and prayer.Medical clinics are different from other missions in the number of moving parts that have to be accounted for because no matter the illnesses, the dilemmas, or the challenges, the most important thing we provide is prayer. Without it, there is no reason to go. And so we combine the practice of medicine with the provision of ministry.And although the people think they come for physical healing—and they do—that is merely an introduction to Jesus and the more critical spiritual healing. On this trip we saw both, in abundance.The clinics may have been held in Red Zones, but these became miracle zones claimed by the Holy Spirit. There are too many physical healings to enumerate. A woman with a large tumor on her side went for prayer. The tumor disappeared. Another woman came with contractures in her right hand and arm from an old stoke. During prayer, her hand opened, and her arm moved for the first time in five years.

A limping woman had one leg longer than the other. As she received prayer, the shorter leg matched the longer one. We prayed over a man with a needle embedded deep in his hand before making an incision to remove it. A second incision had to be made. The needle was never found.It is easy to be a part of these events and remain skeptical—believer or not. In American culture, miracles are far removed from the norm, even in Christian circles. The remarkable story of Lazarus being raised from the dead by Jesus in John 11 yields two results: belief that reveals the glory of God (v. 40), and unbelief (v. 46) that leads to hardened hearts.When someone claims relief from a headache, a sore shoulder becoming pain-free, feet that are no longer numb—these make a skeptic shrug. Are they miracles or the power of suggestion? But tumors disappearing, legs lengthening, hands opening? These are undeniably the work of the Great Physician.The greater miracles during this trip were soul-based. Daily, people repented and gave their lives to the Lord. Some who made no commitment took in everything happening around them as others labored to serve and to bring glory to God. On the final day of clinic, 128 patients were seen. From that group alone, 120 either recommitted or accepted Jesus. The eight others walked away with a great deal to ponder from their experience.Even outside of clinic settings, the team encountered God-ordained moments. Everyone has a story to tell. Mine happened at the House of Faith and Hope, a Christian haven for kids from dangerous neighborhoods founded by Hector Zetino, with Debbie Zetino as Director.During worship that morning, one young woman fell to her knees, sobbing. She buried her face in the seat of a chair and cried throughout the singing. When the others left the room for discipleship, she remained, still crying. I sank down beside her, took her in my arms, and murmured of her worth. The real sense of her pain from something shame-based of a sexual nature overwhelmed me. Later I discovered her history of sexual abuse. I prayed, including the minimal words I knew in Spanish. El Senor. Cristo Jesus. Dios te ama. With Dr. Marta’s daughter Sarita translating, I began to speak of God’s great love and many other things that were the Holy Spirit’s words, not mine. And I pledged to be her abuelita (little grandmother), to pray for her, and to find a way to stay in touch. At that moment, her smile blossomed into a flower of great beauty. Teardrops remained suspended on her dark lashes, but the sorrow that had been in her brown eyes now reflected peace. That’s a miracle for you.We left Guatemala after only one week. We will not be remembered. Medicines will run out. People will forget the health teaching. Daily life will remain challenging. So why go at all? What difference did it make for them? For us?Although the medical interventions seem short-lived, the spiritual remain. The team doesn’t provide care in a vacuum. Local churches, Pastor Zetino, and the Christian medical community remain to reinforce teaching and support growth. Relationships are formed, not only with the team but with the many volunteers who live in the same neighborhoods. The seeds that are planted will be nurtured, in anticipation of a great harvest.With today’s connected world, even though the SEAPC medical team is now home in the U.S., communication with new Guatemalan friends will continue. Plans are already underway to return and to expand the scope of care to rural areas. Prayer doesn’t require a passport; we pray for them, and they pray for us. The zone we live in is unimportant.The Lord’s work never ends—and is never work. Being on a medical mission, serving Jesus, fellowshipping with believers worldwide—that is real life, to the fullest measure of joy.

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.Psalm 16:11

Shwe Li Zar and Lili Par are two young ladies who have not only been blessed by Charity Children’s Home in Yangon but are now, in turn, blessing the home. Both girls grew up at the children’s home, and are now back working as seamstresses and blessing both the children and staff alike.

Shwe Li Zar (on left) came to the home when she was eight years old. She grew up in a family of 10 children, and she is third born in the family. Her younger sister, Za New Sung, also lives at the home with her. She and her sister came to the children’s home because her family could not afford to support all of the children. The village in which she lived also did not have a school, so she could not get an education either. Once she arrived at the children’s home, she was able to start going to school, but she only studied until 10th grade because she had a difficult time passing the required exam.

During the summer break in 2018, Shwe Li Zar went home for a short time to visit her family. She found her father to be in very poor health, and she knew she needed to do something to help him and her family. Once she returned to the children’s home, she spoke with house parents Chung Nung and Dim and asked if she could attend a vocational training instead of trying to pass the grade 10 exam again. They agreed that she would attend a training school for sewing. Chung Nung and Dim decided they would support her in any financial or material needs. After she had completed her training, she came back to the home to help sew the school uniforms for all of the children. Her prayer is to become a successful tailor so that she can help support her family and her sick father.

Lili Par arrived at the children’s home with her older brother, Lal Ku Pui, when she was only five years old. Her parents divorced when she was very young. Her mother moved away to India and abandoned the children, and her father eventually remarried and stopped taking care of them. At the children’s home, she stayed in school until grade nine but found it difficult to pass the grade nine exam. She decided that she did not want to continue trying to pass the exam, so she moved home with her grandfather. After a short while, she decided to find a job on her own, and eventually moved to the city of Mandalay, to work in a private sewing company. At this job, she was not trained, so she had to teach herself how to sew. Later on, she had the desire to move back to Yangon but found the working conditions of most sewing factories to be unbearable, and the pay was not sufficient either. After having no luck finding a suitable working environment, she came back to Charity Children’s Home to seek help from Chung Nung and Dim. They thought it would be best for her to work alongside Shwe Li Zar to strengthen her sewing skills. Chung Nung and Dim were able to purchase a new sewing machine for her to use, and she is now helping to sew the children’s school uniforms.

Because of the generosity of Chung Nung and Dim to provide the sewing machines for the girls, and their desire to see them be successful, these girls are on their way to building strong careers. Shwe Li Zar and Lili Par are now doing all the sewing for the 200 children at the children’s home and also the students at Acts Bible College. The children’s home is now able to save money because it costs less to have the girls sew the uniforms than to pay for an outside business to do so. Not only that, the girls are tailoring the uniforms to each specific child because they are personally measuring and cutting forms for every individual uniform. Every child at the home now has two beautiful uniforms—something that was not possible before. The quality of the uniforms is also better than what they previously purchased from outside businesses.

Their stories are proof that God works in mysterious ways, and His timing is always perfect. God has blessed these two girls with an incredible gift, and because they chose to follow His will for their lives, they are now seeing the fruit of it. Please continue to pray with us that Shwe Li Zar and Lili Par would be encouraged in their work and would feel God’s blessing upon them.

It is another weekend in Hong Kong. The world awaits the unveiling of the next act of the drama that is unfolding as a generation tries to free itself from the situation created by their parents in the affirmation of the Basic Law.In 1997 Britain’s lease on the business capital of Asia and Doorway to China expired. In its place was the Basic Law, an agreement to have one country and two systems as China regained the goose that laid the golden egg. At the same time, China created Special Economic Zones, and Hong Kong was designated a Special Autonomous Region. Capitalism was tried in these regions, and they became little giants in China. Selected children were sent to the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK to learn the principles of capitalism so that China could gain advantage through its newly acquired Most Favored Nation status and its retention of environmental and tax relief as a developing nation. Wealth without responsibility and America’s plunge into national debt created a situation in which economic and political change in Hong Kong was unbridled.Investors from Mainland China took over the housing markets of Hong Kong, pushing housing costs to a level unattainable by the local people. The generation born under the Basic Law would never be able to afford a reasonable flat or apartment in which to live.The government was deaf to the cries of injustice rising from campus and factory alike. Law and its practice became tenuous as determinations of the court became politically swayed, and those who questioned justice disappeared.The emerging student population began to realize that with government and commerce disrupted, education and career would soon be compromised. The young people began to walk through the four steps that Martin Luther King so aptly described in his letter from the Birmingham Jail leading to direct non-violent ActionFirst: They gathered facts about cases of injustice.Second: They attempted to negotiate with the Hong Kong government settlement of understanding in the Basic Law. They approached the business sector, drawing attention to unjust actions in the workplace.Third: They assessed themselves and began to prepare for non-violent direct action by studying King and Nelson Mandela. They established their emotions on the bedrock of truth.Then, two months ago, they began the direct non-violent demonstration.Reactions were predictable. Nonviolence is designed to create a social tension so that grievances can be addressed. The tensions came as millions of Hong Kong residents clogged the streets and divisions were identified. There are 19 districts in Hong Kong, and the movement had designed swift travel from district to district so that a “little group” appeared to be “big.”From his cell in Birmingham, Dr. King asserted that “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.” Hong Kong’s position as the Gateway to China and the Crossroads of East and West made the airport the logical place of demonstration, so the movement staged a sit-in there which impacted the globe and drew attention to their cause.Now it is another weekend in Hong Kong. The nations are responding to the situation because the global economy is affected, travel is affected, shipping is affected, and the Central Government of China has places troops and equipment at the border, threatening to restore order while supporting their appointed government.So what do we Christians do?We pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. We must beseech the Holy Spirit to again intervene in the life of Hong Kong. He is the only One who can bring the Kingdom and will in response to our prayers.Please stay in touch with our friends in Hong Kong. We have served many churches and have seen literally thousands of people come to Christ while ministering there. We have participated in prayer walks and intercession in all 19 districts. We have worked tirelessly to teach the way of the Cross to these friends and now suffer with them as they cry out to God for deliverance.

A man who has friends must show himself to be friendly. We do not wrestle with flesh and blood. I never met a man I didn’t like. Opposition is the greatest opportunity.Learn those four things, and you will be able to reach past yourself, through your fears, higher than race and discover wonderful people ready to walk with you to accomplish common goals.Hebrews 12:6 teaches us not to be lazy but, through faith and patience, to inherit the promise God has given us. The word for “patient” here is makrothumeo, which is commonly interpreted as “patience with people.” Every promise has with it a protagonist. Embrace the person and receive the promise. But how does one embrace a porcupine?As a teenager, we had Vietnam for dinner every night. Dan Rather would tell us how many thousand members of the Viet Cong had been killed. If you wrote down and added up the number from each daily mission, you would find that the entire country had been obliterated by the third year of the war. They were the enemy. They did horrible things to people. Their cousins, the Khmer Rouge, were just as terrible. And the Pathet Lao were worse than the rest combined. We had to bomb them into extinction, they said. They were against democracy and the basic freedoms of the American way.So, it was with no small bit of preprogrammed angst that I followed the Lord’s direction and began to travel on and around the Mekong River. My friend Hubert and I traveled on foot, in the back of pickup trucks, by local bus, and on antiquated French trains reaching out to the once enemies of freedom. Along the way we prayed for everyone we saw; farmers and school kids, the forlorn and the thriving as Southeast Asia dragged itself out of the devastation of war. Each nation touched by the Mekong had been affected, and each people had stories to tell.We were riding in the back of a pickup truck on a dusty road from Vientiane to Pakse, Laos. A horribly disfigured man was helped into the truck by several friends and local people. My blue eyes met those dark brown staring at me from the remains of the man’s face.He spoke to the young Christian man traveling with us who then told me, “He wants to know where you come from.”“Go ahead and tell him. And ask him if he has ever met an American.” The tension in the truck was palpable.If hatred was a rocket, it scored a direct hit flashing from his eyes through mine to my soul.Standing and with great discomfort removing his shirt, he said, “Why would you do this to me?” Even the Lao people in the truck gasped at the disfigured body of what had once been a strong jungle dweller. The plane that had dropped the napalm and subsequent agent bore an American emblem, and as he lay in agony seeing his family burned to death, he swore that one day he would get his vengeance.I assured the young man to allow him to vent, holding back nothing and, with the support of the others in the truck, he did.Giving way to tears of frustration and agony, he melted back onto the bench seat. I moved to sit beside him and through the translator apologized for the pain caused by my country. Having spent his fury and physical strength, he again fixed a stare into my eyes. Begging his forgiveness and sharing that Jesus had suffered for both of us, we felt the Holy Spirit speak through us to his heart. Weeping, he poured out his suffering on the One who had suffered for us all.As dusk turned to darkness, foes became friends in the power of Jesus.

It was July 4 weekend of 1997, and a group of missionaries had come together after leading prayer teams into different parts of China and Hong Kong. Bound by commonality in church and calling, they had each recruited a team from their sphere of influence and had assembled significant numbers of short-termers ready to walk and pray for China.July 1, 1997, England’s lease of the city of Hong Kong expired and with great celebration in Hong Kong and Beijing the Chinese were repatriated to the homeland. Many ministries that had been based in Hong Kong shifted to Chiang Mai, Thailand, while some bold folk moved further into China. Yunnan Province and the capital Kunming and Sichuan Province and her city of Chengdu had become destinations of hope.The evening of the second, after teams had been registered in their rooms and all their needs satisfied, the leaders came together to catch up on their experiences and to discuss ongoing ministry in China. As opinions were expressed and accomplishments declared, it became obvious that the camaraderie they had enjoyed had been eroded by what appeared to be an individual success. They could not hear from each other and, in actual fact, attacked the credibility of those who had trained them and introduced them to China in the first place.At that moment my dream of this team working together, complementing each other, loving one another, hearing one another, and submitting to each other died; and with very mixed emotions, I begged my leave and slowly walked to my room.The following morning my friends Chuck Lenhart, Bill Richardson, and Hubert Chan loaded our continuing team on a bus, and we headed through Yunnan to a bridge that crossed the Mekong. Surrounded by very curious ears, we did not rehearse the verbiage of the night before. Instead, we discussed forming smart partnerships with national leaders among the peoples of the Mekong to establish something of beneficial permanence in each country that touched this great river.Hubert spoke of those from Singapore who would readily engage, and Bill knew many pastors and leaders in the US who would rise to the occasion, but it was Chuck who had taken the leap to establish and fund nationals to reach their own nation. He had heard a lot in the last day about the folly of such a plan. Quietly he had endured, and we turned to him to hear of his experience.“You’ve got to get God to give you a love, appreciation, and respect for these people,” He said. “And only through prayer can you come close to that because they are so different than we are. You have to realize that you will never be Chinese (or whatever people group) and they will never be American. You have to have the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit working in and through you every day.”On the morning of July 4, 1997, our bus stopped at the bridge where the Burma Road crosses the Mekong. We got down and worshipped and prophetically poured salt and oil into the swirling waters. Bill found firecrackers and set them off proclaiming independence to the peoples of the Mekong. Hubert and the Singaporeans made proclamation in Chinese, and Pastor Dianne Knapp share the vision God had given her concerning the release of the people of the Mekong.Within a month we heard of a breakthrough in Tibet—the headwaters—to Vietnam and the delta. We retraced our steps in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and China. In each place to which we had taken a level one prayer team, we began to build a relationship, and we saw the release of the peoples.Now, the Lord is sending believers from those groups into all the earth to tell how He has set them free.Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it cannot bring forth fruit.

I’ll never forget the words from my brother when I picked up the phone on that Monday afternoon in June. “Brian, Dad is dead.”Time stopped in that moment. I couldn’t comprehend what I was hearing. What happened in the moments after is a blur of highly emotional phone calls, searching for some sense of understanding. My father was a hero to me. He and my mother, his childhood sweetheart, raised five children while enduring the challenges of full-time ministry. My father was a pastor to many, but to me, he was my father. What made this phone call particularly difficult to process was coming to the brutal knowledge that my father ended his own life and died by suicide. This was the opposite of everything I knew my father to be. He was always strong, an overcomer. He overcame a trying childhood without a father of his own. He forged through the incredible difficulties of starting a family with a teenage marriage, all without the support of family and lacking any sort of resources. I watched my dad struggle with physical ailments for years and never once heard him complain about it. He was the consummate overcomer. I couldn’t reconcile that the man I loved and looked up to could possibly end his life.What made this even more difficult was the now compounded grief we were already wrestling with. In December, just six months earlier, my wife Kristi gave birth to our third daughter, Emmeri. She had the perfect birthday, born on December 12, 2012. We were thrilled to welcome another member to our family on 12/12/12. We never find out what the gender of the baby is beforehand. I honestly love the surprise and getting to meet our child for the first time, not yet even knowing their name. Our joy would quickly turn tragic as we noticed Emmeri was struggling to breathe on her own the day after she was born. In one moment, we were holding our baby rocking and singing to her. Next, we were surrounded by a flurry of medical professionals rushing to save our daughter’s life.The doctor who delivered Emmeri stayed with her for what seemed like endless hours keeping her alive as we waited for a specialized mobile unit to take Emmeri to a children’s hospital. We were transferred to one hospital, and then immediately on to another. In the process, we were given the news that our daughter likely wouldn’t live. From that moment, we joined with many others and prayed and believed God for a miracle. The medical team did all they could to discover what was wrong with our precious daughter. In the end, we were left with more questions than answers. A few days later, our immediate family gathered in the hospital as we said goodbye to our daughter. My father, as a pastor, performed an impromptu baby dedication, and my sister-in-law led us in a few songs of worship as we were gathered together. Even writing these words now, I can feel the emotion I felt that day as I watched my daughter draw her last breaths while resting on my wife’s chest. Next came the hurt and confusion. We wondered if our broken hearts could ever be mended.As a Christian and a pastor, it was hard to come up with any answers. How could God let something like this happen? How could we lose our daughter and only months later lose my father in such a tragic and completely incomprehensible way? Is it possible to reconcile a good God when faced with such hurt, pain, and tragedy? In those moments, we found out where we truly placed our faith. The notion of amazing grace became more real in these moments than ever before. During this season, Kristi reminded me of the words from Matthew 5:45 that it rains on the righteous and the unrighteous.When we face unimaginable tragedy, or things don’t go the way we think they should it may be tempting to lose our faith in God. As we leaned into the grief, we found a renewed strength that only comes from the divine grace of God. How I longed for a different outcome. I still feel the sting from their loss from time to time. Yet we came to understand the words in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”In the Americas today, Christians feel like deciding to follow Jesus should insulate us from any kind of harm or tragedy. The opposite is actually true as Jesus himself told us that we would face difficulties in this life. We see it time and again in the life of biblical characters like Job, Abraham, Ruth, and John the Baptist to name a few. Being a Christian or even a pastor doesn’t exempt us from hard times. It is the promise that Jesus will always be with us no matter what we face that gives us hope.I have found that a life of honest and uncensored prayer and dialogue with the heavenly Father is what gives us the strength to endure. His grace is enough to sustain us. We rest on the promise that one day He will wipe away every tear. We may never understand on this side of eternity why we face trials. However, our hope is anchored in the promise that as we face difficulties, God is drawing us closer to Him and making us more like Jesus.I don’t know what trials you have faced, but rest assured God loves you, He is for you and He has never left you. Our faith is not in what happens to us in this life but rests firmly in Jesus.

In The Message paraphrase of Matthew 6, Jesus’ teaching on prayer says, “The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply” (Matthew 6:7-13 The Message).Our vision at Every Home for Christ is very simple: to serve the Church to reach every home on earth with the Gospel. Every day, all over the world, our teams are working to make it as simple as possible for local churches to engage in the Great Commission work of reaching their communities: simple strategies, simple resources, simply mandated by Christ and fueled by prayer.Here in the USA, the work is the same. We want to see US churches embracing the task of reaching their communities with the gospel hope of Jesus. We want to make it simple for churches to connect with the wider body of Christ in reaching the lost. We want to make it simple for believers to share their faith. We want to make it simple for anyone to respond to the invitation of Jesus and find belonging in His family.Jesus invites us to a life of simple prayer. No formula or program will save America; there is no biblical technique for transforming a nation. Instead, we are called to pray. We pray, trusting we are in conversation with our Father: a good Father who loves us. We pray, surrendering our longings to a God who knows our needs (and the needs of those for whom we pray) much better than we do. We pray—we simply pray.More than anything, the USA—and our team here at EHC USA—needs your prayer. Pray for the church in America to be stirred toward a life of simple prayer. Pray for that life of prayer to lead the church outside its walls to the doorsteps of the lost. Pray for boldness, for tenderness, and for love in the hearts of church leaders. Pray for unity across the lines of geography and tradition and difference. Pray knowing you are in conversation with your Father, and he knows the needs of America far more clearly than we could ever hope to see.How often we overcomplicate the simplest of things in the way of Christ, and how often we presume to know our needs when trusting surrender is all that is asked of us. As you pray for America during these 40 days, I encourage you to remember Jesus’ words. You do not need a formula or a program to become a “prayer warrior” for America. You are already an intercessor of simple, powerful, and transformative prayer.If you would like to learn more about the EHC USA ministry initiative, visit www.encounterlife.com. If you would like EHC’s US Prayer Map—a visual aid to simplify your times of prayer for the USA—click here to download or request your free copy today.

Twenty years ago, I picked up a book written by a man called Norman Grubb, who chronicled the life and times of the great Welsh intercessor, Mr. Rees Howells and those wonderful praying saints at the Bible College of Wales. It is an understatement to say that the book changed my life and countless others. I think apart from the Bible; no other book has impacted me that much. And not in my wildest imaginations could I have dreamt that 20 years later, God would call us to purchase the Bible College of Wales, a college that Mr. Rees Howells established in 1927.I would be in no fear of contradiction or exaggeration to say that what Mr. Rees Howells and those wonderful praying saints in the Bible college did alter the course of human history. This world would be a much darker place today. It was this band of intercessors that prayed right through World War II, about 100 of them, and prevailed in their prayers. At the height of WW2, they would pray and thwart much of Hitler’s plans and saw miracle after miracle, which shifted the course of the war. They were always two steps ahead of the enemy.On this, Mr. Howells felt that they had as much a responsibility as any soldier on the frontline, and they felt they were responsible for the outcome of the battles. They won WW2 not as a soldier in the trenches but as a soldier in the heavenlies. They prayed through the 1948 mandate when the UN was voting if Israel was going to be a new nation and again, their prayers prevailed. This and many more stories of victory have made the BCW a hallowed place in Christianity’s history.However, it wasn’t just the victories. It was also the depth of prayer that Mr. Howells entered into. That man touched a level of intercession unheard of in the 21^st-century church. At our inauguration of the College on 25^th May 2015, both Lou Engle and Dutch Sheets commented that this is one of the deepest wells ever dug in the history of the church, and we have the responsibility to re-dig this powerful ancient well. We must pray that the Lord will give us, in this hour what He gave to Mr. Howells, a royal air force, that can win the battle in the heavenlies, and if we can do this, we can shift the nations. Churchill said concerning the Royal Air force in the Battle of Britain, “Never has so much been owed by so many to so few.”These few verses are so profound and fundamental to our understanding of how God and the prophetic works that if we don’t grasp it, we will be incapacitated. I am 60 this year, and I can testify that everything that has happened in my life up to this point has been a result of God first declaring His word to me prophetically, whether it is through a dream or a vision, or a prophetic word being delivered to me. There is nothing that ever happens that happens without God first revealing it prophetically. This applies to prophecies on a national scale, or whether it is a prophetic word to a congregation, or whether it is a word on a personal level, this is how God operates. This is His modus operandi. He declares a word in advance so that when the thing actually happens, we would know that it is God who has brought it to pass, and the glory is His. From the conception of the word to the manifestation of the promise, it is God. That’s what prophecy essentially is—it is history written or declared in advance.I am entering into a season of convergence. Convergence is when you are at the right place, at the right time, with the right people, in the right city, doing the right things and then a sort of spontaneous spiritual combustion takes place. I am now where everything that is happening in my life is a result of the prophetic word given to me, some going back as far as 20, 25 years. Nothing that has happened in my life has come to me as sort of a major surprise, except that the way it has happened is always different from what we have expected.On the 7^th April 2000, the Lord gave me a powerful prophetic dream where I saw members of our community in the continent of Africa. I saw them praying for the sick, casting out demons and confronting powerful witch doctors as well. Up to that point in time, we had not made a single trip to Africa nor had any contact in the continent. However, after that dream, Africa just opened up for us, and we’ve since sent over 100 teams to the continent. We now have schools, churches, orphanages, and Bible training centers in countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya. All this came about because of a prophetic dream. The prophetic breaks open destiny and everything that God showed me in that dream has now come to pass.In the same week, on the 13^th of April 2000, God gave me another prophetic dream where I saw an English Manor. I spoke to the man who seemed to be the owner, and I asked him if he was willing to allow us to use the facility for a bible school. He didn’t say anything, but all I knew from the dream was that he was a Scotsman. And so, I recorded all this in my journal. That vision didn’t come to pass until 12 long years later. I had kept this in the back burner till our trip to Wales in 2011 broke open the way for us. Through a set of very divine circumstances, we were led in 2012 to purchase the famous Bible College of Wales in Swansea, the school that Rees Howells founded in 1927. In Dec 2012, I had the privilege of announcing to the church that we had become the legal owners of the wonderful estate. God has since been opening some very wonderful doors for us in the United Kingdom.In early 2011, a friend passed me a book and told me that I had to read it. The Book was the Grace Outpouring, written by Roy and Daphne Godwin, who have now become dear friends, who recorded an amazing move of God that’s still ongoing today, in a remote retreat center in Pembrokeshire, West Wales called Ffald-y-Brenin. The best way I can describe this retreat center was that it was a kind of protestant monastery where people go to seek God in the quiet of the woods. The leaders of the center have deliberately slowed down the pace of everything they do so that people can quiet themselves before God and wait upon Him. The book recorded powerful visitations that the people experienced in that small hamlet and whetted my appetite for more of God. I passed the book to my wife, who then suggested that we make a trip to Wales and visit Ffald-y-Brenin.So, in September 2011, a small team of pastors from Cornerstone went on a short assignment to Wales, England and parts of Europe. Our assignment was to re-dig the ancient revival wells, and pray at the very places that revival broke forth in the early 1900s. Little did we know that there was a pleasant surprise waiting for us in the seaside town of Swansea. At Swansea, we visited a place called Derwen Fawr, which means Great Oak in Welsh, and it is a reference to a great oak tree that once stood in the gardens of the Bible College that Rees Howells established in 1924. I remember clearly that day. It was a normal Welsh afternoon. It was raining. We stood there that day, under a little drizzle, and cried and asked God to preserve the property.The Board of Trustees had been planning to sell it to a developer, and we could not bear the thought of them demolishing our heritage, history, and inheritance. There is so much of our heritage in that facility. The next day, we visited an old chapel in Blaenannerch, and it was there on the 29^th September 1904, that Evan Roberts, the great Welsh Revivalist, was baptized in the fire of God. This was where he cried out to God to “bend” him, and this was the flashpoint of the Welsh revival.In the chapel, we prayed with a lovely couple—Dick and Gladys Funnell—who had been sent by God to Wales to pray in the revival. We started by praying over Wales, and it turned into a 3-hour prayer meeting. Dick gave a clear prophetic word to us—taken from the book of Jeremiah 32—that God was giving us the first right of refusal to purchase the college.When we got back to Singapore, we began to negotiate. About six months into the negotiations, we hit a roadblock, and I was discouraged and almost thought of walking away from the whole thing. However, at that same period, we were hosting a conference called the Kingdom Invasion conference, and one of the speakers of the conference was Bill Johnson. On the 2^nd day of the conference, Bill preached an amazing sermon on supernatural courage, and it was an amazing word. He spoke about how one man’s act of courage could make a difference and that nothing was more contagious than courage.At the end of the message, Bill spoke about Shammah, one of David’s three mighty men. In a conflict with the Philistines, the Philistine army had formed themselves into a troop, and the children of Israel were in retreat. They came to a field of lentils and Shammah, who knew of the historic value of the field, stood his ground right in the middle of that field and defended it. His singular act of courage turned the battle around, and that day, God gave a great victory to Israel. And Shammah’s name was recorded in eternity as one of Israel’s most courageous sons. I had pondered over the significance of that field but never fully understood its implications until Bill had mentioned that in his studies, he discovered that the field was the very same field that David slew Goliath. So Shammah was defending a field that had revival history attached to it. In other words, that field represented the past victories of God’s people. It represented victory over the enemy. To God, it carried important historical significance.As Bill shared this, the Lord said to me, “Now, you redeem My field of lentils,” and I felt a mantle descend from heaven and cover me. I started weeping profusely, and a pastor walked up to me, in a crowd of well over 4,000 people, put his arm on my shoulder, and said, “The Lord says to purchase the Bible College of Wales.” I was wrecked. The Bible College of Wales is our Field of Lentils. The next day, we called the owner and told them that we would pay full price for the property. In Dec 2012, I stood before my church and announced that we were the owners of the Bible College of Wales, and what a day it was.Wales undoubtedly is the nation of revivals. It has been called the land of periodic revivals. No other nation on the planet has seen more revivals that the Welsh people, maybe with the exception of Israel. That God is now stirring the Welsh people to cry out for revival is a beautiful thing, and I have no doubts that we are at the cusp of another great wave of the Spirit. When the Lord told us to buy this property in Swansea and redeem it, we all knew that it was going to be a sign to the Welsh people that their time has come. God is visiting the nation of Wales once again. What we do with this property is going to have a significant effect on the nations.

Did you know that SEAPC is affiliated with ministries around the world? As part of an ongoing blog series, we’ll be introducing you to each of the ministries over the next few months, and we’re excited for you to learn how to better pray for and support them!

Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!Psalm 4:1

David, in Psalm 4, identifies his need for ‘relief when I was in distress.’ In our modern society, we think of relief as purely disaster related. But is this all it means? Cutting Edge Relief sees a greater purpose, an expanded meaning of the concept of relief work.What about distress? It is suffering. It is pain. It is grief. And so much more. Think about poverty, illness, hunger, thirst, exposure, fear, persecution, war—these are all agonizing situations with real people crying out for real help.CER is stepping into the lives of those with multiple needs, assessing the big picture, and offering solutions in Jesus’ name. They will be in partnership with believers from around the world to bring aid and hope to those on the edge.As Friends of SEAPC, Bill and Kim Richardson are following God’s plan to meet emergent needs in local communities, national neighborhoods, and global regions. They work in conjunction with others who follow Jesus to achieve a common goal: furthering the Kingdom of God. Gifts, talents, and calls are individual; serving the Lord draws people together.As Matt Geppert of SEAPC puts it, “We build platforms for others to dance on.”What platform is Cutting Edge Relief building? And what dances do they plan to do on it? The plans are varied, ambitious—and exciting!Disaster Relief: Teams will be developed, trained, and mobilized. When a disaster strikes anywhere in the world, CER will join with others to put together a comprehensive strategy to address immediate and long-term needs. This includes medical outreach.Training: Teaching materials and instruction will be available on Scripture and on both theory and practical relief in action. Those who answer this call from the USA or other nations will receive the benefit of Bill’s multiple years of Biblically-based relief experience.Construction: Home repair and support will be available for widows and single parents; orphan needs are a concurrent goal. This includes local families as well as those affected by disaster or poverty globally.Revitalization: Local communities will be restored through projects to rebuild blighted areas and develop businesses.In light of this, relationships in Kashmir will continue to be expanded through outreach to Muslim and Hindu peoples, and by supporting Urdu churches. Rebuilding John Bishop Memorial Hospital School of Nursing is a joint goal with SEAPC, as is opening a School for the Blind. Additionally, believers in Nepal will be able to access leadership development, training and help in setting up microeconomics projects, and assistance with church planting.These are broad goals that will be honed into individual projects with Cutting Edge Relief stepping into the gap. Bill brings thirty-two years of missions experience, twenty-nine of them with his wife, Kim. They have tackled a wide variety of issues. In Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, they led the effort to rebuild 340 homes. In the Pittsburgh area, they partner with agencies working with refugee families. Sheep are being provided to develop economic stability in Kashmir, India, while in Nepal the same is being accomplished with goats.Recently, Bill and his team partnered with Samaritan’s Purse in Michigan to combat the devastation left by flooding. He will lead a SEAPC medical team to Nepal later this year. Rural clinics will provide treatment and medication to the sick, while praying for each patient and supporting local churches. Other plans include church construction in Alaska, repair of widows’ homes locally, and on-call readiness when disasters strike.Bill and Kim have five children, with one on the way. They are an international family. After having two boys Bill says, “We felt our family wasn’t done and were led to adopt.” God blessed them with a daughter from Ethiopia, two sons from China, and soon child number six, a little girl from China.When asked how Cutting Edge blesses him, Bill had a ready answer. “Maybe it sounds too easy, but we are blessed to serve. Actually, we just want to be a blessing and serve those who are lost and in need. It gives us joy in serving the Lord.We are told in 1 Timothy 6:18 that we are to …do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. This is not a suggestion. It is a mandate that Cutting Edge takes very seriously.Partner with Cutting Edge Relief to be the good, to share your time, talents, and treasures, and to provide relief to our brothers and sisters both near and far. Be part of the blessing!Learn more at www.cuttingedgerelief.org